When microprocessors are mentioned, one name immediately comes to mind, closely followed by its young upstart rival - Intel and Advanced Micro Devices, better knon by rthe acronym AMD, respectively.

Not for nothing do they dominate consumer mind space and computer hardware space, considering that between them they constitute a virtual duopoly of the chip market. And what's more, their influence seems to be on the rise.

Lat year first quarter, Intel and AMD accounted for 91.3 per cent of all microprocessor revenue, with Intel grabbing the lion's share at 80.4 per cent. This year, although Intel's share had reduced somewhat to 79.7 per cent, the two combined had notched up a greater market share at 92.7 per cent.

Notwithstanding the quarterly decline year-on-year, Intel management can take heart from the fact that numbers in the first quarter of 2008 were actually better than the previous quarter, or the last one of 2007. Intel revenues had constituted 78.5 per cent of total international microprocessor sales.

AMD's results were a little different. Although yearly growth has been extremely impressive from the 10.9 per cent in the first quarter of 2007 to 13 per cent a year later, sales had actually declined from the last quarter of 2007 when it had breached the 14 per cent mark.

As for chipmakers other than Intel and AMD, the news wasn't good. They lost nearly a point-and-a-half in global market share year-on-year, dropping from 8.7 per cent of revenues in 2007's first quarter to 7.3 per cent in the first quarter of 2008.

All these figures were provided in a report released yesterday by market research firm iSuppli Corp. of El Segundo, California.

"AMD's PC microprocessor product portfolio has become much stronger during the last year, particularly on the desktop side," said Matthew Wilkins, principal analyst at Isuppli. ''Intel was the short-term winner in the first quarter microprocessor market,'' he added, ''But over the previous 12-month period, the trend is reversed, with AMD growing its share.
 
''AMD's PC microprocessor product portfolio has become much stronger during the last year, particularly on the desktop side. Customers clearly are responding to AMD's moves. At the beginning of the year we saw AMD add the quad-core Phenom microprocessors to its desktop portfolio, which it has since built on with tri-core and dual-core flavours, for the prosumer and business markets.''

The report also said that both chip makers' average selling prices (ASPs) remained flat from the fourth quarter of last year into the first quarter of this year. Of course, given faster microprocessor product cycles and the cutthroat nature of past price wars between Intel and AMD, flat prices would almost seem to count as price hikes -- iSuppli describes the ASP stability as a reflection of "the robust demand situation" for the two companies' microprocessors.

Overall, Q1 figures for microprocessor shipments were encouraging, with PC unit shipments rising to 69.9 million units in the first quarter, up from 62.4 million in the first quarter of 2007. Notebook shipments in the first quarter were also strong, up more than 30 per cent compared to the first quarter of 2007. Desktop shipments in the first quarter were essentially flat compared to a year earlier.
 
Isuppli reckons global PC shipments are set to increase by 10.5 per cent in 2008.