More graphics chips were sold in the first quarter of 2008 than in the final three months of 2007 - the first time the business has seen sequential grow between the quarters spanning the New Year since 2002.

So said market watcher Jon Peddie Research (JPR) today - before highlighting how AMD managed to lose the much of the market share it picked up in the previous quarter.

AMD took 22.8 per cent of the GPU market in Q4 2007. A quarter later, that figure had fallen to 16.9 per cent, according to JPR's numbers. Nvidia's marketshare decline continued: falling from 31.8 per cent in Q4 2007 to 29.7 per cent in Q1 2008. SiS' share was down too, from 1.9 per cent to 1.6 per cent.

It's no great surprise that Intel was the main beneficiary, but VIA gained from the expanding market too. The giant's market share rose from Q4 2007's 41.1 per cent to 48 per cent, while VIA's was up from 2.3 per cent to 3.7 per cent.

Year on year, the changes were generally more dramatic. While AMD shipped 2.3 per cent more graphics products in Q1 2008 than it did in Q1 2007, Intel's shipments were up 63.9 per cent, Nvidia's 37.8 per cent. Together, the vendors as a whole shipped 32.3 per cent more GPUs.

If the year-on-year Q1 unit shipment gains were dramatic, so were the losses: VIA was down 22.5 per cent and SiS down 51.8 per cent.

Splitting the market into its desktop and notebook segments, Intel regained its leadership of the desktop arena, taking 46 per cent of that space to Nvidia's 31 per cent and AMD's 17 per cent.