Intel has $55.9B record year, ships 46M tablets

[Abwx]

You could as well have said:

2013: pre-Bay Trail era
2014: Bay Trail era

Contra-revenue has nothing to do with anything. If Intel didn't have contra-revenue and BOM issues, they would have won just as many design wins.

And your claim that AMD is more efficient than 22nm SoCs is simply impossible, and verified by power measurements (single core Cinebench is 0.85W, which is in fact lower than AMD's idle power consumption).

Without contra revenue they wouldnt had shipped that much chips even if free, at 0$ they would had retained 70% of the market thanks to a massacred price but to get about 100% they had to pay 60$ plus a chip per delivery unit, at thoses conditions the OEMS saw an easy way to cash some money while it last, just imagine that Asus or HP net margin is 8-12$ per 200-300$ laptops, this price being the OEM price, to compare to the free chip + 60$ subside.

As for Mullins it s a better chip overall than BT, you dont realize that it gets twice the graphic scores at same TDP or so, check Anandtech review with the comparison with Asus s T100 wich consume likely significantly more.

 

[AtenRa]

How many of those Temash tablets got into reality? 0? The MSI one for example didnt. And considering you even have to link a Samsung netbook shows how big a lack the adoption was from the start. If you lose 0 of 0 you lost 0.

Even without contra revenue the OEMs didnt touch them. And again, there is no contra revenue on non tablet parts.

Contra revenue was made public in November 2013, just a few months after AMD Kabini/Temash official release in May or 2013. Im sure Intel spoke to OEMs before they publicly announced the Contra Revenue program to the public in November 2013. So it can be easily concluded that OEMs were thinking of AMD Temash products but they had a second thought when they heard of Intels Contra Revenue. This is the reason none of those Temash products ever produced.

And for those that dont know, Contra Revenue is not only about selling the SoC at low price, Intel provides free technology for the entire Tablet platform, the drawings, specs, validation etc etc. There are Intel Baytrail tablets that OEMs only producing, without even spending a single dollar for design, validation etc.
Now many people say that Contra Revenue is only for tablets, that is true but, buying large volumes of Tablet BayTrails gives you lower price to Desktop/Laptop ATOM SoCs and lower BOM in those products as well. So OEMs not only benefit from Contra Revenue for Tablets but for Laptop and perhaps even Desktop ATOM products. That makes AMDs Cat Core APUs even less desirable no matter if they are the better or faster product.
Also, because of recently AMDs restructuring they dont sell new products at extremely low margins. So they simple cannot compete against Intel Tablet SoCs even if they had the ultimate platform/SoC.

 

[AtenRa]

So, TDP != power consumption in your mind? In that case, why would an OEM care about the meaningless "performance/TDP" metric, when only performance/watt is what impacts battery life and temperature?

TDP is not power consumption.
But I have mentioned the TDP number because it allows the SoCs to be fitted at the same thin device.

Also, it is the screen that consumes the higher power in the Tablet not the SoC alone. Having higher performance at the same TDP means you have a faster 10-11" thin fan-less Tablet than your competitor.

 

[Abwx]

Contra revenue was made public in November 2013, just a few months after AMD Kabini/Temash official release in May or 2013. Im sure Intel spoke to OEMs before they publicly announced the Contra Revenue program to the public in November 2013. So it can be easily concluded that OEMs were thinking of AMD Temash products but they had a second thought when they heard of Intels Contra Revenue. This is the reason none of those Temash products ever produced.

Contra revenues were announced exactly 5 weeks after AMD s CTO stated that their upcoming Mullins would beat BT both in computing and graphic areas, AMD had silicon since summer 2013 and future specs were already known by OEMS when Mark Papermaster did such a claim.

The Intel apologists that hang by there can check by themselves the last quarters for Apple, Samsung, Qualcomm and Mediatek, only the latter did suffer some marginal consequences on the chinese market due to thoses contra revenues, it s clear that thoses corporates are not the targets, the target is the one that did suffer the most from thoses contra revenues, as said the proof is in the pudding...

 

[mrmt]

Out of curiousity, do you know how well those 2013 AMD Temash design wins actually sold? Because if, as I suspect, they were all in the red then those manufacturers have little incentive to try again...

I think the ADF should first explain how AMD is losing market share on the bottom PC market, which is not affected by the contra-revenue program. After a plausible explanation is given then we might discuss AMD chances on the tablet market.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Contra revenue was made public in November 2013, just a few months after AMD Kabini/Temash official release in May or 2013. Im sure Intel spoke to OEMs before they publicly announced the Contra Revenue program to the public in November 2013. So it can be easily concluded that OEMs were thinking of AMD Temash products but they had a second thought when they heard of Intels Contra Revenue. This is the reason none of those Temash products ever produced.

And for those that dont know, Contra Revenue is not only about selling the SoC at low price, Intel provides free technology for the entire Tablet platform, the drawings, specs, validation etc etc. There are Intel Baytrail tablets that OEMs only producing, without even spending a single dollar for design, validation etc.
Now many people say that Contra Revenue is only for tablets, that is true but, buying large volumes of Tablet BayTrails gives you lower price to Desktop/Laptop ATOM SoCs and lower BOM in those products as well. So OEMs not only benefit from Contra Revenue for Tablets but for Laptop and perhaps even Desktop ATOM products. That makes AMDs Cat Core APUs even less desirable no matter if they are the better or faster product.
Also, because of recently AMDs restructuring they dont sell new products at extremely low margins. So they simple cannot compete against Intel Tablet SoCs even if they had the ultimate platform/SoC.

So as assumed, its something you just made up to yet again pretend its not a product fault. Always someone else to blame, it never fails.

 

[jpiniero]

I think the ADF should first explain how AMD is losing market share on the bottom PC market, which is not affected by the contra-revenue program. After a plausible explanation is given then we might discuss AMD chances on the tablet market.

Presumably Intel is giving away Bay Trail-D and M. So there's no contra revenue, but $0 is a lot better deal than whatever AMD could muster.

 

[mrmt]

Presumably Intel is giving away Bay Trail-D and M. So there's no contra revenue, but $0 is a lot better deal than whatever AMD could muster.

Why do you think Intel is selling Bay Trail-D for $0? And why do you think *all* Bay Trail-M have a $0 price tag?

 

[Arachnotronic]

Presumably Intel is giving away Bay Trail-D and M. So there's no contra revenue, but $0 is a lot better deal than whatever AMD could muster.

What business reason could Intel have to give away Bay Trail-D and M? Really think about this.

(Hint: 20% of Intel's entire laptop processor mix is Bay Trail-M, so that would mean that Intel is giving away 20% of the chips that it sells into laptops. Do you think Intel could run its PC Client Group at 40-50% operating margin if a mid-teens percentage of its product is given away?)

 

[TurtleCrusher]

I do find it nuts I was able to get the ASUS x205 Bay-Trail (11.6", 2GB DDR3, 32GB eMMC) for $149... It did hit $99 at several places. Somebody took a big loss on it!

 

[Arachnotronic]

I do find it nuts I was able to get the ASUS x205 Bay-Trail (11.6", 2GB DDR3, 32GB eMMC) for $149... It did hit $99 at several places. Somebody took a big loss on it!

I think that one is a Bay Trail-T, so Intel likely paid contra-revenue on that one.

 

[CHADBOGA]

What business reason could Intel have to give away Bay Trail-D and M? Really think about this.

(Hint: 20% of Intel's entire laptop processor mix is Bay Trail-M, so that would mean that Intel is giving away 20% of the chips that it sells into laptops. Do you think Intel could run its PC Client Group at 40-50% operating margin if a mid-teens percentage of its product is given away?)

When it comes to explaining away AMD's failures, for some people, nothing is unthinkable.

 

[ShintaiDK]

I do find it nuts I was able to get the ASUS x205 Bay-Trail (11.6", 2GB DDR3, 32GB eMMC) for $149... It did hit $99 at several places. Somebody took a big loss on it!

Remember its only ~15$ per chip. You could build the same device with an ARM chip. Any other loss would be on Asus.

 

[mrmt]

What business reason could Intel have to give away Bay Trail-D and M? Really think about this.

(Hint: 20% of Intel's entire laptop processor mix is Bay Trail-M, so that would mean that Intel is giving away 20% of the chips that it sells into laptops. Do you think Intel could run its PC Client Group at 40-50% operating margin if a mid-teens percentage of its product is given away?)

More important, Intel faces no competition on this market except AMD. It would be an attorney's dream to get such an easy case.

 

[ninaholic37]

Ohh my bad then, but again, 70M for 2015 without contra revenue seems impossible.

Are they still shipping Bay Trail tablets with contra revenue? Having these in the 2015 mix would make it impossible to know this answer right? Shipping 70M Cherry Trail tablets in 2015 would be interesting, but I wonder if this would end up like Ultrabooks and Surface RT tablets with tons of extra units just sitting on store shelves.

 

[Arachnotronic]

Are they still shipping Bay Trail tablets with contra revenue? Having these in the 2015 mix would make it impossible to know this answer for sure. Shipping 70M Cherry Trail tablets in 2015 would be interesting, but I wonder if it will end up like Ultrabooks and Surface RT tablets with tons of extra units just sitting on store shelves even after their price is reduced to half.

They're still shipping Bay Trail designs in 2015, and all of those designs require contra-revenue.

 

[krumme]

I do find it nuts I was able to get the ASUS x205 Bay-Trail (11.6", 2GB DDR3, 32GB eMMC) for $149... It did hit $99 at several places. Somebody took a big loss on it!

Ofcource. I think few knows how freaking much 4b is. Amd entire market cap (entire value of amd) is less than half that. Even compared to nv its crazy - and tegra/denver stand no chance no matter how innovative/good they are. But it also shows how much profit you can get - here from dcg - if you have a monopoly situation.

 

[mrmt]

Ofcource. I think few knows how freaking much 4b is. Amd entire market cap (entire value of amd) is less than half that. Even compared to nv its crazy - and tegra/denver stand no chance no matter how innovative/good they are. But it also shows how much profit you can get - here from dcg - if you have a monopoly situation.

The mobile market is a big dog fight: Samsung, Apple, Qualcomm, Mediatek, Intel.... I don't think there is space for any small player on this market. Whoever wants to fight on this market will have to bring tons of money.

 

[jpiniero]

What business reason could Intel have to give away Bay Trail-D and M? Really think about this.

To wipe out AMD.

 

[Arachnotronic]

To wipe out AMD.

I seriously doubt that, and again, the financials suggest that this is not the case.

The contra revenue was never about AMD. It was for the following two reasons:

1. Gain enough of a footprint on Android so that developers would pay attention to X86
2. Stop ARM incursion into low-end Windows tablets to make sure Windows RT was not viable since OEMs would be able to get a cheap fast Bay Trail for the same effective price as a comparable ARM chip.

 

[III-V]

To wipe out AMD.

Er, if Intel really wanted to, they could breath on AMD and they'd fall over.

It's in Intel's best interest to have AMD alive, but barely functional, like they are now. The moment AMD dissolves is the moment Intel gets broken up by the feds as well.

 

[theeedude]

I don't think they'll be broken up, but Feds (more likely the EU) could force a compulsory FRAND license of x86 ISA. Then Intel can kiss their monopoly margins good bye.

 

[Arachnotronic]

I don't think they'll be broken up, but Feds (more likely the EU) could force a compulsory FRAND license of x86 ISA. Then Intel can kiss their monopoly margins good bye.

Is x86 essential to any industry?

 

[frozentundra123456]

I cant see a new competitor suddenly making a better chip even if the license were available. Maybe Samsung or Qualcom with all the money they have could eventually do it, but I am not sure they would want to shift the necessary resources away from ARM. I think the bigger worry for Intel is not that someone will make a better x86 chip, but that x86 will eventually become irrelevant (or relatively so in comparison to today).

And I agree with III-IV and other posters that Intel could have easily wiped AMD off the map almost anytime they wanted. With superior performance on a smaller die, they could have easily undercut AMD pricewise while still making a profit. Selling below cost and contra revenue would not have been needed at all. Contra revenue is definitely directed at ARM competitors. AMD fans can complain all they want, but it is legal and has led to a better selection of products than we would have seen without it. Companies aren't in business to conform to some posters arbitrary moral code or to be nice to their competitors. As the saying goes "it is what it is" and all the complaining is not going to change a thing except add page after page to some forum thread.

 

[AtenRa]

Can anyone from those that insist that Contra Revenue had no affect against AMD to sell Mullins for Windows Tablets can provide a possible reason as to why we haven’t seen any AMD Windows Tablets when Mullins is faster than BayTrail at the same TDP.



And please provide a reason other than just say that AMD is unable to sell a good product like Mullins. I would really like you guys to explain why we had Windows tablets with older AMD APUs but since Contra Revenue started there are ZERO AMD Windows Tablets with newer much much more capable hardware.