The world's graphics-chip makers shipped 71.4m personal computer-oriented GPUs in Q2, 16.6 per cent up on the year-ago quarter but down 4.6 per cent on the previous three-month period, market watcher Jon Peddie Research (JPR) said today.

Mobile GPUs experienced record shipments. Some 19.6m chips were aimed at notebooks, of which 14.7m - 75 per cent, up from 73.5 per cent the previous quarter and from 67.3 per cent in Q2 2005 - were integrated into chipsets. The rest went into desktops, a segment that experienced a seven per cent decline in shipments sequentially but up 11.6 per cent year on year.

Intel maintained its overall market lead, taking 40.3 per cent of the market, up from 39.1 per cent in Q1 and 37.5 per cent in Q4 2005. ATI saw is share fall sequentially, from 28.7 per cent to 27.6 per cent, but still higher than its Q4 2005 share of 26.5 per cent.

ATI's arch-rival, Nvidia, continued to gain market share, from 18.7 per cent in Q4 2005 to 19 per cent in Q1 2006 to 20.3 per cent in Q2 2006. JPR's numbers cut off a month ahead of AMD's acquisition of ATI, so it's way too early to say what effect the deal will have on Nvidia.

VIA's slide continued through Q2, with its market share now less than 70 per cent of what it was in Q4 2005. Then, VIA took 12 per cent of the market - in Q2 it took 8.2 per cent. SiS' share dropped from 4.7 per cent in Q4 2005 to 3.7 per cent in Q1 2006 to 3.5 per cent in the most recently completed quarter.

Matrox took 0.1 per cent of the market. For the first time, the 'Others' category was dropped from the table, scoring too small a percentage share to warrant a mention. ®