TIBURON, CA-April 28, 2009-Jon Peddie Research (JPR), the industry’s research and consulting firm for graphics and multimedia, today announced estimated graphics shipments and supplier market share for the first calendar quarter of 2009.

Graphics chips (GPUs and IGPs) are the leading indicator of the PC market. The GPUs go into a system before it becomes a PC and gets into the hands of the customer.

In Q3 and Q4 of 2008 the channel stopped ordering GPUs and depleted inventory in anticipation of a long drawn out worldwide recession. But, no recession, no matter how severe results in zero sales. The world continued to turn and the consumers continued to buy, albeit they bought less.

So by Q1’09, inventories were depleted and the channel and OEMs had to start buying. The net result was Intel and Nvidia were the big winners, breaking an eight year seasonal trend that dictated negative sales from Q4 to Q1. This year Q1 shipments were up.

Things probably aren’t going to get back to the normal seasonality till Q3 this year, and we won’t hit the levels of 2008 until 2010, and people still need to buy things. Old computers will fail, new employees will be hired and need machines, and of course software upgrades like Windows 7 will be coming along..

We are still predicting an upturn in the PC market in Q3 and Q4 and in particular for the graphics market (which serves not just PCs but aerospace and automotive, industrial systems, medical systems, kiosks and POS). We are optimistic because these are seasonally the best quarters.

  • New designs from ATI & Nvidia. Yes we expect ATI & Nvidia to introduce new products that will stimulate buyers’ appetites
  • GPUs will be based on 40nm which will be exciting and performance enhancing.
  • Inventories depleted need to restock for back-to-school, and the holiday madness.
  • Pent up demand.
  • Effect of the stimulus programs worldwide
  • New operating systems: Apple’s Snow Leopard, and Windows 7 will help stimulate new purchases in the fall

In other words, the cleaning out of old inventory, both in the electronics, automotive, and real-estate markets should be pretty well completed by the end of the summer (and some amazing deals will be available if you are happy with 2008 technology).

We’re just finalizing our Q1’09 Market Watch report and will have all the details on this quarter (and every other one back to Q1’04) for our subscribers first thing tomorrow.