Intel and AMD are in a market share "stalemate," unable to grab revenue away from each other, according to iSuppli.

However, the analyst firm said that could change with the arrival of AMD's Fusion.

For the third quarter, Intel gained just 0.1% from last year, giving it 80.1% of the global microprocessor market. AMD slid less than a percentage point to 11.3% of worldwide revenue, while all other manufacturers picked up that loss to move up to 8.6%.

“In reality, the share changes in the third quarter from the two incumbents were extremely small and not at all significant,” said Matthew Wilkins, principal analyst at iSuppli.

“What is significant, however, is that neither company has been able to take any sizable share away from the other," he said. "One reason is that each company offers well-matched competitive product portfolios. Another reason is that end markets are not undergoing significant changes in market share of product lineup that would impact microprocessor market share.”

Despite AMD being unable to gain ground on Intel, the firms remain competitive, and new products could be set to change the market landscape.

“In particular, we look forward to seeing the effect that AMD’s forthcoming Fusion products might have on the share situation for these two mega-players,” said Wilkins.

AMD's Fusion brings together a GPU and CPU onto a single-die processor, which it's calling an Accelerated Processing Unit. Fusion is expected to arrive in 2011.

Overall, revenue across the chip market grew by 23% from last year.


Read more: AMD and Intel in market share "stalemate" | News | PC Pro http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/363754/amd- ... z18IQLZYVq

Wonder how many will buy new laptops this Xmas