AMD continues to expand its presence in the x86 processor market, although the pace of expansion varies across different segments. In the third quarter, the company’s CPU market share (excluding IoT and embedded solutions) increased to 25.6% from 24% in the same quarter a year earlier. The movement was especially noticeable in the last quarter, with a 1.4 percentage point increase, viewed as a significant acceleration for this market.
Amid sustained investor interest in the technology sector, any shifts in AMD’s processor statistics and corporate reports have a noticeable impact on the ES futures dynamics. Recent movements have been primarily driven by expectations of demand in the AI segment.
The growth remained below typical seasonal levels, partly because of a high baseline created by last quarter’s surge in IoT chip shipments. As ARM’s influence expanded, its share rose to 11.6% due to Apple’s activity and the growing adoption of Chromebooks. Competition is intensifying, yet AMD’s position within the x86 segment remains stable and continues to strengthen.
The company’s strongest gains appeared in the desktop segment. Ryzen added 4.9 percentage points year-over-year, reaching 33.6%. Intel, in turn, fell from 71.3% to 66.4%. The primary growth driver is traditionally considered to be the Ryzen X3D lineup, which retains its reputation as the best gaming-oriented solutions due to its expanded cache memory.
In the mobile segment, the balance of power is slightly less clear. Intel grew its year-over-year share through aggressive shipments of low-cost processors, but lost 1.4 percentage points compared with the second quarter. AMD fell to 21.9%, but has also added the same 1.4 percentage points since the previous quarter, offsetting recent declines.
Across the client CPU market (excluding IoT), AMD reached a 25.4% share, reflecting growth both year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter. This is a notable achievement for the company, especially with the upcoming processor line updates from both competitors.
However, on the consumer side, AMD encountered a minor, but unpleasant technical issue. Users reported unusual behaviour of the Adrenalin Edition drivers. Routine Windows actions, even simple dragging, triggered the system to populate the log file in the directory with hundreds of small real-time updates.
Although frequent writes to SSDs may appear concerning, the actual impact on the drive’s longevity is minimal. The amount of logs is minimal, and modern SSDs utilize system memory for buffering, thereby reducing wear on flash cells. However, the absence of an official AMD response creates uncertainty, and the driver behavior appears at least redundant.
The combination of growing processor market share and minor technical flaws in graphics drivers highlights AMD’s current position. The company strengthens its position in key segments, confidently moving towards further share expansion, especially in the desktop sector. However, as the user base grows, even minor bugs attract disproportionate attention and quickly become topics of broader discussion. What matters is how quickly AMD reacts and offers an official fix, especially as reputational costs increase amid intensifying competition.
