Semiconductor Branding Strategies Are Faltering

A recent survey of technology early adopters indicates that while a semiconductor product brand may be identified, it is often not associated with the company that manufactures the product, reports In-Stat (http://www.in-stat.com). Even more often, early adopters incorrectly identified the platform for which the product was developed, the high-tech market research firm says. The survey included a sampling of newer brands from AMD, ATI (now part of AMD, which was figured into the results), IBM, Intel, NVIDIA, and VIA.

“Recent moves away from the Pentium brand, coupled with attacks on the Celeron brand by AMD, have weakened Intel’s once near dominance in this area,” says Ian Lao, In-Stat analyst. “In-Stat has long contended that evolving purchasing patterns resulting from changing usage patterns of computing solutions will likely weaken processor brands. The new alphanumeric numbering schemes implemented by several processor vendors appear to have accelerated this trend.”

Recent research by In-Stat found the following:

Product brands are associated with the wrong manufacturer 17%–50% of the time, on average.

Graphics processor brands GeForce and Radeon had greater than 40% recognition rates.

Similarities in product brand names like Fusion and CoreFusion are confusing to customers.
Recent In-Stat research, Processor Branding, Leaving Its “Mark” On Customer Minds (#IN0703407SI), covers branding in the microprocessor market. It includes results from a survey of early technology adopters regarding their perceptions of semiconductor brands. It also contains analysis of branding strategies and recommendations for vendors on how to strengthen their brands.

For more information on this research or to purchase it online, please visit: http://www.instat.com/catalog/scatalogue.asp?id=68 or contact a sales representative: Eastern North America: Tina Sheltra, 480.609.4531; tina.sheltra@reedbusiness.com Western North America: Erin McKeighan, 480.609.4551; emckeighan@reedbusiness.com Outside of North America: http://www.instat.com/sales.asp

The price is $995.00 (US).

This report is part of In-Stat’s PC Technology service, which utilizes consumer and industry research to analyze the market and technology changes that affect current and future PC architectures. This service’s coverage includes in-depth analysis of core-logic, graphics, internal interfaces, external wireless interfaces, new PC features and form factors, and changing usage models. Through the use of short briefs, this service also provides quick analysis on key events and changes in market conditions.