Desktop CPU shipments crater 20% amid high component costs, but AMD gains record share despite 'ugly' desktop processor market — Intel floods laptop market with millions of CPUs, but AMD still sets all-time share records
Despite spectacular weakness of desktop PC market.
The second quarter of 2026 was quite favorable for CPU suppliers, as unit growth was 10% sequentially, with data center and laptop processor shipments more than offsetting declining sales of desktop CPUs and lower-end products for embedded and IoT applications, according to a new report by Mercury Research. AMD continued to gain market share, so its unit shipments and share reached a new record during the quarter; Intel managed to increase shipments of its client and data center CPUs; whereas Apple sold a boatload of processors in its popular MacBook Neo laptops. Overall, the report describes the desktop X86 CPU market as "ugly."
Segment |
AMD Q2 2026 |
Intel Q2 2026 |
AMD QoQ |
AMD Q1 2026 |
Intel Q2 2026 |
AMD Q2 2025 |
Intel Q2 2025 |
AMD YoY |
Overall x86 |
30.70% |
69.30% |
0.70% |
30.00% |
70.00% |
24.20% |
75.80% |
6.50% |
Client |
30.30% |
69.70% |
0.60% |
29.60% |
70.40% |
23.90% |
76.10% |
6.40% |
Desktop |
34.90% |
65.10% |
1.80% |
33.20% |
66.80% |
32.20% |
67.80% |
2.70% |
Mobile |
28.90% |
71.10% |
0.60% |
28.30% |
71.70% |
20.60% |
79.40% |
8.40% |
Server |
34.50% |
65.50% |
1.30% |
33.20% |
66.80% |
27.30% |
72.70% |
7.30% |
All CPUs incl. IoT/SoCs |
34.10% |
65.90% |
1.50% |
32.60% |
67.40% |
29.40% |
70.60% |
4.70% |
The sky is blue for CPU (for now)
"In spite of a decidedly gloomy outlook on client processors from the suppliers for the second quarter, actual results for both x86 and Arm CPUs were up strongly in the second quarter of 2026, with sequential quarterly growth of the total market exceeding 10%, far in excess of normal seasonal trends which call for a slight decline in the quarter," said Dean McCarron, principal analyst at Mercury Research. "Behind this growth was a large increase in Intel's CPU supplies, especially in mobile client, after a couple of heavily supply-constrained quarters, and continued strong ramps for AMD's products. […] Arm shipments also appeared to be strongly higher in the quarter as well."
While the CPU market was up quarter-over-quarter (QoQ) mostly because AMD, Apple, and Intel increased their shipment volumes, on a year-over-year (YoY) basis, the CPU market contracted in terms of units. However, the decline was primarily driven by significantly lower IoT, SoC, and embedded shipments — largely due to AMD's shrinking game console business — as well as a substantial drop in desktop CPU volumes. At the same time, shipments of data center and notebook processors grew strongly.
Excluding IoT, SoC, and embedded products, both AMD and Intel substantially increased CPU shipments sequentially, but AMD grew faster and gained unit share in every major segment, so the company now controls 30.7% of the overall x86 processor market, its highest share ever, according to Mercury Research. With IoT, console SoCs, and embedded CPUs included, AMD now controls 34.1% of the x86 processor market. Intel continues to lead, but AMD's growth is impressive.
"AMD's total unit shipments and total market share reached new record highs in the second quarter of 2026, with a sequential share gain of 0.7% and an on-year gain of 6.5%," McCarron said.
Client CPUs: AMD gains share as Intel increases shipments
Performance of the client x86 CPU market was a mixed bag in the first quarter as sales of desktop CPUs declined badly, whereas shipments of laptop processors grew significantly. Intel remained the clear volume leader with 69.7% of client CPU shipments, but lost share both sequentially and year-over-year. AMD continued to gain ground in Q2 2026 as its unit share reached a record 30.3%, up from 29.6% in Q1 and 23.9% in Q2 2025.
AMD gained share in both client categories. Its desktop unit share rose from 33.2% to 34.9% QoQ, even though AMD itself shipped fewer desktop CPUs; Intel's shipments declined even faster. In notebooks, AMD increased its share from 28.3% to 28.9%, even as Intel expanded production capacity and shipped millions more CPUs.
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In general, the results for the quarter suggest that Intel's improved client CPU supply helped to meet demand from PC makers and led to a client PC market rebound, the company could not stop AMD's share gains.
Desktop CPUs: The ugliest segment of the market
Hit by limited availability of graphics cards and high prices of components like motherboards, memory modules, and SSDs, the desktop CPU market was particularly weak in Q2 and contracted by over 20% YoY as well as quarter-over-quarter due to seasonality. Both AMD and Intel suffered significant annual shipment declines, but AMD held up better, according to Mercury Research.
Despite dropping desktop CPU unit shipments and overall market weakness, AMD increased market share in Q2 2026. AMD's desktop CPU unit share upticked to 34.9%, up from 33.2% in Q1 and 32.2% in Q2 2025, while Intel's share fell to 65.1%, from 66.8% sequentially and 67.8% a year earlier.
During the quarter, AMD gained 1.8% QoQ and 2.7% YoY in unit share because declines in its shipments were considerably smaller than Intel's. So, while normally we say that AMD is gaining desktop share because of strong sales of its latest Ryzen CPUs, in this case AMD's success was driven by slower declines than rapid gains.
Mobile CPUs: Sales of laptops are growing
The mobile CPU market segment performed completely differently from the desktop CPU market segment. Mobile x86 CPU shipments grew significantly quarter-over-quarter and were also modestly higher YoY. Mercury Research says Intel added millions of units of mobile CPU capacity during Q2, which helped close the supply-demand gap that had constrained the company in previous quarters. Yet, AMD's shipments increased at nearly the same pace as Intel's, which enabled it to capture 0.6% of the market.
AMD's mobile CPU unit share rose to 28.9%, up from 28.3% in Q1 and from 20.6% in Q2 2025. Intel remained dominant with 71.1% of shipments, down from 71.7% sequentially and 79.4% a year earlier. As a result, AMD gained a modest 0.6% sequentially, but a much more impressive 8.4% YoY increase.
Server CPUs: +20% year-over-year
Demand for server CPUs increased for both traditional data center processors — AMD EPYC and Intel Xeon — and CPUs used in networking and storage applications, so x86 server processor shipments posted nearly 20% YoY growth and moderately strong sequential growth. AMD continued to gain market share and now commands over 1/3 of the server CPU market, according to Mercury Research. There is a catch, though: due to Intel accounting peculiarities, AMD's unit share is artificially low and so is Intel's own dollar share.
In Q2, AMD’s server CPU unit share increased to 34.5%, up from 33.2% in Q1 and 27.3% in Q2 2025. Intel remained the volume leader with 65.5% of shipments, but its share fell from 66.8% sequentially and 72.7% a year earlier. While some may say that AMD's gains are slow (not too slow at +7.3% YoY), there is an explanation behind that slow growth.
Mercury Research notes that its broad server share calculation somewhat disadvantages AMD because Intel's edge and networking processors are now reported within its Data Center and AI (DCAI) business, so in reality, AMD's unit share should be higher. If the comparison is narrowed to EPYC versus Xeon processors for servers, AMD's unit share reaches 46.4%, up a substantial 2.9% QoQ and 9.2% YoY, which puts AMD very close to Intel in the core data center CPU market. Meanwhile, if CPUs for edge and networking applications are ignored in Mercury's analysis, Intel's dollar share would increase considerably.
Mercury Research indicates that server CPU supply constraints could limit gains in Q3, but in Q4 sales of data center-grade processors will increase noticeably both compared to Q2 and Q3.
Summary
After a weak Q1, the CPU market rebounded strongly in Q2 2026 as unit shipments grew more than 10% sequentially. The market growth was driven by rising notebook and server CPU sales, which more than offset a sharp decline in desktops, according to Mercury Research.
AMD's performance was stellar as it gained ground in every major segment even as Intel substantially improved processor availability. Despite improved availability of Intel client and data center processors, AMD still outgrew Intel and reached record overall and client CPU unit shares.
Desktop remained the major weak spot due to high component costs and generally lower demand as enthusiasts pulled in their purchases to 2025, greatly lowering sales of high-end hardware in 2026. Shipments of desktop x86 CPUs fell more than 20% YoY, whereas mobile and server volumes increased.
In core data center processors, AMD's EPYC share approached Intel’s Xeon share, which highlights how dramatically the competitive balance in the server market has shifted.
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Anton Shilov is a contributing writer at Tom’s Hardware. Over the past couple of decades, he has covered everything from CPUs and GPUs to supercomputers and from modern process technologies and latest fab tools to high-tech industry trends.
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Zaranthos This mess will correct itself eventually and some of the fallout from the fringe AI madness will be a net positive. Nvidia GPU prices were getting absurdly high even before AI. RAM prices were ironically at near modern historic lows but have been swept away by the AI boom. I'm sitting on lots of compute and RAM I had gotten before all this happened which is suddenly more valuable. Microsoft is suddenly motivated to make Windows 11 perform much better on 8GB RAM instead of the formerly recommended 32GB RAM. A meaningful shift has begun to optimize software and games for much lower RAM requirements as the potential customer base for higher end hardware, especially new customers, contracts.Reply
As much as I'm not the target customer for AMD's revival of previous generation CPU production it has proven to be a smart move on their part by taking advantage of existing supply of older RAM for people wanting to breath new life into systems that were good enough compared to expensive new builds.
There is also some irony in the fact that AI coding tools have enabled some people to create drivers or software to keep older hardware alive and useful instead of becoming e-waste. Some of these new problems just create more opportunities for new solutions and AI will help fill that need as well. I'm still optimistic the short term pain will be worth the long term gains. -
usertests Reply
Microsoft must prove it's serious, but from what I can tell, Windows 8.1, an OS that was somewhat liked and looks similar to Windows 10/11, uses less than 2 GB of memory while idling. Easily half of Windows 11. I never used the 8 family, skipping from 7 to 10.Zaranthos said:Microsoft is suddenly motivated to make Windows 11 perform much better on 8GB RAM instead of the formerly recommended 32GB RAM. A meaningful shift has begun to optimize software and games for much lower RAM requirements as the potential customer base for higher end hardware, especially new customers, contracts.
It's simply plausible to return near that level of RAM usage, but it might undermine advertising, telemetry, or other "features".
Cheaper CPUs could be a silver lining of the memory crisis, but not if they cut production. Intel already warned CPU prices would go up. -
Zaranthos Replyusertests said:Microsoft must prove it's serious, but from what I can tell, Windows 8.1, an OS that was somewhat liked and looks similar to Windows 10/11, uses less than 2 GB of memory while idling. Easily half of Windows 11. I never used the 8 family, skipping from 7 to 10.
It's simply plausible to return near that level of RAM usage, but it might undermine advertising, telemetry, or other "features".
Cheaper CPUs could be a silver lining of the memory crisis, but not if they cut production. Intel already warned CPU prices would go up.
Windows 8.1 was terrible and lacked a lot of improvements 7/XP/10/11 have, but Windows 7 and 10 were much better while still using much less memory than Windows 11.
The real improvements won't come until WebUI 3, Chromium/WebView2 reach the public later this year. That's where most of the performance focus is right now. If Microsoft fails to deliver they will lose more market share to Linux and those are customers they may never get back. -
thestryker It seems reasonable to assume that some of the desktop situation for Intel is driven by the business itself. They've been capacity constrained on Intel 7 since last year and ARL, while fine, isn't a compelling product for most buyers. By the time NVL launches it will have been over two years since the ARL launch and the followup architectures appear to be on target as well. In a market where prices are escalated so much it seems to me that most buyers are going to fall into two camps: budget and those who don't particularly care about the price. Intel 7 products may appeal to the former, but Intel doesn't really have anything that appeals to the latter yet.Reply