AMD Grows GPU Marketshare in Q1

After dropping to near record lows in the past year, AMD has turned around their marketshare position.While the gains are slight this past quarter, any gains are welcome at this stage. Compared to Q4 of 2015, AMD grew their marketshare from 21.2% to 22.8%, a gain of 1.7%. In other good news, the year over year numbers also indicated growth of 0.3%, a tad bit over the 22.5% from the same quarter last year. Nvidia continues to hold a dominant lead with above 77% marketshare.

Both AMD and Nvidia will be happy to find out that shipments for graphics AIB grew even though the PC market is declining. Compared to last quarter, shipments were up 4.85 and year over year numbers were even better at 5.8%. Much of the growth came from higher end boards which were driven by increased demand for gaming. I expect as VR takes off, we’ll see demand grow from that as well.

It’s a bit surprising in my mind that shipments grew so much even though Polaris and Pascal are so close. I guess this speaks to the strong demand from first-time gamers getting their first GPUs. Given the late launch for Pascal and Polaris, I don’t expect to see their impact till Q3. Whether or not AMD or Nvidia will make gains, it remains to be seen.