Despite the headwinds faced by semiconductor producers of all stripes in the back half of 2018, shareholders of at least one such company have something to cheer about. Recent sales data made public by German online retailer mindfactory.de points to a clear trend: AMD is taking market share from Intel at a healthy clip. At least in this corner of the market, sales of AMD’s processors are far outstripping those of Intel, its largest rival. During the month of November, AMD sold nearly twice as many units through mindfactory.de as Intel.
An Emerging Pattern?
Intel has been beset by production issues this year, leading to what many analysts see as a clear opportunity for AMD, and other rivals, to cut into the giant’s CPU dominance. This expectation has been reflected in the share price movements of both companies. While Intel has barely budged year-to-date, AMD has nearly doubled over the same span. AMD has made it a point to challenge Intel in various ways, and that push has made an impact.
While stock price volatility and anecdotal narratives about Intel’s problems and AMD’s process advantages don’t necessarily mirror reality, hard numbers might come closer. That’s why the sales figures released by mindfactory.de, which specializes in sales of computer equipment, are especially noteworthy. They provide a real-time look at the shifting dynamics of the chip market.
November’s Results
In November, sales of AMD’s processors—led by the Ryzen R5 2600—totaled 16,000 units across the mindfactory.de platform. That was good for nearly double Intel’s total of slightly more than 8,000 units. The story gets even more interesting when you consider the year-over-year growth those numbers represent for each company. Intel stagnated. Its 8,000 processors were just a hair north of its total from the year prior. AMD, on the other hand, doubled its total from the same time period, an interesting reflection of each firms’ current momentum.
The sky is not falling for Intel, of course. It still occupies an industry leading position that, while perhaps less dominant than in the past, gives it significant pricing power in comparison to its smaller competitors. The revenue picture, also made available by mindfactory.de, looks much rosier for Intel than raw unit sales. The significantly higher average selling price of an Intel processor resulted in a narrower total revenue gap than the unit volume numbers would suggest. Still, AMD’s month was extremely strong by any metric—the company’s sales, in Euros, broke the previous monthly record set on mindfactory.de by Intel last December.