CPU shipments fall as consumers pay the cost for price rises — but AMD grows its share

Desktop CPU shipments experienced a significant decline of over 20% year on year, according to new figures from Mercury Research. The drop can be attributed to higher prices for memory and GPUs, with the cost of finished PCs rising due to prioritization of high-bandwidth memory for AI servers by memory chipmakers. Additionally, a shortage of consumer GPUs stems from broader industry supply pressures.

Despite the overall market contraction, AMD managed to increase its share in the desktop processor market to nearly 35%, up from approximately 32% a year earlier. This growth was smaller than Intel's decline, allowing AMD to maintain its lead in mobile and server chips. Mobile processor shipments saw a strong increase after Intel closed its capacity gap, rising to nearly 29% of the market, compared to 20.6% in the same quarter last year.

Server processor shipments also saw a 20% year-on-year increase, with AMD's share growing to 34.5%, up from 27.3% a year earlier. Arm-based CPU shipments for PCs and servers reached a record high of 15.3%, and in servers, Arm's share hit 13.6%, both increases from the previous quarter. The figures indicate that the processor market is primarily being driven by supply-chain pressures from the AI boom, with memory and GPU scarcity affecting traditional desktop buyers while data-center and mobile demand remain robust, enabling AMD to benefit from Intel's uneven recovery.