Jon Peddie Research has released its latest report on the graphics market, announcing that combined discrete and integrated GPU shipments in Q4 2011 dropped 10.4 percent sequentially but were up 9 percent compared to the fourth quarter of 2010. This continues a seasonal trend hat has taken shape since the financial crisis of 2008, says JPR, adding that prior to the crash Q4 was a seasonally up quarter.

Slightly more than 124 million graphics chips shipped during Q4 2011. Intel held on to its dominant position thanks to the company's integrated GPU offerings, although its market share went down slightly to 59.1 percent from 60.4 percent in the previous quarter. AMD came in second with 24.8 percent, up sequentially from 23 percent in Q3 2011, while Nvidia went from 16.1 percent to 15.7 percent.

JPR says discrete GPU shipments declined 12 percent from last quarter and were down nearly 3.5 percent compared to last year. That may give Nvidia reason to worry, since the company has moved away from the integrated graphics segment to focus on discrete GPUs. But the company is also pushing hard on the rapidly growing mobile segment with their popular Tegra range of System-on-Chip offerings.

Here are a few more highlights from JPR's press release:

  • Intel celebrated its eighth quarter of shipping its Embedded Processor Graphics CPU-EPG, a multi-function design that combines a graphics processor and CPU in the same package. Intel's desktop EPG shipments had a very strong double digit growth while notebooks dropped double digits. Combined with a decrease in overall IGP chipsets, Intel came in for the quarter with a -12.3% drop from Q3.
  • AMD had huge 44.8% desktop double digit growth in its HPU shipments, and even good growth in their desktop IGPs. However, like Intel, its overall quarter results were down due to declining notebook sales. AMD's overall quarter to quarter unit shipments showed a -3.4% drop.
  • Year to year this quarter Intel gained about 7% market share, AMD gained 2.6%, and Nvidia slipped -7% in the overall market partially due to the company withdrawing from the integrated segments.
  • Almost 93.5 million PCs shipped worldwide this quarter, an increase of 1.8% compared to last quarter (based on an average of reports from Dataquest, IDC, and HSI).

Chip image from Shutterstock