AMD claims it has 45% gaming GPU market share in Japan but jokingly admits it 'isn't used to selling graphics cards'

A collage of Radeon RX 9000 series graphics cards, as shown in AMD's promotional video for the launch of RDNA 4 at CES 2025
(Image credit: AMD)

An AMD spokesperson has claimed that Radeon gaming graphics cards now have 45% market share in Japan. This appears to be something of a surprise to the AMD rep, referred to as Mr. Sato, who said that the company, "isn't used to selling graphics cards". Er, righto...!

According to Japanese website ASCII (via Google translate), AMD was attending an "influencer" event alongside several AIB partners including ASRock, Asus, Gigabyte and PowerColor when the 45% market share claim was made. Reportedly, however, those board partners expressed concern about future sales due to limited GPU supply.

Despite that, the ASRock rep, referred to as Mr. Haraguchi, aspired to even greater market share for AMD. "We're below the majority. We're the opposition party, so let's aim for 70%," he said.

While we can't verify AMD's claims, they do stand to reason. Such has been the paucity of availability of Nvidia's new RTX 50-series graphics cards, at least by any metric to which we are aware, that it's hard to imagine that AMD isn't making pretty major inroads into Nvidia's market share.

In fact, it would be easy to believe that AMD has been selling more graphics cards since the launch of its new Radeon RX 9070 and 9070 XT GPUs than Nvidia currently is with its pretty much impossible to buy RTX 50-series cards.

Of course, the new AMD pairing haven't even been on sale for fully two weeks and AMD's very recent successes are arguably as much about pure availability as a clear competitive advantage. Nvidia GPUs supplies seem to be so low, that almost any reasonable level of AMD availability is bound to be greater.

All of that could change in a flash should Nvidia pull out the stops on RTX 50 production and actually inject decent volume into the GPU market. So, it will be interesting to see later this year when various market research outfits publish figures just where AMD and Nvidia's market share end up.

JPR's most recent figures, by way of example, put AMD at 17% for the last quarter of 2024, up by 7%, which obviously predated the release of the new AMD cards. The first quarter of 2025 which runs until the end of March will likewise largely exclude sales of those GPUs. So, it will be Q2 2025 where we'll really get a feel for any medium to long term market share gains for AMD.

It's hard to imagine AMD won't further substantial gains in the next few quarters. But as the data we posted in that JPR story demonstrates, AMD's market share has been consistently on the slide since as far back as 2005, almost regardless of the quality of its graphics offerings. Will this time actually be any different?

Best CPU for gamingBest gaming motherboardBest graphics cardBest SSD for gaming


Best CPU for gaming: Top chips from Intel and AMD.
Best gaming motherboard: The right boards.
Best graphics card: Your perfect pixel-pusher awaits.
Best SSD for gaming: Get into the game first.

TOPICS
Jeremy Laird
Hardware writer

Jeremy has been writing about technology and PCs since the 90nm Netburst era (Google it!) and enjoys nothing more than a serious dissertation on the finer points of monitor input lag and overshoot followed by a forensic examination of advanced lithography. Or maybe he just likes machines that go “ping!” He also has a thing for tennis and cars.

You must confirm your public display name before commenting

Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.

Read more
AMD RX 7900 XT with its original packaging.
AMD clawed back 7% graphics market share from Nvidia at the end of 2024, but the outlook for the whole industry in 2025 looks iffy
Yeston RX 9070
Chinese graphics card maker claims RX 9070 supply will be 'stable' from April while AMD commits to more MSRP graphics cards though admits it's something 'we don't directly control'
Two Radeon RX 9070-series graphics cards at the Gigabyte booth at CES 2025.
AMD has just taken the fight to Nvidia with its pricing for the RX 9070-series and I'm here for it
A plethora of RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT graphics cards at an angle on a dark gradient background
AMD's new RX 9070 GPUs sold out within 10 mins at launch, unless you were willing to pay ever more ludicrous prices
A collage of Radeon RX 9000 series graphics cards, as shown in AMD's promotional video for the launch of RDNA 4 at CES 2025
'Don't despair' says AMD to PC gamers as it continues to 'encourage' AIBs to supply MSRP-priced 9070 and 9070 XT GPUs
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang holding an RTX 50-series card.
92% of Nvidia users turn on DLSS... if they've been lucky enough to bag an RTX 50-series card at launch AND have the Nvidia App installed
Latest in Graphics Cards
A collage of Radeon RX 9000 series graphics cards, as shown in AMD's promotional video for the launch of RDNA 4 at CES 2025
AMD claims it has 45% gaming GPU market share in Japan but jokingly admits it 'isn't used to selling graphics cards'
Yeston RX 9070
Chinese graphics card maker claims RX 9070 supply will be 'stable' from April while AMD commits to more MSRP graphics cards though admits it's something 'we don't directly control'
XFX Swift Radeon RX 9070 OC graphics card on a grey background with a gradient
XFX Swift Radeon RX 9070 OC review
MSI RTX 5070 Ti Gaming Trio OC Plus graphics card under a red light
This MSI Afterburner file unlocks 36 Gbps RTX 50-series memory overclocks for, y'know, the few people that actually own a card
MSI RTX 5090 Suprim SOC graphics card on a grey background with a gradient
MSI RTX 5090 Suprim SOC review
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang holding an RTX 50-series card.
92% of Nvidia users turn on DLSS... if they've been lucky enough to bag an RTX 50-series card at launch AND have the Nvidia App installed
Latest in News
Larian CEO Swen Vincke brandishes a sword at the camera and smiles.
Larian’s Swen Vincke subtweets anyone still fixated on singleplayer games’ commercial viability: 'They just have to be good'
Machinery tools and equipment,Rolls of galvanized steel for production metal pipes and tubes for industrial ventilation systems in factory.
New super-thin '2D' metal sheets could enable ultra-low power chips and can you guess how they're made? Yup, by squishing stuff really hard
Split Fiction trailer still - Zoe and Mio staring into a large pipe
'People like to hate EA, I don't know why': Split Fiction's Josef Fares says he has a good relationship with his publisher, but 'nobody believes' him
A screenshot from the Silent Hill F reveal trailer, showing a Japanese girl in a school uniform next to a truck
The Silent Hill F system requirements look pretty modest at first but that's only for all my 720p gamers out there
The G-Man, The Heavy and Widowmaker hanging out
PC gamers spend 92% of their time on older games, oh and there are apparently 908 million of us now
A man holding a gun drives a boat as money flies out the back in GTA Online
Rockstar hornswoggles lapsed GTAO players with $3 million welcome-back offer that actually requires you to spend money to get most of it