Because of the mining business, AMD has taken a lot of Nvidia's GPU market share

• AMD's GPU market share increased by 8% month-on-month, while Nvidia's decreased by 6% month-on-month;

• In the field of independent GPUs, AMD also achieved significant month-on-month growth, from 27.2% in the third quarter of 207 to 33.7% in the fourth quarter, while Nvidia's market share decreased from 72.8% to 66.3%;

In the fourth quarter of 2017, AMD was the main beneficiary of 3 million discrete GPUs sold to cryptocurrency miners, worth $776 million. As we all know, it was the higher average price of GPUs that helped AMD's computing graphics display division achieve a 60% month-on-month growth (from $600 million to $958 million). In the fourth quarter of 2017, AMD took a lot of market share from its competitor Nvidia.

AMD's graphics chips achieved an 8.1% sequential growth in the fourth quarter. Intel's market share fell by 2% and Nvidia's fell by 6%. The growing graphics chip business apparently helped AMD offset the 37% decline in its Ethernet, custom and embedded segments.

More importantly, in the discrete GPU or add-on board category, AMD was the main beneficiary of the 3 million discrete GPUs sold to cryptocurrency miners in the fourth quarter of 2017. It can be concluded that cryptocurrency miners made a significant contribution to the $958 million in revenue of AMD's computing and graphics division in the fourth quarter.

AMD's shipments in the discrete GPU space accounted for 33.7% of the world's total shipments in the fourth quarter, significantly higher than 29.5% in the fourth quarter of 2016 and 27.2% in the third quarter of 2017. AMD's benefit last quarter was Nvidia's decline. Nvidia's discrete GPU share fell from 72.8% to 66.3% in the fourth quarter.

Why has AMD's market share increased?

The reversal of events can be seen from Nvidia’s January 2018 agent recommendation, which prioritized gamers over cryptocurrency miners. The endless demand for GPUs from Ethereum miners pushed Nvidia’s Pascal GPUs to sell at prices above their suggested retail prices. The scarcity and high prices of Nvidia’s GTX 1070/1080 GPUs forced cryptocurrency miners and gamers to buy Radeon Vega and Polaris GPUs.

It also helps that AMD’s previous Polaris graphics cards are still very good for Ethereum mining. AMD may continue to benefit from crypto mining this year as they offer more affordable Ethereum-friendly GPUs. I had to use an RX 470 GPU for a solar-powered Ethereum mining rig last year because I couldn’t find a suitable Nvidia GTX 1070 in the Philippines.

Ethereum is considered more stable than Bitcoin. AMD will continue to benefit from the high price of Ether. Nvidia expects that the price of independent GPUs will soar from the third quarter of 2018. The price of Ethereum is still above $850. Last year it was trading at $15. Just like what happened in 2017, this year gamers continue to endure competition from Ethereum miners in the field of independent graphics cards, and the high market value of Ehter is very addictive.

I expect AMD's computing and graphics business to achieve double-digit growth again from Q1 to Q3 of 2018. The revenue from the computing and graphics division in Q1 of 2017 was $593 million. Adding Q1 of 2018, it will reach $900 million. In addition to the demand for GPUs from cryptocurrency miners, Intel also purchased Radeon M Vega GPUs for its 8th generation Core x86 processors.

Finally, AMD released its two graphics processors, Ryzen APU and Vega budget, which will continue to fight against Nvidia and increase market share this quarter. The cost savings of buying Ryzen 6 2500G at $169 and Ryzen 3 2200G at $99 will attract the attention of PC builders and casual PC gamers.