AMD Commands 24 Percent Market Share in Japan, CEO Says
nikkeibp.asiabiztech.com
April 7, 2000 (TOKYO) -- W. Jerry Sanders III, chairman and CEO of U.S.-based
Advanced Micro Devices Inc., said his company's market share for x86
processors in Japan is growing rapidly.
Sanders held a press conference in Tokyo
on April 5. He visited Japan to attend a
reception to mark the 25th anniversary of
the founding of AMD Japan Ltd.
Nine out of the top 10 PC manufacturers
serving the Japanese market now produce
machines equipped with AMD processors.
According to AMD's own figures, the
company's share of the overall Japanese
market for x86-based PCs has now reached 24 percent, with AMD
processors being used in 35.3 percent of desktop machines and 17 percent
of notebook PCs sold in the retail sector.
That for notebook PCs, registered this February, shows a six-fold increase
from the previous figure of 2.7 percent in July last year.
In 1999, 140 million PCs with x86 processors were sold worldwide, and AMD
was responsible for producing 18 million, or 13 percent, of those chips. This
year, out of an expected 160 million x86 PCs to be sold around the world,
AMD will likely supply 25 million of them with its processors, giving the
company a market share of around 16 percent.
The fact that AMD has already captured 24 percent of the Japanese market
shows that the company's x86 processors are being adopted more readily
here than in other regions.
As the number of PCs fitted with its x86 processors continues to increase,
AMD's fortunes are also steadily improving. Sanders revealed that the
company was anticipating record-breaking sales of US$1.06 billion for the
first quarter of 2000. That would be an improvement of around 10 percent
from the final quarter of 1999, when the company posted its previous sales
record of almost US$969 million.
Until now, AMD has been employing a strategy of offering
same-performance x86 processors at a 25 percent price discount when
compared with the chips made by its competitors. However, that strategy is
currently being altered so that, in addition to
"same-performance-but-cheaper" chips, the company will also compete
with "same-price-but-superior-performance" (i.e. faster clock speed)
processors. Shipments of high-speed (900MHz, 950MHz and 1GHz) versions
of the AMD Athlon chip, AMD's newest x86 processor, are to be raised to
several hundred thousand units during the second quarter.
Sanders said that he had heard rumors of AMD's competitors struggling just
to achieve mass production of 850MHz processors. He further stressed that
raising the performance and clock speeds of its chips was an important
strategy for AMD. In late May or some time in June, AMD will start marketing
its improved Athlon (currently known by its development code name,
"Thunderbird"), which will have a secondary cache integrated into the
processor chip itself. That will be followed towards the end of the year by
the launch of a new chip (development code name, "Mustang") based on
the AMD Athlon and to be made available in special versions designed
specifically for server/workstations and for notebook PCs.
Sanders also pointed to the fact that AMD had obtained 825 new U.S. patents
in 1999, surpassing the 735 acquired by Intel Corp., as further evidence that
the company was conducting high-level R&D in its quest to produce
processors with superior performance.
At the end of his talk, Sanders touched on the fact that Microsoft Corp. had
not chosen AMD to provide the processor for the new "X-Box" video game
machine that it is developing. He said that while AMD had turned itself
around to log a solid profit for the last quarter of 1999 and was now
focusing on strategies to increase sales, the simple fact was that in the end
the reason why the Athlon was not selected for the X-Box boiled down to
Microsoft's price demands. However, he added that AMD and Microsoft
would form a stronger relationship over the longer term, with Microsoft
already committed to supporting AMD's "3DNow!" floating point expansion
instructions.
(Shinichi Jimbo, Deputy Editor, BizTech News Dept.) |
