A recent report on smartphone chipset market has highlighted the growth of Qualcomm, Apple, MediaTek, Samsung and HiSilicon (Huawei) in Q3 2017.
Qualcomm has 38 percent market share in terms of shipment. Qualcomm’s SoC revenue rose 23 percent. Qualcomm clocked 15 percent growth in shipments in Q3 2017, as Chinese phone brands such as OPPO, vivo and Xiaomi are adopting Qualcomm’s 400 and 600 chipsets in mid-tier and affordable premium smartphones respectively.
Qualcomm’s shipments in the premium segment ($400 and above) fell Q3 2017, due to more vertical strategies by Apple, Samsung and Huawei.
Apple’s smartphone chipset shipments grew 4 percent and recorded 15 percent growth sequentially due the launch new iPhones in Q3 2017. Apple has 12 percent share in smartphone chipset market globally.
Apple introduced its A11 Bionic chip with dedicated AI processing unit called the Neural Engine for facial recognition in the new iPhone X.
MediaTek’s smartphone chipset revenues fell 10 percent annually and rose 4 percent sequentially due to competition from Qualcomm in the mid-range segments, and from Spreadtrum in the entry level smartphone segments.
MediaTek became a chipset supplier to Samsung for its entry-level Galaxy J series at end of 2016. MediaTek may not become a core supplier to Samsung because Samsung is employing in-house Exynos chipsets into J series.
Samsung’s SoC shipments grew 59 percent for the Korean vendor benefiting its LSI division supplying to its own mobile division. Samsung’s SoC revenue rose 69 percent.
Shipment of smartphone chipsets from HiSilicon, a subsidiary of Huawei, surged 42 percent thanks mainly to the success of Huawei smartphones. HiSilicon was the first to announce an AI integrated chipset. The Kirin 970 boasts an NPU (Neural Processing Unit) for AI-related processing.
The global smartphone System-on-Chip (SoC) market grew 19 percent annually in Q3 2017 crossing $8 billion in chipset revenues.
