Discrete GPU Shipments Did Something That Took Analysts By Surprise
Normally at this time of year, discrete graphics card shipments tend to decline, with Jon Peddie Research citing a 10-year average of a 7% drop. That gets chalked up to seasonality. In the second quarter of 2024, however, discrete GPU shipments bucked that trend and actually grew 1.8% compared to the previous quarter, according to JPR's auditing. While that's a small rise in shipments, it's a pretty large reversal of what normally occurs in the April to June time frame.
"The jump in shipments in Q2 was a welcomed surprise," said Dr. Jon Peddie, president of Jon Peddie Research. "The market has been bouncing around for a couple of years now, trying to find a rhythmic buoyancy. With all the turmoil of trade wars, pandemics, political elections, and interest rates, it’s doubtful we’ll see a so-called normalcy for some time."
Indeed, it's been an unusual chain of events over the past several years, between the Covid-19 pandemic, the cryptocurrency boom (and bust), and more recently, the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) as a major factor driving component sales (not just GPUs, but also CPUs and memory). A market that was once semi-predictable now looks somewhat volatile.
"GPUs and CPUs are leading indicators of the PC market because they go into a system while it’s being built, before the suppliers ship the PC. However, most of the semiconductor vendors are guiding up for the next quarter an average of 7.6%. Last quarter, they guided -7.9%, which was too low," JPR stated in its latest shipment report. "The 10-year average for Q2-to-Q3 shipments is 0.9%, so happy days may not be completely here just yet, but given the turmoil, it’s hard to predict."
The rise in shipments is also notable in light of so many next-gen GPU rumors, namely the eventual release of NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 50 series based on Blackwell, AMD's Radeon RX 8000 series based on RDNA 4, and to a lesser extent, Intel's Arc Battlemage lineup.
Unfortunately, JPR's latest report doesn't break down the market share of discrete GPU players. However, if looking at all GPUs, Intel retained its massive lead in Q2 at 64%, albeit that's down from 66% in the previous quarter and from 68% a year ago.
The reason Intel is on top is because it ships the most CPUs, many of which sport integrated graphics. Those all count when compiling the total PC GPU market share among the major players. Interestingly, however, NVIDIA is still able to claim second place with a 20% share versus AMD's 16% share. That's because NVIDIA saw a 10% increase in its GPU shipments, undoubtedly driven at least in part by a recent surge in AI demand.
In any event, the latest GPU shipment figures bode well for the landscape as a whole, as they underscore that it's not growing stagnant while everyone waits for next-gen products to emerge.
