PC GPU Market Reached 64.2 Million Units in 4Q22; PC CPU Shipments Down 35% YoY

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes

Jon Peddie Research reports that the growth of the global PC-based graphics processor unit (GPU) market reached 64.2 million units in Q4’22 and PC CPU shipments decreased by 35% year over year. Overall, GPUs will have a compound annual growth rate of 0.19% during 2022–2026 and reach an installed base of 3,013 million units at the end of the forecast period. Over the next five years, the penetration of discrete GPUs (dGPUs) in PCs will grow to reach a level of 32%.

Year to year, total GPU shipments, which include all platforms and all types of GPUs, decreased by 38%, desktop graphics decreased by 24%, and notebooks decreased by 43%—the largest decrease since its peak in 2011. AMD’s overall market share percentage from last quarter increased 0.4%, Intel's market share decreased by 1.1%, and Nvidia’s market share increased 0.68%, as indicated in Figure 1.

Overall, GPU unit shipments decreased by 15.3% from last quarter. AMD’s shipments decreased by 12.7%, Intel’s shipments decreased by 16.5%, and Nvidia's shipments decreased by 11.7%.

Quick highlights

• The GPU’s overall attach rate (which includes integrated and discrete GPUs, desktops, notebooks, and workstations) to PCs for the quarter was 118%, up 3% from last quarter.
• The overall PC CPU market decreased by 17.4% quarter to quarter and decreased 35.3% year to year.
• Desktop graphics add-in boards (AIBs that use discrete GPUs) increased by 7.8% from the last quarter.
• This quarter saw 18.4% change in tablet shipments from last quarter.

The fourth quarter is typically flat to up compared to the previous quarter. This quarter was down 15.3% from last quarter, which is below the 10-year average of 6.8%.

GPUs have been a leading indicator of the market because a GPU goes into a system before the suppliers ship the PC. Most of the semiconductor vendors are guiding down for the next quarter, an average of -6.44%. Last quarter, they guided an average of -0.21%, which was too high.

Jon Peddie, president of JPR, noted, “This quarter’s total graphics processor shipments (integrated/embedded and discrete) decreased an astounding 15.3% from the previous quarter, contributing to a decline in the historical 10-year average rate of 6.8%. A total of 64 million units were shipped in the quarter, which was a decrease of 38.5 million units from the same quarter a year ago, indicating the GPU market is negative on a year-to-year basis.

“The sky may be dark right now, but I promise you, it is not falling (except in Northern California, where the rain still hasn’t let up, which means we’re going to have the most beautiful spring),” Peddie said.

JPR also publishes a series of reports on the graphics add-in board market and PC gaming hardware market, which covers the total market, including systems and accessories, and looks at 31 countries.