After several quarters of sharp decline, global PC sales returned to growth in the fourth quarter of 2023, with global shipments of desktop and laptop computers increasing to more than 65 million units. A new report shows that positive market sentiment and rising PC sales helped processor manufacturers such as Intel and AMD achieve month-on-month and year-on-year growth in CPU shipments.
According to data from Jon Peddie Research, global client PC CPU shipments reached 66 million units in the fourth quarter of 2024, an increase of 7% from the third quarter and an impressive 22% increase from the fourth quarter of 2022. During the same period, iGPU shipments increased to 60 million units, indicating that the vast majority of CPUs sold were equipped with integrated graphics. The report shows that iGPU sales increased by 7% month-on-month and 18% year-on-year.
Laptops have long been the preferred mode of computing for most consumers, and demand for notebook processors has exceeded desktop CPU sales for years. The latest data shows that this trend is becoming more obvious. Desktop processors accounted for 37% of the market in the fourth quarter of 2022, but accounted for only 30% of shipments in the same period last year, as mobile CPU market share rose from 63% to 70%.
The study also predicts that iGPU penetration in client PCs will increase significantly, reaching 98%. This suggests that more people are expected to buy PCs for general use rather than specialized GPU-intensive tasks such as gaming, video editing or 3D modeling. However, the study does not clearly indicate whether the gamer/enthusiast market will shrink in the coming years or whether overall growth will be strong enough for both segments to grow simultaneously.
The report also provides a breakdown of the market share of Intel and AMD in the iGPU space. As expected, Intel holds 84% of the market, while AMD controls the remaining 16%. However, this is a slight decrease from the fourth quarter of 2022, when Intel's iGPU share was 87% and AMD's only 13%.
Interestingly, while client PC CPU sales increased year-on-year last quarter, server CPU shipments declined. The report shows that server CPU shipments in the fourth quarter of 2023 increased by 2.8% sequentially from the previous quarter, but dropped by 26% from the fourth quarter of 2022.