January was characterized not only by the announcement of companies quarterly reports , but also by the appearance of analytical reports in 2008 for different market segments .
According to the data of agency mercury research, in the fourth quarter last year the sales volumes of desktop and mobile processors was decreased by 18% in comparison with the third quarter, and by 8,8% in comparison with the fourth quarter 2007. The sales volumes of server processors were reduced by 25%.
The third quarter 2008 demonstrated an increase in the sales volumes of processors up to 13% in comparison with the analogous period 2007. Only in the fourth quarter 2008 the processor market covered the consequences of world economic crisis. As a whole 2008 demonstrated a processors sales gain volume by 13,3%.
According to the existing in the middle of January data, Mercury research forecasts a drop in the processor market in the first quarter with the value of about 15%. The redistribution of market share in the fourth quarter was not very noticeable. Intel increased its portion from 81,2% to 82,1% due to AMD and VIA, which lost 0,7% and 0,2% respectively (Thanks to Intel Atom).
In all , the market share for Intel increased from 77,1% to 80,4%. AMD Company portion was lowered from 22,1% to 18,5%. Finally, VIA in the past year increased its market share from 0,8% to 1,1% due to the increased popularity of processors, which are adapted in net-top and notebook.