Windows Vista fails to drive graphics chips sales
Despite the launch of Windows Vista, which was generally considered to become a driver of graphics chips sales, the global graphics market registered a disappointing shipment numbers in the first quarter of 2007.
While Microsoft trumpeting a 65 percent jump in profits and saying Vista was the reason, the shipment of graphics chips dropped 5.5 percent from Q4 of 2006, according to estimates by Jon Peddie Research (JPR).
“We’re reading a lot of ‘No Vista’ stories and a lot of criticisms of Vista by various reviewers, so the feeling is Vista is not as popular as anyone thought it was going to be. That is in just total conflict with the results Microsoft is reporting and I’m at a loss to explain it,” Peddie said.
Q1’07 was disappointing overall in terms of graphics chip shipments, but some suppliers have reason to celebrate. “The Vista effect hasn’t clicked in yet for the AIB suppliers, although Microsoft reports that shipments of Vista are meeting their expectations,” Peddie added.
“Semiconductors of every type were down, and they are a leading indicator of the next quarter,” Peddie told internetnews.com. “So the graphics chips shipped in Q1 are in computers sold in Q2 or later. So if we see a decline in graphics in Q1 then we can confidently predict a decline in PC shipments in Q2, which they would do anyway due to seasonality, but this might be worse.”
While the laptop market continues to be the darling of the industry, Peddie says “This quarter was the first decline we’ve seen in some time.”
The desktop graphics segment saw shipments decline by 4.8% quarter to quarter to 54.8 million units, and it declined 1.4% year-to-year. However, the mobile graphics segment has been the star performer delivering 23.9 million units, slipping 7.2% quarter-to-quarter, and grew a healthy 24.6% year-to-year.
Overall, shipments of graphics devices increased 5.3% year over year to reach 78.8 million graphics chips shipped in Q1’07.
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