Intel chips come out on top in Q4 slump

Chip giant, Intel emerged from a slump in processor sales in the fourth quarter of 2010 with the edge on their competition.

While computer chip shipments experienced a 0.4% decrease on the previous quarter, Intel’s shipments actually increased in Q4, earning the company an 80.7% market share.

The figures, released by analysts, IDC, showed that full year shipments of computer chips had increased by 17.1% on 2009, with chip companies receiving a collective revenue of $36.3bn for the year.

IDC’s research director, Shane Rau was unable to shed any light on why chip shipments had performed so badly in the final quarter, instead focussing on the reasons behind the 26.7% increase in full-year revenue from 2009:

“The fourth quarter was weak and out of synch with normal seasonal patterns in terms of shipments,” Rau said. “Looking back at the whole year 2010, it’s clear that the ongoing shift to mobile processors, combined with a shift back towards high-performance mobile processors, as opposed to Atom processors for netbooks, drove a significant rise in overall processor average selling prices.”

Intel’s meagre gains in market share appeared to be at the expense of rivals, AMD, whose 0.4% slump mirrored Intel’s growth.

The quarter ended with Intel leading the way with an 80.7% market share, and AMD trailing a long way behind with an 18.9% share.

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