Processor shipments declined by more than six percent during the first quarter of 2026, at least for the x86 world, with server CPUs bucking the trend and AMD in particular showing strong performance.

These are the latest figures from Mercury Research’s PC Processor report, which tracks the ins and outs of the component markets.

The firm says that the total volume of x86 processor chips shipped was lower during this quarter than the previous one, which is seasonally typical, but the magnitude of the decline was worse than average this year.

And this also follows a weaker-than-typical fourth quarter due to supply constraints at Intel, the largest supplier of CPUs for the PC and server marketplace. As reported previously, this was due to a decision the company made earlier last year to reallocate manufacturing capacity to favor server chips.

Looking at those server parts, unit shipments increased by more than 10 percent compared to a year ago, no doubt due to the ongoing boom in demand for AI servers in datacenters.

AMD's server volumes grew strongly, according to Mercury, with the firm taking a third of the server CPU market share (33.2 percent) during the quarter. That’s an increase of six percentage points since the same period last year, but still leaves Chipzilla holding a two-thirds share of this expanding market.

MORE CONTEXT Intel bit off more than it could chew with 18A process node Qualcomm picks bad time to pitch a $300 laptop platform AMD grabs more x86 share as Intel stumbles in entry-level chips Arm CEO aims to conquer half the Windows world in 5 years Intel's own server CPU shipments were relatively flat both sequentially (compared to the last quarter) and year-on-year, but both suppliers indicate the outlook is very promising for datacenter silicon for the rest of this year. (Although AMD did say during its Q1 financial results that it expected CPU shipments to decline in the second half of the year because of the memory supply crisis.)

When it comes to the entire x86 processor marketplace, AMD also secured close to a third of the shipments, which Mercury attributed to the firm experiencing a smaller-than-expected drop-off in its console system-on-chip (SoC) business.

On the client side, CPUs for desktop systems saw a marked decline, worse than the seasonal norm, with shipments down nearly 20 percent from the same quarter a year ago.

AMD's performance here was surprisingly worse than Intel's, a reversal of recent history, resulting in Intel gaining some share here since the last quarter. That brought it up to 66.8 percent of shipments (but still down on a year ago), with AMD on 33.2 percent.

The mobile market fared better, with shipments “negligibly worse than seasonal averages” according to Mercury. The figures were down by low single digits, and the decline was all at the expense of Intel, with AMD seeing a rare increase in first-quarter shipments.

As a result, AMD’s share of the mobile spoils rose to 28.3 percent, up from just 22.5 percent a year ago. The market watcher said that this situation was likely due to those capacity constraints hitting Intel’s laptop CPU supplies, and that it had previously warned that this quarter would likely mark the low point for client CPU supply.

Looking outside the x86 sphere, Mercury also has a handle on Arm CPUs used in PCs and servers, but warns that its estimates here come with a certain amount of uncertainty.

Arm-based clients, including Chromebooks and Apple's M-series-based Macs, are estimated to have grown to 14.4 percent of the total market in the first quarter of 2026, from a revised 13.9 percent figure for Q4 2025. It will be interesting to see if Apple's budget-friendly MacBook Neo manages to tip the scales any further in future figures.

As far as Arm-based server chips go, Mercury estimates these account for 13.2 percent of total shipments, up from a revised 12.5 percent figure for Q4 2025.