Originally posted by: AmdInside
The bigger question is, did ATI make money by doing so. The answer is no as of their last quarterly earnings (their graphics division lost money). AMD is giving away their CPUs and GPUs essentially for marketshare. AMD needs to make some money soon.
The even bigger question is what percentage of laptops ship with discrete graphics? My guess would be around 10%, or even less.
Compared to the desktop world, I am sure that the discrete segment is a drop in the bucket, especially when you factor in the slowing notebook shipments and the rise of the netbook market as buyers are being more sensible.
Before AMD can really claim victory though, they really need to ship the 45nm laptop CPU's. They are long overdue and is a major reason why their market share in the notebook market is very low. Couple this with Intel's huge market share and selling a 45nm chip at a higher price while AMD continues to ship their 65nm's represents a large profit for Intel while making AMD's mobile division seem far behind and costly on a per unit basis.
I am sure that AMD concentrated on the larger desktop CPU market first to stay afloat. The graphics division playing to the larger, more robust desktop GPU market first supports this.
While I'm glad that AMD is gaining market share as they do make some wonderful products, this news seems so up-played.