AMD Ryzen processors are now outselling Intel in Asia, report claims

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AMD’s Ryzen processors have experienced a big sales spike following the launch of Ryzen 3000 products over in Asia, cutting deeply into Intel’s CPU turf, according to a fresh report.

The report in question from Danawa Research (highlighted by Wccftech) observes that following the launch of Ryzen 3000 chips, AMD finally sold more processors than Intel.

Going by figures from Danwa, a large South Korean retailer, just a few days after Ryzen 3000 products went on sale, AMD’s chips secured a market share of 53.36%, over half the market and more than what Intel managed.

In the couple of previous weeks, AMD’s market share had been hovering around from the mid-20% to 40% mark, so this represents a massive boost for Ryzen sales.

That said, we need to take into account the usual caveats here: we can only put so much stock (pun unintended) in sales figures from a single retailer.

Given the apparently highly variable AMD market share in the recent couple of weeks, we should treat this Asian source with even more caution than the German retailer Mindfactory, which is often cited as a barometer of European CPU sales (and even the reliability of that source only goes so far, and has certainly been questioned).

So take this news with a pinch of salt, in other words, although Wccftech uncovered a second Asian source, BCN Ranking, which compiles sales data from four major retailers in Japan. It found AMD’s market share has crept up to 50.5% – just edging out Intel on 49.5%. If we step back to October 2018, Intel held 72.1% of the market according to BCN – so again this is a big step up for AMD.

Triple threat

Clearly, these findings on the popularity of CPUs in Asia are interesting, but perhaps not surprising given the critical acclaim bestowed on the new Ryzen products, and that includes our reviews here at TechRadar.

AMD’s Ryzen 3000 doesn’t just compete on price (which has always been the case), but also in terms of price/performance – and crucially power efficiency too (a missing part of the puzzle, previously). It’s a triple threat to Intel, in short, as we’ve already made clear.

There are some other interesting statistics from South Korean retailer Danwa, including the fact that the bestselling AMD chip is the new Ryzen 7 3700X with 10.34% of sales. It’s only the second best CPU overall, though, with Intel leading the pack with its Core i5-9400 on 14.55%.

The retailer also observes that there is a massive skew in terms of interest – clicks, not sales, on the retailer’s website – in favor of AMD’s range of processors, with 77% of users clicking on AMD’s chips as opposed to 23% for Intel’s. That’s more than three-quarters of prospective buyers looking towards team red.

These latest Asian figures, coupled with recent results from German retailer Mindfactory, would seem to indicate that Intel really needs to come up with something special in response to Ryzen 3000.

And indeed as we saw last week, according to a recent leak, that response might be a 10-core Comet Lake CPU to beat out the Ryzen 9 3900X. We can but hope this is the case, or something equally juicy to drive more competition in the CPU arena.

Darren is a freelancer writing news and features for TechRadar (and occasionally T3) across a broad range of computing topics including CPUs, GPUs, various other hardware, VPNs, antivirus and more. He has written about tech for the best part of three decades, and writes books in his spare time (his debut novel - 'I Know What You Did Last Supper' - was published by Hachette UK in 2013).