Overall Market Down 5.5% Quarter-to-Quarter; Laptops Soar 24.6% Year-to-Year

TIBURON, CA—Jon Peddie Research (JPR), the industry’s leading research and consulting firm for graphics and multimedia, today announced estimated graphics shipments and supplier market share for the first calendar quarter of 2007. Detailed first-quarter results are available in the Q1 2007 edition of Jon Peddie’s First Look, the firm’s quarterly graphics survey. The companion report, Market Watch, provides an in-depth look at the PC graphics market and includes unit shipment and segment market share data, trend analysis, shipment forecasts, and profiles of major suppliers.

Q1’07 was disappointing overall in terms of graphics chip shipments, but some suppliers have reason to celebrate. “The Vista effect hasn’t clicked in yet for the AIB suppliers, although Microsoft reports that shipments of Vista are meeting their expectations,” Dr. Jon Peddie, President of Jon Peddie Research, said.

Jon Peddie Research estimates that the overall shipment of graphics chips dropped 5.5% quarter-to-quarter. Overall, shipments of graphics devices increased 5.3% year over year to reach 78.8 million graphics chips shipped in Q1’07.

“Normally Q1 will be flat or drop a little (from Q4); this year it fell with a thud,” says Peddie. “Graphics devices for the mobile market also declined quarter-to-quarter (Q4 to Q1), shipments were down 7.2%. Overall, however, the mobile segment continues to enliven the market, growing 24.6% year-to-year. Nvidia is the big success story in the mobile segment with three quarters of growth in a row.”

The mobile graphics segment which has been the star performer delivered 23.9 million units, slipping 7.2% quarter-to-quarter, and grew a healthy 24.6% year-to-year.

“The laptop market continues to be the darling of the industry,” says Peddie. “This quarter was the first decline we’ve seen in some time.”

The desktop graphics segment saw shipments decline by 4.8% quarter to quarter to 54.8 million units, and it declined 1.4% year-to-year, but Nvidia took first place in market share.

JPR estimates that 23.9 million mobile graphics devices shipped in Q1’07, 18.74 million of which were integrated chipsets (IGPs) for notebooks. Mobile IGPs claimed a commanding share of 78.2% in the mobile graphics market, up 2.5% in market share from the prior quarter and 6.3% from the same period a year ago.

Intel led the mobile graphics market with a 55% share (up from 50%), AMD lost 0.2% to a 23.2% share, and Nvidia slipped to 20% (from 22.9%) market share gain for the quarter. SiS and VIA saw declines in market share.
In the discrete mobile segment, AMD saw shipments decline on a quarterly basis while Nvidia saw shipments increase sequentially. Nvidia grew its discrete mobile segment share from 59.1% in Q4’06 to 60.3% in Q1’07. AMD’s segment share fell from 40.9% in Q4’06 to 39.7% in Q1’07.

“Timing is everything in the mobile market,” says Peddie, “Nvidia is getting the benefit from having had its mobile parts lined up and ready to ship with Intel’s recent laptop rollout.”

In the overall PC graphics market, Intel saw a 1.3% gain in shipments in Q1’07, and was still the largest supplier of PC graphics devices worldwide. Nvidia was flat but remained the second largest supplier in Q1’07 and AMD’s market share decreased. The following table lists the ranking and relative market share of the major graphics suppliers to the PC industry, based on unit shipments in Q4’06 and Q1’07.

The Q1’07 edition of Jon Peddie’s Market Watch will be available in May 2007 in both electronic and hard copy editions. A condensed version of Market Watch, entitled First Look, is available now. The annual subscription price for Jon Peddie’s Market Watch is $3,000 and includes four quarterly issues. The annual subscription price for First Look is $1,500. Full subscribers to JPR services receive Tech Watch (the company’s bi-weekly report) and a copy of Market Watch as a part of their subscription. For information about purchasing Market Watch, please call 415/435-9368 or visit the Jon Peddie Research website at www.jonpeddie.com.

About Jon Peddie Research

Dr. Jon Peddie has been active in the graphics and multimedia fields for more than 30 years. Jon Peddie Research is a technically oriented multimedia and graphics research and consulting firm. Based in Tiburon, California, JPR provides consulting, research, and other specialized services to technology companies, including graphics development, multimedia for professional applications and consumer electronics, high-end computing, and Internet-access product development. Jon Peddie’s Market Watch and First Look are quarterly reports focused on the market activity of PC graphics controllers for mobile and desktop computing.