2022 was bleak, but 2023 is looking positive
In a recent report by Dean McCarron of Mercury Research, the state of the PC business and technology industry is painted in a bleak light. The report reveals that the x86 processor market has just suffered “the largest on-quarter and on-year declines in our 30-year history.” According to McCarron, who based his findings on previously published third-party data, the Q4 2022 and full-year numbers represent the worst downturn in the history of PC processors.
The downturn in the x86 processor market was caused by a combination of factors, including lower demand and inventory correction. This resulted in 2022 unit shipments of 374 million processors (excluding ARM), which is 21% lower than in 2021, and revenues of $65 billion, down 19% YoY. Despite the grim figures, McCarron points out that overall processor revenue was still higher in 2022 than any year before the start of the 2020s.
AMD, on the other hand, saw some growth in the Q4 2022, particularly in the server CPU share, which was one of the only segments that showed some growth. AMD also saw a 7% increase in market share within the shrinking desktop and laptop markets, increasing its overall market share from 23% of the x86 market in 2021 to nearly 30% in 2022.
McCarron emphasized that the statistics about x86 shipments through 2022 do not necessarily reflect x86 PC processor shipments to end users. He explained that “most of the downturn in shipments is blamed on excess inventory shipping in prior quarters impacting current sales.” This was compounded by CPU suppliers limiting shipments to reduce inventory, and lower PC demand for processors, along with weakening macroeconomic concerns. Mercury predicts that the trend is likely to continue through H1 2023, which should be evidenced by the upcoming financials of the major players in the next few months.
While the PC CPU market is currently going through a rough patch, there is hope that the trend will be broken in H2 2023. McCarron and other tech firms and analysts believe that H2 2023 will be a turning point, with a number of highly inspiring CPU, GPU, and related technology improvements set to ignite the PC market.