An uptick in PC shipments – combined with potential share gains in the GPU segment – have improved AMD’s position in the hyper competitive market.
According to Sterne Agee analyst Vijay Rakesh, the June quarter should see “catalysts” with Computex in Taiwan and the roll out of AMD’s new Trinity APU (second-gen Llano).
“We believe launching the next generation Fusion processor Trinity (after Llano in 2011) will be key to the AMD story and [the company’s] competition [with Intel’s] Ivy Bridge [integrated graphics],” Rakesh explained in an industry note sent to TG Daily.
“AMD has said it has been seeing more design wins on Trinity than on the Llano. Trinity is a 17W APU which should position AMD well for the thin form-factor ‘Ultrabook-ultathin’ market. Current Llano has a 22-30W power envelope which makes it less competitive for the thin NB form-factor which needs a lower power consumption to drive longer battery life, and thin profile without big heat sinks.”
Rakesh also discussed the server side of AMD’s business, noting that while Bulldozer continues to ship, the ramp up of Intel’s new Romley server platforms “could be [considered] competition.”
“[Nevertheless], the [recent] SeaMicro acquisition should help AMD drive market share gains into the cloud datacenter market. [Plus], AMD has been making deep revamps in its management ranks, but the proof will be in market share trends,” said Rakesh.
“We continue to believe AMD will deliver competitive products with Trinity-Llano and Bulldozer-SeaMicro, which should position AMD to slowly chip away at market share.”
