Outlook Series | Q4 2009: PC Graphics Chips Make Astounding Comeback

Q4 2009: PC Graphics Chips Make Astounding Comeback

January 28, 2010

Graphics chip shipments figures for the year 2009 came in above expectations with a 14% year to year growth, an amazing comeback, in this year of retrenching and recession. Jon Peddie Research reported.

Table 1: Growth rates from 2002 to 2011
	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011
Total Graphics Chips:	180.6	217.1	239.0	269.4	316.5	351.7	373.0	425.4	544.0	600.1
Annual percentage growth	20.6%	20.2%	10.1%	12.7%	17.5%	11.1%	6.1%	14.0%	27.9%	10.3%

Intel was the leader in Q4'09, elevated by Atom sales for netbooks, as well as strong growth in the desktop segment. AMD gained in the notebook integrated segment, but lost some market share in discrete in both the desktop and notebook segments due to constraints in 40nm supply. Nvidia picked up a little share overall. Nvidia's increases came primarily in desktop discretes, while slipping in desktop and notebook integrated.

Vendor	This Quarter Market share	last Quarter Market share	Unit Growth Qtr-Qtr	This quarter last year Market share	Growth Yr-Y
AMD	19.9%	20.1%	13.6%	19.3%	91.5%
Intel	55.2%	53.6%	17.9%	47.7%	114.7%
Nvidia	24.3%	25.3%	10.2%	30.6%	47.3%
Matrox	0.0%	0.0%	66.7%	0.1%	-16.7%
SiS	0.0%	0.3%	-81.8%	1.1%	-92.5%
VIA/S3	0.6%	0.7%	-3.9%	1.2%	-9.5%
Total	100.0%	100.0%	14.7%	100.0%	85.7%

AMD reported revenue of $427 million from their graphics segment for the quarter, up 40% sequentially. AMD's graphics segment reported an operating income of $53 million, a substantial improvement from the prior quarter.

Intel reported revenue from chipset and other revenue of $1.877 billion in Q4.

Nvidia's quarter, which straddles the calendar quarters reported revenues of $903 million for their Fiscal Q3'10 which is from August to the end of October. Their next quarter ends in January.

A new category - CIG

Q4'09 saw the first shipments of a new category, the CPU-integrated graphics - CIG. With the advent of new CPUs with integrated or embedded graphics, we will see a rapid decline in shipments of traditional chip-set graphics or IGPs (integrated graphics processors.)