What just happened? It's no secret that after spending so many years in its shadow, AMD is starting to seriously challenge Intel in the CPU market. Over in Japan, the company is doing more than just chasing team blue; it has surpassed its rival in terms of processor sales.

The news comes from PC Watch Japan (via Hexus), which cites aggregated data from 24 resellers including Amazon Japan, BIC Camera, Edion and several physical stores. The publication writes that the recent surge in popularity of AMD's chips has seen its CPU market share increase to 68.6 percent.

The data shows that AMD's processors have been on the rise in Japan over the last year and a half. Back at the start of 2018, it took just 17.7 percent of the market, but last month it was up to 46.7 percent.

Following the release of the Zen 2-based Ryzen 3000 chips this month, AMD reportedly took 68.6 percent of unit sales in Japan for the period between July 8 and July 14. PC Watch writes that part of this success is due to a "lack of supply of Intel CPUs," a problem that AMD is also experiencing.

While AMD may be ahead in the desktop CPU market, it's still lagging behind Intel when it comes to pre-built PCs and laptops, despite making large gains over the last seven months. In December 2018, team red's share of pre-built systems in Japan was less than one percent; in June, it had reached 14.7 percent.

While AMD might be powering ahead in Japan, it's not quite the same story in the US---yet. June's Steam survey saw the company losing ground to Intel's CPUs, but that was before the launch of the Ryzen 3000 chips, so expect this month's results to be a lot more telling.

If you're after a bargain, AMD's first-generation Threadripper 1920X with its 12 cores and 24 threads is now available for $260.