According to Jon Peddie Research, shipment of discrete graphics cards for desktop PCs increased to 9.5 million units in the second quarter of 2024. However, only Nvidia benefited from the higher demand for standalone GPUs for desktops as it continued to dominate the market. By contrast, sales of AMD Radeon add-in-boards (AIBs) stagnated, and so did market share, whereas the share of Intel's Arc dropped to around 0%.
GPU sales for desktop PCs totaled 9.5 million units in the second quarter, up around 9.4% sequentially and 48% year-over-year, according to JPR. Traditionally, shipments of standalone AIBs stagnate or drop in the second quarter compared to the first quarter, but that wasn't the case in 2024, as graphics card shipments increased, defying normal seasonality.
"The increase in shipments in Q2 bucks normal seasonality; the surge can be attributed to the release of new AIBs in Q1 and a slight drop in prices in the market overall," said C. Robert Dow, an analyst for Jon Peddie Research. "Prices should remain flat until next-generation AIBs are released in late 2024 or 2025."
When it comes to market shares, Nvidia continued to dominate with an 88% market share, AMD kept trailing with a 12% share, and sales of Intel's Arc collapsed, so based on data from JPR, it held 0% of the market in Q2 2024.
As far as actual sales numbers are concerned, Nvidia supplied 8.36 million GPUs for desktop graphics cards in the second quarter, up from 7.66 million in the first quarter, which is its best result since Q2 2022. In fact, Nvidia managed to increase its desktop discrete GPU sales by 9.7% quarter-over-quarter and a whopping 61.9% compared to the same quarter a year ago, a massive success, but one should keep in mind that the first two quarters of 2023 were the worst quarters for sales of graphics cards in two decades.
AMD shipped around 1.14 million standalone GPUs for desktops in the second quarter, up 9% from roughly 1.04 million in Q1 2024 and virtually flat compared to the second quarter of 2023. Apparently, interest in AMD's Radeon RX 7000-series graphics boards for desktops remains weak among the consumer, even though some of them are among the best graphics cards around.
"The add-in board market continues to surprise and astonish market watchers who have been predicting its doom for decades," said Dr. Jon Peddie, president of Jon Peddie Research. "With one little dip in Q1 (seasonally normal), we have seen four quarters of growth. But, overall shipments are down compared to two years ago, so that’s not encouraging. However, we remain optimistic about the future, and the fantastic games that are coming that will take all the performance an AIB can offer."
