AMD’s share of desktop CPU shipments fell to 29.9% in the third quarter of 2026, according to new data from Mercury Research, shared by PC Gamer. That’s a five-point drop from the 34.9% AMD had in the second quarter, while Intel rose again to 70.1%. It’s also AMD’s lowest figure for desktop since early 2025, when it was around 28%. A year ago, AMD owned 33.6% of the desktop market. Mercury herself admits that she is not sure what caused the oscillation. Their best guess is that lower demand for laptops allowed Intel to move more chips into desktops, which typically see a seasonal surge in the third quarter, after Intel had been undersupplying that market earlier in the year. AMD, on the other hand, didn’t seem to get that seasonal increase. Mercury also notes AMD’s increased reliance on PC gaming, a market it says has been affected by gaming GPU supply constraints. On top of that, AMD has openly admitted that demand is outstripping what it can deliver, with Lisa Su recently calling AMD a “data center-first” company. Mercury notes that desktop volumes took a big hit in the second quarter, and both companies saw mobile CPU shipments drop by more than 10% in the third quarter. In servers, the trend was in the opposite direction, with AMD increasing to 35.5% from 34.5% in the previous quarter.
