Tiburon (CA) - Shipments of mobile and integrated PC graphics showed strong growth in 2004, according to a report released today by Jon Peddie Research (JPR). While ATI was able to overtake Nvidia, the clear winner of the year was Intel, increasing its already leading market share by another six percentage points.

JPR estimated that a total of 239 million PC graphics devices from eight suppliers shipped in 2004, which translates into a 10.1 percent increase over 2003. Desktop graphics shipments grew at a modest 6.9 percent year-over-year while mobile graphics shipments climbed 25.2 percent during the period.

Shipments of integrated graphics (IGC) once again outpaced those of discrete controllers in 2004, with IGCs claiming 56.1 percent of the total graphics market during the year. This represents a year-over-year gain of more than three points in share for integrated graphics, which held 52.9 percent of the total market in 2003. Mobile graphics held 20.2 percent share of the graphics market relative to desktop devices in 2004, up from 17.8 percent in 2003.

The growing popularity of IGCs dramatically boosted Intel's already dominating market position in the overall graphics market. The firm's share climbed from 31.3 percent in 2003 to now 37.5 percent and distanced ATI and Nvidia, according to JPR. ATI and Nvidia at least officially are not too concerned over this trend, but it is obvious that Intel's strategy to move from low-end into performance graphics with its products is paying off.

ATI and Nvidia are currently protecting mostly their discrete products against each other, but the JPR results indicate that both firms will have to take Intel more seriously in future and develop a convincing and lasting value proposition for standalone graphics cards over IGCs.

Behind Intel, ATI surpassed Nvidia with a market share the climbed from 22.2 to 25.6 percent. In contrast, Nvidia had to give up a significant portion of the whole market, seeing its share decline from 27.2 to 21.0 percent. All other larger manufacturer also lost shares with Via dropping from 9.2 to 8.7 percent, SiS from 8.6 to 6.4 percent, Matrox from 0.8 to 0.4 percent, and 3D Labs from 0.2 to 0.1 percent. XGI increased its share from 0.2 to 0.3 percent and Trident stood at 0.3 percent as well, according to JPR.

Source : Tom's Hardware US