Intel’s PC division shrugs off AMD competition, posts impressive results

You might think all the signs of AMD’s rise in the CPU world this year may have cramped Intel’s style a bit. But, that was before the latter’s most recent financial results, which show the company is making good progress in a PC market which has been slumping for a long time now.

For the quarter running up to July, Intel’s PC division (Client Computing Group – which covers everything from desktops through laptops, hybrids and tablets, as well as mobiles) was up a strong 12%, raking in $8.2 billion (around £6.3 billion, AU$10.3 billion) for the coffers.

Compare that to Gartner’s latest figures for the overall PC market, which showed a drop of 4.3% year-on-year – and the lowest recorded shipment numbers in a decade.

Of course, in recent times we’ve been hearing a lot about AMD taking back processor market share driven by the popularity of its consumer-targeted Ryzen chips, but it seems that Intel is managing to brush off this assault (at least for the three months up to and including June).

New eSports reality

And unsurprisingly, Intel is talking up its game going forward, particularly in the enthusiast gaming arena, where the company is investing in both VR and eSports big-time. The firm’s VR Challenger League aims to give pro gamers specializing in virtual reality titles a chance to show off their skills and win big.

Naturally, there’s also the next generation of processors on the near horizon, with Intel claiming 30% gains on Kaby Lake (in SYSmark 2014 benchmarking).

Intel is also continuing to dominate when it comes to flogging chips to the data center market, recording a revenue of $4.4 billion (around £3.4 billion, AU$5.5 billion), a 9% increase year-on-year. Incidentally, the firm’s total Q2 revenue was $14.8 billion (around £11.3 billion, AU$18.6 billion) which is again a 9% increase compared to the same period last year, and a new record quarterly revenue.

All this paints quite a different picture compared to last year, when Intel made some big cuts in the spring, laying off just over 10% of its global workforce in restructuring measures.

Lest we get too carried away with the trumpet blowing in favor of Intel, we did see earlier this month that the company seems to be at least somewhat worried about AMD’s impact with recent advances, at least going by some of the dubious marketing tactics it’s engaging in on the server CPU front.