Analysts IDC have reported that processor sales rose by over 10 per cent for the second quarter of the year, compared to a drop of over ten per cent in the first quarter.
Sales of Intel’s Atom processor led the sales, with shipments increasing by 34 per cent in the second quarter. This move to the smaller, lower powered processor did much to help the ailing chip market.
However, IDC is arning that this may not be a sign of a return to growth in the chip market; more than system builders are building up inventory in certain segments.
“The percentage of Intel’s revenue earned in Asia/Pacific grew from 51 per cnet in 1Q09 to 55 per cent in 2Q09,” noted Shane Rau, director of Semiconductors: Personal Computing research at IDC.
“This fact, combined with the significant sequential ’snap-back’ rise in Intel’s overall processor shipments—particularly Atom shipments—while AMD’s overall shipments were about flat, indicate that the PC processor market didn’t recover in 2Q09. Instead, the market balanced out due to Intel driving Atom processors into ODMs who manufacture the systems, particularly in China and Taiwan.”
The Atom processor is the core for much of the netbook market, the main growth engine for PC sales so far.
Overall in the second quarter Intel had a market share of 78.9 per cent while AMD captured 20.6 per cent. Via mopped up the rest of sales with a 0.5 per cent market share.
However, much of the sales in the second quarter did not reflect business and consumer demand and were more about manufacturers building stock IDC reported.
“Going forward,” added Rau, “IDC believes that ODMs and OEMs have balanced out their inventories and so we can’t rely on inventory replenishment to drive market improvements.”
“Instead, we can only rely on what actual end demand really is, and that means we have to be cautious not to be over-exuberant that, say, the traditional back-to-school PC buying season will materialize into a bullish second half. It won’t.”
