August 7, 2012 — Global smartphone applications processor revenues grew 55% year-over-year (Y/Y) in Q1 2012, reaching $2.47 billion, according to the Strategy Analytics Handset Component Technologies service report, "Smartphone Apps Processor Market Share Q1 2012: MediaTek Makes it into the Top-Five." The smartphone applications processor supply chain continues to show significant dynamism, reflecting on-going changes in the smartphone manufacturing landscape.
Qualcomm, the dominant player in this space, led the smartphone applications processor market with 44% revenue share in Q1 2012, as well as highest unit shipments. Qualcomm’s revenue share dropped to 44% in Q1 2012 from 51% in Q1 2011, as a result of intense competition from Broadcom and MediaTek in the low-end Android smartphone market, said Sravan Kundojjala, senior analyst, Strategy Analytics.
The remaining top-5 players are Samsung, Texas Instruments, Broadcom and MediaTek. Marvell fell out of the top 5 in Q1, with strong TD-SCDMA smartphone applications processor shipments at China Mobile failing to offset declining shipments to Research in Motion.
Broadcom gained the #4 spot with support from its high-volume Android smartphone design-wins at Samsung.
MediaTek joined the top 5 for the first time, thanks to strong momentum in the sub-$200 smartphone segment in China and other growth markets. “Broadcom and MediaTek are emerging as credible threats to Qualcomm with their baseband-integrated applications processor strategy,” said Kundojjala.
ST-Ericsson rebounded strongly as the company’s smartphone applications processor revenues registered over 600% sequential growth in Q1 2012, thanks to its Nova and NovaThor-branded chips, Strategy Analytics reports.
Stand-alone applications processors continue to gain share and accounted for 44% of total smartphone applications processors shipped in Q1 2012, up from 39% in Q1 2011.
According to Stuart Robinson, Director of the Strategy Analytics Handset Component Technologies service, "Despite its strong momentum in the tablet applications processor market, NVIDIA’s market share in smartphone apps processors continues to stagnate at 2% since Q1 2011. NVIDIA will continue to miss the large addressable market until it introduces baseband-integrated applications processors."
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