Athlon 64 Media Centre sales in the US pushed AMD to the lead in September.
According to figures released by US-based research outfit, Current Analysis, CPU maker AMD captured more than half the retail desktop sales in the US market during September.
It was the first time the analyst tracked AMD beating Intel for an entire month.
“After facing what seemed an insurmountable decline in desktop sales during the first six months of 2005, processor underdog AMD captured 52% of
Putting the comeback down to a sterling performance in the “all-important” back-to-school shopping season, Current Analysis figures AMD beat out Intel’s 46% share result by six points.
Current Analysis put part of AMD’s success down to the brand’s popularity in Media Center PCs which now account for 46% of all
AMD managed to snare 55% of Media Center PC sales, particularly in the HP Pavilion a1130n. This desktop runs a 64-bit AMD Athlon 64 processor and 1 Gigabyte of RAM. Pricing for the desktop including Media Center operating system was selling for US$679 (post-rebate) (That’s AUD$909 by the way) according to the researcher’s numbers.
Toni Duboise, Senior Analyst of Desktop PCs says: “This is a perfect example of being at the right place at the right time. AMD’s sizeable win in September can be attributed to a myriad of factors, one of the most impressive was being able to capitalise on the success of the most popular Media Center PC and find the consumer’s ‘sweet spot’ on multiple product and pricing levels. There is fantastic momentum surrounding the adoption of Media Centers and subsequently, AMD, in the forthcoming holiday season.”
Back in August Current Analysis reported that sales of Media Center PCs began skyrocketing reaching 43% of the market in late August. The result was driven by hardware price points argued the researcher. It also pointed to the work Microsoft put in to promote Media Center PCs at select retailers.
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Senior Director of Research, Matt Sargent said at the time, “the desktop market is in dire need of anything that will differentiate it from laptops, which have been stealing sales over the last year. The continued success of the desktop form factor is reliant upon the success of Media Center–this is the reason we are seeing leading manufacturers such as HP rapidly shift their desktop offerings to Media Center.”
Microsoft and HP has so far been reticent to really push the Media Center Edition PCs in the Australian market.