Intel Corp. will fight off inroads into its market share by rival Advanced Micro Devices (AMD.N: Quote, Profile, Research) with a quality offensive, not by cutting prices, Intel’s European sales chief told Reuters on Friday.

“We can cut prices or bring out better products. We prefer the second option,” Juergen Thiel told Reuters in an interview at CeBIT, the world’s biggest IT and telecoms trade fair.

“Of course, our competition doesn’t sleep,” he added.

Intel, the world’s biggest chipmaker, acknowledged this week it was under “tremendous competitive pressure” from AMD after it warned last Friday this quarter’s sales would be lower than expected, partly because it lost more market share to AMD.

It said, however, it was reversing a trend of making chips that guzzle more power and that it expects to regain its footing when it launches new processors in the third quarter.

Source: Reuters