Qualcomm Still Top Dog In Semiconductor Cellphone Chip Market
The times they are a changing in the cellphone supplier market. Three Chinese firms have moved into the top 10.
This is according to the report, "Cellular Handset & Tablet Chip Markets '12," by Forward Concepts.
Among the top 10 cellphone vendors, Nokia, Samsung and Apple topped 2011 unit shipments. They were joined by Chinese suppliers Huawei, ZTE and TCL.
As to be expected, on a revenue bases, Apple led over Samsung and Nokia. It is anticipated that Samsung will pass Nokia in smartphone shipments in 2012, taking second position behind Apple.
Global cellular handset shipments grew 6.5% in 2011 to 1.51 billion units compared with 12% growth in 2010. A stronger growth of 11% is expected in 2012.
Smartphones, however, will continue to do better, growing a predicted 17% to the 502 million unit level this year. As smartphones continue taking an increasing share of the handset market, so-called feature phones will grow by a mere 1.6% in 2012, because smartphone prices have become more attractive.
Cellular-enabled tablets are expected to grow 40% to 95 million units this year.
Not including memory and displays, which are significant portions of handset cost, the cellphone component market is forecast to grow 16% this year to the $55 billion level.
Although baseband chips of several types constitute the largest non-memory cellphone chip market at $15.9 billion for 2011, there are other multi-billion-dollar cellphone chip markets. These include $5.5 billion for power management units, $3.7 billion for RF transceivers, $3.6 billion for RF power amplifiers, $2.9 billion for image sensors, $2.8 billion for standalone application processors, and $2.7 billion for touch-screen controllers.
Other cellular chips in the billion-dollar-plus class include those for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and fast-growing MEMS & sensors. Of course, GPS and AM/FM radio are also significant peripheral chips. What's more, the wireless peripheral "combo" radio devices consisting of Wi-Fi, FM/AM, Bluetooth, GPS and NFC (though not yet integrated) together now constitute a growing share of the cellphone component market.
The growth in sensors has been phenomenal as gyro revenues exceeded accelerometers for the first time. Accelerometers are at the 100% penetration level in smartphones and tablets, according to Forward Concepts. In 2011, gyros became the second largest MEMS market after silicon acoustical microphones.
By 2016, MEMS devices will be the largest peripheral segment surpassing touch controllers, image sensors and the combination WLAN (Wi-Fi, BT, FM & GPS) chips.
Although NFC (Near Field Communications) chips in cellular terminals reached 71 million units in 2011, a massive 83% unit growth is expected in 2012. Europe and the U.S are now joining Japan in the demand for contactless payments, and the market is just about catching up. However, one can only guess how many of the new NFC chips will actually be used this year and how many will lie idle in inventory.
