Despite a design problem that forced a large-scale chipset recall, Intel Corp. in the first quarter managed to pad its dominant position in the global microprocessor business, according to new IHS iSuppli research. Intel during the first three months of 2011 accounted for 82.6 % of global microprocessor revenue, up 1.6 points of share from the 81 percent it held in the fourth quarter of 2010. On a year-over-year basis, Intel gained 2.0 percentage points.
While Intel continued to ride high in the first quarter, the company this year will face a challenge from the continued market advances of the media tablet, the report noted. Intel has not come with a solution t ARM based microprocessor which powers most mobile devices in the market today.
There is also the risk that PC market will go down. So although Intel’s sales of its Atom microprocessor for netbook PCs rose in the first quarter, tablets will cut down shipments of netbook PCs this year. Media tablets, most notably iPad, don’t employ dedicated microprocessors like Atom, instead using integrated chips that include processor cores.
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Those are the warning signs for the continuous dominance of Intel in the market. But Intel has been in this position many times in the past and came out fine. We will see with time how they address this cannibalization of their key market segment by tablets.