Processor sales show unseasonable growth thanks to Intel and AMD innovation

The latest research from IDC shows stronger than expected PC processor sales, with overall growth up 7.4 per cent on the year for the first quarter of 2011.

IDC is now forecasting that overall PC processor shipments will grow 10.3 per cent on the year, and that revenues will rise 17.6 per cent to $43bn (£26bn).

"The first quarter, which is usually weak, was strong in terms of unit shipments, but surely benefitted from an extra calendar week," said Shane Rau, director of personal computing semiconductor research at IDC.

"Intel and AMD grew unit shipments sequentially, which indicates some decent strength in their new platforms.

"Due to the first full quarter shipping of Intel's Sandy Bridge and and AMD's Fusion microprocessors with integrated graphics processors (IGP), processors with IGP grew to slightly over 50 per cent of market shipments for the first time."

The market split between Intel and AMD stayed very stable, Intel retaining 80 per cent of sales and AMD 18.9 per cent.

Intel processors account for 93 per cent of the workstation market and 86.3 per cent of laptops, but AMD now powers more than a quarter of all desktop system shipments.

In separate research, IDC predicted strong growth in the market for ARM. IDC is including ARM in its figures for the first time, and expects the company to power 13 per cent of PCs by 2015.