Graphics, Hardware, VR World

Desktop GPUs Shrunk in Q1, Nvidia Held Marketshare

GPU GTX Titan GPU GTX Titan

According to Jon Peddie’s latest GPU marketshare numbers for Q1 2014, the add-in board market shrunk 0.8% year over year and a more expected 6.7% quarter over quarter. Most people expect GPU seasonality between Q1 and Q4 regardless of what year it is, but the 0.8% decrease year over year is still an indication of basically flat growth/slight shrinkage. Even though, this is significantly less than in laptops and the overall PC business in terms of shrinkage. for the GPU market as a whole, shipments were down 11.6% quarter-to-quarter, and down 4% compared to the same quarter last year. This is clearly a lot worse than what we’re seeing from the discrete add-in board market.

Additionally, much like we saw in laptop and desktop graphics, the add-in board market saw the complete elimination of two minuscule competitors and their market share. According to Jon Peddie Research’s estimates, the GPU market for add-in boards is now between AMD and Nvidia GPU, period. However, Nvidia was able to maintain their 65% market share over AMD’s 35% marketshare, meaning that over the course of the last quarter both companies effectively sold at the same rate as another, contrary to what some might lead you to believe. Total shipments decreased this quarter to 14 million units with both AMD and Nvidia reporting quarter to quarter shipments decreasing 6.6%.

This is still better, however than the 9% reduction seen in the overall PC market, indicating that desktop GPUs with add-in cards and add-in card sales overall are far less impacted by the shrinkage of the PC market than some analysts would lead people to believe.  However, GPUs are usually a pretty good indicator of future growth since many of these cards have to be purchased prior to their integration, which means that most PC vendors will likely see a fairly flat growth for the next quarter, which is basically in line with most predictions of PC shipments.