PC chip sales from the second quarter of this year have been dominated by low-priced processors, causing Intel to loose some of its market share (http://news.com.com/Intel+loses,+AMD+gains+market+share/2100-1006_3-5303705.html?tag=nefd.top).

Intel has lost eight-tenths of a percentage point, sliding to 82.7 percent in the second quarter. AMD have, in contrast, picked up half a point of market share, rising to 15.5 percent.

However, its interesting to note that the second quarter is always fairly weak for PC chip shipments. But a growing trend in emerging markets (who favour cheaper solutions and thusly cheaper chips) is gathering in strength.

Well, it's not too much of a surprise that AMD has taken shares from Intel.
They don't really compete with Cyrix, and most RISC processors have been phased out, so there aren't that many other competitors to take it from.

:D

The remaining 1.8 percent of the second-quarter PC processor market was split between Via Technologies and Transmeta.

I wonder, how profitable it's for these companies maintain a processor family, perhaps it is after all?

I think it is, as they compete in a bit different market, these cool and not so power hungry small machines.

The nature of laptops and the commitment needed to make manufacturing a laptop worthwhile allows for a little extra markup on the processors.

In Via's case, they obviously have more than one product involved in the situation, and thus can help justify complimentary products with the other...