Smartphone chips market: app processor market grew 44%

Date: 02/06/2007
Strategy Analytics has reported the global smartphone applications processor market continued to show strength and grew 44 percent year-on-year to reach $4.4 billion in Q2 2013.

Apple, MediaTek, Samsung and Spreadtrum captured the top-five revenue share spots in the smartphone processor market in Q2 2013. Qualcomm maintained its dominance in the smartphone applications processor market with 53 percent revenue share followed by Apple with 15 percent share and MediaTek with 11 percent share in Q2 2013.

According to Sravan Kundojjala, Senior Analyst, “Strategy Analytics estimates that low-cost suppliers MediaTek and Spreadtrum together captured over one-third volume share in the smartphone applications processor market in Q2 2013, thanks to the smartphone boom in emerging markets. MediaTek and Spreadtrum’s improving global footprint coupled with their maturing product portfolio could spell a threat to global players such as Qualcomm, Broadcom, NVIDIA and Intel.”

According to Stuart Robinson, Director of the Strategy Analytics Handset Component Technologies service, “Qualcomm maintained its dominance in the smartphone applications processor market helped by its LTE leadership. After a successful run with its Snapdragon 600 family of chips in the first half of 2013, Qualcomm is well-positioned to repeat it in the second half with its flagship Snapdragon 800 family of chips.”

The most important market for smartphone market is China. To update you on the semiconductor vendor analysis for China. Another market researcher TrendForce has ranked Mediatek as the top semiconductor chip supplier in fast growing China market. TrendForce said Mediatek's processors have been used by over 50% of China's branded smartphones since the MT6575 chip was introduced in 2012.

Qualcomm is another major smart phone chip vendor in China. However its share is falling as per TrendForce analysis. TrendForce said Qualcomm's chip usage rate has been gradually declining in China, and shrunk to as low as 33% in 2013. 3rd big smart phone processor player in China is Spreadtrum, a local fables company. In 2013 Spreadtrum has grown its sales in China by 11%, according to TrendForce.

TrendForce said with Qualcomm and Mediatek both devoting their attention towards the mid to high end smartphone consumer segment, much of the low-end smartphone space has been left to Spreadtrum, which has recently unveiled a processor intended for low end hardware devices.