MediaTek Knocks Out Marvell In Smartphone Stakes
The global smartphone applications processor market showed a robust 55 percent year-over-year growth in Q1 2012 reaching $2.47 billion.
According to Strategy Analytics, report, "Smartphone Apps Processor Market Share Q1 2012," Qualcomm led the smartphone applications processor market with 44 percent revenue share in Q1 2012. The smartphone applications processor supply chain continues to show significant dynamism, reflecting on-going changes in the smartphone manufacturing landscape.
Qualcomm was still top dog and led the smartphone applications processor market in both unit and revenue terms in Q1 2012.
Qualcomm, Samsung, Texas Instruments, Broadcom and MediaTek grabbed the top-five spots in the smartphone applications processor market in Q1 2012. Marvell's strong TD-SCDMA smartphone applications processor shipments at China Mobile were not enough to offset its declining shipments at Research in Motion. As a result, Marvell dropped out of the top-five.
Broadcom continues to execute its smartphone processor strategy well and ranked number four in Q1 2012, helped by its high-volume Android smartphone design-wins at Samsung.
However, it was MediaTek, who for the first time, featured in the list of top-five smartphone applications processor vendors. This was mainly on the strength of its strong momentum in the sub-$200 smartphone segment in China and other growth markets.
ST-Ericsson rebounded strongly as the company's smartphone applications processor revenues registered over 600 percent sequential growth in Q1 2012 thanks to its Nova and NovaThor-branded chips.
Stand-alone applications processors continue to gain share and accounted for 44 percent of total smartphone applications processors shipped in Q1 2012, up from 39 percent in Q1 2011.
According to Sravan Kundojjala, Senior Analyst, "Qualcomm maintained its lead in the smartphone applications processor market in Q1 2012, but its revenue share dropped to 44 percent in Q1 2012 from 51 percent in Q1 2011, as a result of intense competition from Broadcom and MediaTek in the low-end Android smartphone market. Strategy Analytics believes that Broadcom and MediaTek are emerging as credible threats to Qualcomm with their baseband-integrated applications processor strategy."
Stuart Robinson, Director of the Strategy Analytics Handset Component Technologies service, adds, "Despite its strong momentum in the tablet applications processor market, NVIDIA's market share in smartphone apps processors continues to stagnate at 2 percent since Q1 2011. NVIDIA will continue to miss the large addressable market until it introduces baseband-integrated applications processors."
