Jon Peddie Research (JPR), a research and consulting firm for graphics and multimedia, has announced estimated graphics chip shipments and suppliers’ market share for the third quarter of 2011 (Q3’11).

Shipments during the third quarter of 2011 did (finally) behave according to past years with regard to seasonality, and was higher on a year-to-year comparison for the quarter, says JPR (http://www.jonpeddie.com). 2011 is still an unusual year for the computer and graphics suppliers as businesses take their own path to recovery, the research group adds.

The third quarter of the year is usually the growth quarter and was this yearm which is a positive sign looking forward. This quarter, Intel celebrated its seventh quarter of embedded processor graphics CPU (EPG, a multi-chip design that combined a graphics processor and CPU in the same package) shipments, and had a very strong double digit growth in desktops and notebooks.

AMD lost in overall market share Intel gained more compared to last quarter and Nvidia declined due to its exiting from the integrated segments.

Year-to-year this quarter Intel market share increased (9.5%), AMD broke even, and Nvidia slipped -23% in the overall market partially due to the company withdrawing from the integrated segments. However, Nvidia gained 10.9% in desktop discrete.

The quarter’s change in total shipments from last quarter increased 16.7%, above the ten-year average of 13.9%. AMD’s HPU quarter-to-quarter growth has been extraordinary at an average of 58.4% for desktop and notebook, and Intel’s EPG growth was significant at an average of 23.6%. This is a clear showing of the industry’s affirmation of the value of CPUs with embedded graphics and is in line with our forecasts, according to JPR. The major, and logical, impact is on older IGPs, and some on low-end low-cost add-in boards (AIBS).

Almost 92 million computers shipped worldwide this quarter, an increase of 8.8% compared to last quarter (based on an average of reports from Dataquest, IDC, and HSI).At least one and often two GPUs are present in every computer shipped. It can take the form of a discrete chip, a GPU integrated in the chipset, or a GPU embedded in the CPU. The average has grown from 115% in 2001 to almost 160% GPUs per computer.

Discrete graphics processing unit (GPUs) chips and other chips with graphics (integrated graphics processor chipsets -- IGPs, x86 CPU heterogeneous processor units -- HPUs, and x86 CPU embedded processor units -- EPGs) are a leading indicator for the computer market, says JPR.

Intel continues to be the overall market share leader, elevated by Core i5 EPG CPUs, Sandy Bridge, and Pineview Atom sales for Netbooks. AMD lost market share quarter-to quarter and Nvidia lost share.

Nvidia is exiting the integrated graphics segments and shifting focus to discrete GPUs. The company showed significant discrete market share gain (30% quarter-to-quarter). Nvidia credits strong connect with new Intel Sandy Bridge notebooks. Ironically Nvidia enjoyed some serendipitous sales of IGPs in Q3 due to some older AMD CPU sales in Asia.

AMD’s overall graphics market share dropped 0.3% from last quarter even though the company’s HPU class Fusion APU processors are selling very well.