The market share of AMD’s graphics card has become another casualty of the global pandemic. While gamers may be frustrated that they may not be able to find a modern GPU in stock right now, AMD is also feeling its own share of frustration. The maker of the Radeon graphics cards is finding its market share quickly shrinking, down to just 18% in the last 12 months after being at 27% in the fourth quarter of 2019.
The GPU maker’s market share sharply declined by exactly 33.33% year-over-year in the fourth quarter of 2020 according to a report published by John Peddie Research. The same report also says that this comes at a time when the overall PC market increased 35.76% year-to-year. These numbers match the market share in a recent Steam Hardware Survey, which states that AMD’s RX 6800 XT registered just 0.74% in the survey when compared to the competing NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080.
Unfortunately, for AMD, the decline in market share comes at a time when the latest Radeon RX 6000 graphics cards gain features like real-time ray tracing that make them competitive against Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 3000 series and when PC shipments are actually increasing due to work-from-home mandates as a result of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. While interest in powerful PCs for gaming, entertainment, work, and play remains strong, AMD is also facing strong headwinds due to disruptions in the supply chain and component shortages in the semiconductor industry. These shortages are affecting CPUs and GPUs from companies like AMD, Intel, and Nvidia.
Most recently, Nvidia advised that the shortages could linger through the first quarter of this year, while AMD predicted that ongoing supply-side issues could mean that GPUs remain in short supply through the first half of the year. In addition to creatives, professionals, and gamers, modern and powerful graphics cards are also appealing to cryptocurrency miners, with some investing in expensive GPU rigs to earn big returns on Ethereum mining. AMD’s GPU architecture is also found on the latest gaming consoles from Microsoft and Sony. The GPU shortage means that supplies for both the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 are extremely limited right now, and restocks at major retailers quickly sell out in little time.
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