Intel's ongoing chip shortage has been good news for rival AMD.

Although PC shipments fell year-over-year in this year's first quarter by 3 percent, the decline wasn't as bad as originally projected, even with Intel's limited processor supplies, according to research firm IDC—in part because more PC vendors sourced chips from AMD to power their latest products.

IDC is still tabulating the final numbers, but AMD gained some share over Intel in light of its chip shortage, which has been going on since last year's third quarter, IDC researcher Jitesh Ubrani told PCMag.

"Intel has been prioritizing chips for the premium end of the market, and to a certain extent Chromebooks as well," he said. "But at the lower end, there's been a shortage, so AMD has been able to provide chips in many cases to manufacturers who haven't been able to source them from Intel."

As result, PC vendors have been lately releasing more AMD-powered Windows laptops and Chromebooks — a trend that could continue throughout the year, even as Intel's chip shortage is expected to end by the 2019 third quarter. "It takes a lot for a PC vendor to build an SKU (product model) around an AMD processor, so I don't see them switching back to an Intel processor just because it's available, at least not in the near term," Ubrani added.

The other reason why PC shipments outperformed IDC's projection in the first quarter was due to businesses migrating to Windows 10. The older Windows 7 OS will lose official support from Microsoft in January 2020, which has prompted enterprises to upgrade their PC hardware. During the first quarter, IDC noticed a surprising increase in commercial desktop shipments.

But overall, growth in the PC market continues to stagnate at a time when smartphones have become the favored product among consumers. The top four vendors—including HP, Lenovo, Dell, and Apple—all registered about 2 to -0.8 percent year-over-year shipment growth.

However, fifth-ranked Acer saw a 13.3 percent decrease in PC shipments, largely due to Intel's chip shortage, according to IDC.

Rival research firm Gartner also reported PC shipments falling in the first quarter, by 4.6 percent year over year. It too noticed that leading PC vendors were sourcing more chips from AMD due to the Intel processor supply constraints.

One bright spot in the market are Chromebooks, where shipments increased by double digits compared to last year's first quarter, Gartner said.