US chipmaker AMD says China will become its single-largest
market in 18 months, as the company aims to further challenge
Intel's dominance.
Hector Ruiz, chairman and CEO of the California-based
microprocessor maker, said China has become a critical factor in
AMD's global success. "If I need to rate my China team on a scale
of 0 to 10, I will give them a score of 11," said Ruiz.
The company's revenue in China has grown sixfold and the number
of employees almost 20 times to about 2,000.
All major domestic PC makers have begun to use AMD processors.
According to IDC, AMD's market share rose to about 25 percent in
the first quarter, from a fraction in 2002, fundamentally shaking
the overwhelming dominance of its rival, Intel Corp.
The company has started to build an active partnership with
domestic computer makers like Lenovo, Tongfang and Founder,
bringing down the prices of computers through competition and
helping local firms reach out to consumers.
Karen Guo, senior vice-president of AMD and president of its
Chinese operations, said her company already has an over 30 percent
share of the desktop PC market.
However, in the notebook and enterprise markets, AMD still lags
behind Intel, which has also invested heavily in China, including
an ongoing US$2.5 billion fabrication plant.
Ruiz said it's hard to overthrow an "abusive and illegal
monopoly", but he believed the industry has recognized the value of
choice.
In the government sector, which is a large buyer and an opinion
leader, not too long ago, officials used to think Pentium was the
only industrial standard and thus their procurement catalog only
had Intel products like Pentium or Centrino.
The procurement departments of the central government agencies,
provincial governments and the Ministry of Education have now added
AMD to their list.
Spencer Pan, vice-president of AMD China, said the government
has provided a level playing field in procurement, so his company
will try its best to win customers together with computer
makers.
In the notebook segment, the fastest-growing area, the company
plans to work more closely with computer makers. HP has used AMD
chips in notebooks and achieved a rapid growth.
AMD, which launched an ambitious plan to bring computer access
to half of the world's population by 2015 with partners, will begin
to launch some low-cost computers for rural areas in partnership
with local manufacturers.
The computers, with embedded chips and software, cost about
2,000 yuan, one-third of a mainstream PC.
In the past five years, AMD and other vendors in the industry
have joined a remote education program. A total of 1.47 million
computers will be set up in rural schools by the end of this year
as part of this program.
(China Daily June 28, 2007)