Telecom Lead America: Chip maker Qualcomm is leading the cellular
baseband market with 45 percent market share in 2011. Qualcomm is ahead of
Intel, MediaTek, Texas Instruments and ST-Ericsson.
Qualcomm led the cellular baseband market with the assistance
of its position in CDMA, LTE and W-CDMA basebands.
Qualcomm, Intel, MediaTek, Texas Instruments and ST-Ericsson
are the top 5 players in baseband market in 2011.
Intel has 15 percent revenue share in 2011. Intel ranked
number two. Multiple popular products from tier-one handset manufacturers used
Intel basebands in 2011.
Growth of Broadcom and Spreadtrum outstripped market growth
in terms of both units and revenue.
Broadcom continued to improve its product-mix. W-CDMA
basebands accounted for 16 percent of its total 2011 baseband shipments, nearly
doubled from 2010. On the strength of its baseband-integrated smartphone
processors momentum, Broadcom’s W-CDMA baseband share will again improve in
2012.
The cellular baseband processor market grew 15 percent
year-on-year to reach $15.1 billion in 2011, according to Strategy Analytics.
Qualcomm is well-positioned to make significant share gains
in the emerging LTE baseband market in 2012. Qualcomm continues to leverage its
baseband modem expertise to ride the 3G / 4G wave, and captured 45 percent
share of the baseband market in 2011,” said Stuart Robinson, director, Strategy
Analytics Handset Component Technologies (HCT) service, Strategy Analytics.
In 2011, demand for smartphones, intense competition in
low-end phones and new air interface technologies – such as LTE and TD-SCDMA –
created opportunities and altered the market share landscape.
Baseband-integrated smartphone applications processors and
cellular-enabled non-handset devices – such as USB dongles, M2M, e-book readers
and tablets – provided a significant boost to some baseband companies.
The market for basebands for LTE, in unit terms, grew faster
than basebands supporting any other air interface in 2011.
