AMD took a record 32.6% of the x86 CPU market in the first quarter of 2026, and in servers it now converts 33.2% of units into 46.2% of revenue. That 13-point gap between unit share and revenue share is the more important number: it means AMD is not winning the low end, it is winning the expensive end. Intel’s overall position slipped from 72.9% a year ago to 67.4%, though it clawed desktop share back to 66.8% in the same quarter. All of it is happening on a shrinking base, with total CPU shipments down 7.2% year over year. The figures below come from Mercury Research and Jon Peddie Research.
TL;DR
- AMD reached a record 32.6% of the overall x86 CPU market (Mercury Research, Q1 2026)
- Intel holds 67.4%, down from 68.6% the prior quarter (Mercury Research)
- Intel held 72.9% a year earlier (Mercury Research)
- AMD holds 33.2% of x86 server CPU shipments (Mercury Research)
- That is up from 27.2% a year ago and 30% last quarter (Mercury Research)
- AMD holds 46.2% of x86 server CPU revenue (Mercury Research)
- Intel holds 53.8% of server revenue (Mercury Research)
- Intel pushed desktop share back up to 66.8% from 63.6% (Mercury Research)
- AMD desktop share fell to 33.2% from a record 36.4% (Mercury Research)
- AMD mobile share reached 28.3%, up from 22.5% a year ago (Mercury Research)
- Intel supply constraints contributed to the mobile shift (Mercury Research)
- CPU shipments were 57.6 million in Q1 2026, down 7.2% year over year (Jon Peddie Research)
- Desktop CPU shipments fell around 20% (Jon Peddie Research)
1. The Overall Share Record
The headline is a record, and the trajectory behind it is steeper than the single quarter suggests. AMD reached 32.6% of the overall x86 market while Intel fell to 67.4%, down from 68.6% the prior quarter and 72.9% a year earlier. Intel shedding more than five points in four quarters is a faster erosion than anything in the previous decade of this rivalry.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| AMD overall x86 share, Q1 2026 | 32.6%, a record | Mercury Research |
| Intel overall x86 share | 67.4% | Mercury Research |
| Intel share, prior quarter | 68.6% | Mercury Research |
| Intel share, a year earlier | 72.9% | Mercury Research |
| Intel share lost over four quarters | 5.5 points | Derived from Mercury figures |
| Quarter-over-quarter Intel change | down 1.2 points | Derived from Mercury figures |
| Contributing factor cited | Intel supply constraints | Mercury Research |
| Segments covered by the data | desktop, mobile, server | Mercury Research |
Mercury attributes part of AMD’s gain to Intel supply problems rather than pure competitive displacement, which is a meaningful caveat when projecting the trend forward. Source: HotHardware on AMD’s record x86 share.
2. Servers: A Third of Units, Nearly Half the Revenue
The server numbers are where the competitive picture actually resolves. AMD holds 33.2% of x86 server CPU shipments but 46.2% of server CPU revenue, against Intel’s 53.8%. A 13-point gap between unit share and revenue share means AMD’s average selling price in servers is far above Intel’s, which is the opposite of how a challenger normally takes share.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| AMD server unit share, Q1 2026 | 33.2% | Mercury Research |
| AMD server unit share, a year ago | 27.2% | Mercury Research |
| AMD server unit share, prior quarter | 30% | Mercury Research |
| AMD server revenue share | 46.2% | Mercury Research |
| Intel server revenue share | 53.8% | Mercury Research |
| Gap between AMD unit and revenue share | 13 points | Derived from Mercury figures |
| Year-over-year unit share gain | 6 points | Derived from Mercury figures |
| Implication of the revenue gap | higher average selling prices | Derived |
Six points of server unit share in a year, on parts that sell above the market average, is the single strongest number in AMD’s results.
The structural reason sits in core counts. Server buyers increasingly price by performance per rack rather than per socket, and a processor carrying more cores commands a higher price while occupying the same slot. A vendor whose product line skews toward high-core-count parts therefore earns disproportionate revenue from a given unit share, which is exactly the pattern in these figures. The corollary is that Intel’s 53.8% revenue share on 66.8% of units means its server mix is weighted toward lower-priced parts, and defending unit share at that end of the market does less for the income statement than the headline number suggests. This is also why server share is the segment both companies discuss most: it is where a point of share is worth the most money. Infrastructure demand context sits in our data center statistics. Source: The Register on AMD taking a third of the server CPU market.
3. Desktop: Intel Claws Back
The desktop quarter cuts against the overall narrative and deserves to be reported as such. Intel pushed desktop share back up to 66.8% from 63.6%, while AMD slipped to 33.2% from a record 36.4% in the fourth quarter of 2025. AMD remains far ahead of the 28% it held a year earlier, so this is a reversal inside a rising trend rather than a turning point.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Intel desktop share, Q1 2026 | 66.8% | Mercury Research |
| Intel desktop share, prior quarter | 63.6% | Mercury Research |
| AMD desktop share, Q1 2026 | 33.2% | Mercury Research |
| AMD desktop share, Q4 2025 | 36.4%, a record | Mercury Research |
| AMD desktop share, a year earlier | 28% | Mercury Research |
| Quarter-over-quarter AMD change | down 3.2 points | Derived from Mercury figures |
| Year-over-year AMD change | up 5.2 points | Derived from Mercury figures |
| Direction of the longer trend | up for AMD | Mercury Research |
Reading a single quarter’s desktop reversal as a trend change is the most common error with this dataset, and the year-over-year comparison is the corrective. Source: Tom’s Hardware on AMD server revenue and Intel’s consumer position.
4. Mobile and the Supply Constraint
Laptops are where Intel’s execution problems show most plainly. AMD reached 28.3% of the mobile x86 market against Intel’s 71.7%, up from 22.5% a year earlier, with Mercury citing Intel supply constraints on laptop processors as a contributor. Share gained because a competitor could not ship is less durable than share gained on product merit.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Intel mobile share, Q1 2026 | 71.7% | Mercury Research |
| AMD mobile share | 28.3% | Mercury Research |
| AMD mobile share, a year earlier | 22.5% | Mercury Research |
| Year-over-year AMD gain | 5.8 points | Derived from Mercury figures |
| Contributing factor | Intel laptop supply constraints | Mercury Research |
| Durability implication | partly supply-driven, not purely competitive | Derived |
| Intel overall share direction | falling | Mercury Research |
| AMD overall share direction | rising to a record | Mercury Research |
Mobile is also the segment most exposed to the AI PC transition, where NPU-equipped silicon is becoming standard regardless of vendor. Related detail sits in our AI PC statistics. Source: TweakTown on AMD’s all-time high x86 share.
5. The Base Is Shrinking
Every share figure above describes a slice of a contracting market. Jon Peddie Research counted 57.6 million CPU shipments in the first quarter of 2026, down 14% sequentially and 7.2% year over year, with desktop CPU shipments specifically falling around 20%. Share gains on falling volume can coexist with declining absolute unit sales for both vendors.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| CPU shipments, Q1 2026 | 57.6 million | Jon Peddie Research |
| Change quarter over quarter | down 14% | Jon Peddie Research |
| Change year over year | down 7.2% | Jon Peddie Research |
| Desktop CPU shipment change | down around 20% | Jon Peddie Research |
| PC GPU shipments for comparison | 70.3 million | Jon Peddie Research |
| GPU change year over year | up 2% | Jon Peddie Research |
| Divergence between CPU and GPU | GPUs grew, CPUs fell | Derived |
| Underlying pressure on the PC market | memory pricing | IDC |
CPUs falling 7.2% while GPUs rose 2% in the same quarter is the clearest single indicator of where PC spending has moved. It also complicates any triumphal reading of the share numbers. A vendor gaining six points of server unit share in a market whose total unit volume is contracting may be selling roughly the same number of processors it sold a year ago, or fewer. Share is a ratio, and ratios can improve while the underlying business does not grow. The revenue figures are the better guide here precisely because they are absolute rather than relative. Graphics detail sits in our GPU market statistics and the memory cost driver in our RAM and DRAM statistics. Source: PCWorld on the desktop CPU shipment decline.
Summary: The CPU Market by the Numbers
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| AMD overall x86 share | 32.6%, a record | Mercury Research |
| Intel overall x86 share | 67.4% | Mercury Research |
| Intel share, prior quarter | 68.6% | Mercury Research |
| Intel share, a year earlier | 72.9% | Mercury Research |
| Intel share lost in four quarters | 5.5 points | Derived |
| AMD server unit share | 33.2% | Mercury Research |
| AMD server unit share, a year ago | 27.2% | Mercury Research |
| AMD server revenue share | 46.2% | Mercury Research |
| Intel server revenue share | 53.8% | Mercury Research |
| AMD unit-to-revenue gap in servers | 13 points | Derived |
| Intel desktop share | 66.8% | Mercury Research |
| AMD desktop share | 33.2% | Mercury Research |
| AMD desktop record, Q4 2025 | 36.4% | Mercury Research |
| Intel mobile share | 71.7% | Mercury Research |
| AMD mobile share | 28.3% | Mercury Research |
| AMD mobile share, a year earlier | 22.5% | Mercury Research |
| CPU shipments, Q1 2026 | 57.6 million | Jon Peddie Research |
| Change year over year | down 7.2% | Jon Peddie Research |
| Desktop CPU shipment change | down around 20% | Jon Peddie Research |
| GPU shipments for comparison | 70.3 million, up 2% | Jon Peddie Research |
Methodology and Sources
- All x86 market share figures, segment breakdowns, and revenue splits come from Mercury Research quarterly data for the first quarter of 2026, as reported across trade coverage (HotHardware, Tom’s Hardware, The Register, TweakTown).
- Shipment volumes and the desktop decline come from Jon Peddie Research (JPR Q1 2026 report, PCWorld).
- Data watch: Mercury Research does not publish its underlying methodology or unit counts publicly, so these shares are vendor-cited estimates rather than audited figures, and both AMD and Intel selectively quote the segments that favour them. The data covers x86 only and therefore excludes Arm-based processors entirely, which understates competitive pressure in both servers and laptops. Mercury explicitly attributes part of AMD’s gain to Intel supply constraints, so share movement is not purely a demand signal. Share percentages describe a market whose total shipments fell 7.2% year over year, meaning both vendors can lose absolute units while one gains share. Rows marked as derived are arithmetic on published figures.
- Last updated: August 2, 2026. We update this roundup quarterly as Mercury Research and Jon Peddie Research publish new quarterly data.