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Desktop CPU Shipments Crater 20% Amid High Component Costs
EDITORS: THIS HAS BEEN PRODUCED BY SOFTWARE UNDER DEVELOPMENT - THE CONTENT MAY REQUIRE EXTENSIVE EDITING
Desktop CPU Shipments Crater 20% Amid High Component Costs, But AMD Gains Record Share Despite 'Ugly' Desktop Processor Market — Intel Floods Laptop Market With Millions Of CPUs
Excluding IoT, SoC, and embedded products, both AMD and Intel substantially increased CPU shipments sequentially, but AMD grew faster and gained unit share in every major segment, so the company now controls 30.7% of the overall x86 processor market, its highest share ever, according to Mercury Research. With IoT, console SoCs, and embedded CPUs included, AMD now controls 34.1% of the x86 processor market. Intel continues to lead, but AMD's growth is impressive.
"AMD's total unit shipments and total market share reached new record highs in the second quarter of 2026, with a sequential share gain of 0.7% and an on-year gain of 6.5%," McCarron said.
In general, the results for the quarter suggest that Intel's improved client CPU supply helped to meet demand from PC makers and led to a client PC market rebound, the company could not stop AMD's share gains.
During the quarter, AMD gained 1.8% QoQ and 2.7% YoY in unit share because declines in its shipments were considerably smaller than Intel's. So, while normally we say that AMD is gaining desktop share because of strong sales of its latest Ryzen CPUs, in this case AMD's success was driven by slower declines than rapid gains.
Mercury Research notes that its broad server share calculation somewhat disadvantages AMD because Intel's edge and networking processors are now reported within its Data Center and AI (DCAI) business, so in reality, AMD's unit share should be higher. If the comparison is narrowed to EPYC versus Xeon processors for servers, AMD's unit share reaches 46.4%, up a substantial 2.9% QoQ and 9.2% YoY, which puts AMD very close to Intel in the core data center CPU market. Meanwhile, if CPUs for edge and networking applications are ignored in Mercury's analysis, Intel's dollar share would increase considerably.
Mercury Research indicates that server CPU supply constraints could limit gains in Q3, but in Q4 sales of data center-grade processors will increase noticeably both compared to Q2 and Q3.
AMD's performance was stellar as it gained ground in every major segment even as Intel substantially improved processor availability. Despite improved availability of Intel client and data center processors, AMD still outgrew Intel and reached record overall and client CPU unit shares.
Desktop remained the major weak spot due to high component costs and generally lower demand as enthusiasts pulled in their purchases to 2025, greatly lowering sales of high-end hardware in 2026. Shipments of desktop x86 CPUs fell more than 20% YoY, whereas mobile and server volumes increased.
In core data center processors, AMD's EPYC share approached Intel’s Xeon share, which highlights how dramatically the competitive balance in the server market has shifted.
