Qualcomm LTE share Archives

Both Qualcomm and MediaTek posted healthy growth in Q1 2022. MediaTek recorded an impressive set of numbers for the quarter with revenues growing 32% YoY and 10.2% QoQ to reach $4.8 billion. Qualcomm saw its third consecutive quarterly record revenue in Q1 2022 at $11.6 billion. Its business units recorded annual growth of between 28% and 61%.

MediaTek led the Android smartphone SoC market in 2021 with a 44% share, followed by Qualcomm with 35%, according to the latest research from Counterpoint’s Global Handset Model Sales Tracker.

Qualcomm’s focus on the premium smartphone segment (>$500) has helped it to grow revenues. Its Snapdragon 800 series and Snapdragon 700 series, notably the flagship Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 and Snapdragon 778G, are both key volume drivers. Furthermore, Qualcomm has gained a 75% share of Samsung’s Galaxy S22 series shipments. In previous Samsung flagship models, there was a more equitable split between Qualcomm Snapdragon-powered SKUs and Samsung Exynos-powered SKUs. Qualcomm is also driving more revenues with its RFFE (RF Front End), allowing it to capture a higher share in the BoM.

MediaTek dominates the low-mid tier wholesale price segment ($100-$299), driven by its Dimensity 700 and Dimensity 900 series. Also, the 4G SoC in the <$199 price band is driven by the P35, G80 and G35 chipset models. MediaTek has entered the premium segment with the Dimensity 9000 series, but the sales will only start to pick up in Q2 2022.

AP Chipset Share for Android Smartphones by Price Band, Q1 2022

Qualcomm

Qualcomm is focusing on the premium (>$500) and mid-high ($300-$499) segments for revenue growth. Qualcomm is an industry benchmark when it comes to premium smartphones.
Qualcomm’s focus is on the 7 and 8 series Snapdragon chipsets, which drive higher revenue and profitability. Qualcomm acknowledged it has seen a slowdown in the low- and mid-price tiers. But this was more than offset by strong premium-tier sales.
Further, the design wins with 75% of sales of the Galaxy S22 family, up from 45% of the S21 family, helped Qualcomm strengthen its position in the premium Android segment in Q1 2022.
According to Counterpoint’s Global Smartphone AP-SoC Shipments and Forecast Tracker, the premium segment Qualcomm Snapdragon 700 and 800 series contributed around 68% of the AP/SoC shipments in Q1 2022.
Qualcomm’s share in the >$500 band increased from 47% in Q1 2020 to 71% in Q1 2022, growing 23% YoY in Q1 2022, owing to the launch of its Snapdragon 888 and Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipsets.
Focus on the premium segment will help Qualcomm ride out the slow China market, global macro-economic situation and high inventories.

MediaTek

MediaTek dominated the <$299 price tier and drove significant volumes both for 4G and 5G in this tier. Entry of the Dimensity 9000 enables MediaTek to capture share in the premium band (>$500). This is the first time MediaTek has entered this tier. MediaTek has already announced design wins with Chinese smartphone OEMs like OPPO, vivo, Xiaomi and HONOR. This opens more competition and opportunities for growth in the premium segment.
The volume in the ≤$99 price band was driven by LTE smartphones, where MediaTek captured a 47% share. LTE SoCs have been affected by the ongoing shortages and will be in short supply in 2022.
In the $100-$299 price band for Android, MediaTek captured a 60% share in Q1 2022 driven by its Dimensity 700 and 900 series.
MediaTek will continue to gain share in the $100-$299 price band as 5G penetrates markets like India, APAC others, LATAM and MEA. Smartphone OEMs like Xiaomi, Samsung, OPPO and vivo will likely launch affordable 5G smartphones under $200.
MediaTek has entered the premium segment with its Dimensity 9000 series. However, the sales are only expected to pick up in Q2 2022.
Overall, we forecast around an 8% share for MediaTek in the premium segment in 2022. MediaTek growth in Q2 2022 is expected to come from mid-high range phones due to the shifting of demand from LTEto 5G AP/SOCs. Further, with the launch of the Dimensity 8000 series, MediaTek wants to focus on and consolidate the $300-$499 price bands. This will also help MediaTek pivot volumes from the low-mid segment to mid-high to premium segments.

Samsung

Samsung Exynos’ share declined in Q1 2022 due to the loss in share to Qualcomm in the Galaxy S22 series and also due to the low yields of the 4nm premium Exynos chipsets.
Share in the premium segment declined from 34% in Q1 2021 to 23% in Q1 2022.
Samsung has launched the Galaxy A33 and A53 with its Exynos 1280 SoCs. These are the volume drivers that will help it to regain share from MediaTek and Qualcomm through the rest of 2022.
In the low-mid segment ($100-$299), Samsung’s share declined to 7% in Q1 2022 from 10% in Q1 2021 due to outsourcing of its models (A, F and M series) to ODMs, which integrated mostly Qualcomm, MediaTek or UNISOC solutions in different models depending on the target price bands.
In the low tier, Samsung is using UNISOC SOCs in the Galaxy A03 smartphone. The share of Samsung smartphones is almost negligible in this segment.

UNISOC

UNISOC continues to gain share in the low bands (<$99) driven by the LTE portfolio. Its share in the <$99 band grew to 47% in Q1 2022 from 20% in Q1 2021.
With realme, HONOR, Motorola and Samsung launching phones with its Tiger series SoC, UNISOC has expanded its customer base with design wins at ZTE and TECNO and entry into the Samsung Galaxy A series.
It has also captured an 8% share in the $100-$199 price band with HONOR, realme and Samsung.
For 2022, we expect UNISOC to maintain the momentum with its portfolio catering to LTE smartphones, as MediaTek struggles with supply issues for 4G chipsets and Qualcomm focuses on 5G solutions. Also, a few design wins with 5G chipsets will add to its overall volumes and help support its value growth.

HiSilicon

We expect HiSilicon volumes to decline in 2022 as the inventory is depleted. Huawei has already started using Qualcomm SoCs in its new launches, but these are limited to 4G due to the prevailing US sanctions.

Technologically speaking there has never been a dull year in mobile industry. Every year promises and brings in new technologies, disruptions, business models and lots of surprises and we hope 2014 will be another great year for mobile devices segment. Let’s see what we expect to happen in 2014.

Multiple Cores are fine but where is the Memory?

Dual Core processors will continue to dominate sub US$100 smartphones but the differentiation and competition in 2014 will shift to the point to see which vendor (Tier-1 or Tier 4) offers 512MB or 1GB RAM bundled at these price points first. This will unlock compatibility to upcoming platform updates and applications thus reducing fragmentation especially in Android & Windows Phone platforms. Quad-Core smartphones at sub-$100 retail price points will also be on the cards in second half of 2014. Watch out for likes of Lenovo, Samsung, Micromax and MediaTek in this space.

64 bit CPU is here but where are the apps?

Racing to get the 64-bit processors into the smartphones to win back mindshare will remain the hot topic but lack of applications written for 64 bit processing will make it an overserved feature until some OEM or platform vendors steps in to lead in 64 Bit app development (esp. For Android & after Google supports it in 2H 2014).

Watch out for likes of Apple, Qualcomm, Google, Intel and Microsoft in this segment.

LTE Phones reaching mass-market before the Networks

LTE phones which will reach mass-market (sub-US$150 retail) in mature LTE markets in 2014. OEMs will continue to supply LTE-ready phones (for scale) to newer markets and in the hands of consumers before even the LTE networks are live. LTE Device Installed base will be greater than LTE subscriber base and the trend will continue until the LTE plan pricing reaches mass market. China, USA will be the key market to drive this trend in 2014.

Additionally, many operators will leapfrog to LTE-A and hence the flurry of LTE cat-4 devices will start appearing in operator’s shelves.

Watch out for ZTE, Qualcomm, MediaTek and Samsung stimulating mass-market LTE market.

Sharper & Flexible – The New Glass

As Full HD (1080p) displays have gone mainstream at sub US$350 price-points, the battle shifts to getting either a 2K display or a Flexible display into the devices. Displays will remain the battleground for differentiation across price-bands in 2014 allowing OEM to either raise the price or reduce the price for a SKU. In the era of ‘size 0’ smartphones are trending the other way as consumers want bigger and bigger displays every time they are out for shopping their very personal device. Phablets and Tablets together are going to be US$170 Billion worth segments in 2014. Smartphones are achieving steady state towards 5-6 inch whereas tablets towards 7-8 inch formfactors. However, phablets are also poised to overtake tablets next year.

Watch out for LG, Samsung, Toshiba, Sony and Oppo to lead this trend in 2014

Imaging Kickstarts the Sub-Ecosystem wars, who will win it?

The camera resolution, OIS and low-light imaging wars have been reignited by Nokia, Sony and others in 2013 and the competition to differentiate will continue with Imaging as a key differentiator. The differentiation will come in the form of software behind the optics – array imaging, 4K image and video capture, video editing on the go, image stabilization, Kinect style interactions etc. This will kickstart a whole new sub-ecosystem of already popular use-case in a mobile phone – Imaging.

Watch out for Nokia, Sony, Qualcomm & NVIDIA to dominate this space.

Wearables a segment ready for prime-time or just forced down the consumers’ throat?

Appcessories are great as they have revolutionized the different use-cases leveraging apps, sensors and will continue to take off in 2014 and expand across price-bands reaching mass-market.

But do consumers need or want wearables those have another display on it to interact with? Smart-wearables with displays such as smartwatches, glasses are stuck between functionality of appcessories and smartphones. For such smart-wearbles to take-off in 2014 or future years will need a whole new set of ecosystem initiated by a new set of intuitive interaction mechanisms, connectivity technologies, extraordinary battery design, specially designed applications, software and services.

2014 won’t be the year of smartwatches or smartglasses unless OEMs fulfills the above criteria building a unique user-experience or these devices experience an iPhone moment to stimulate the demand. We see supply greater than demand as OEMs (forcefully) try to create a category out of it just to have these devices in portfolio and not being left out. Lots of work needs to be done for consumers to ‘want’ them.

Watch out for long tail of smaller startups such as Pebble, Vuzix, Omate, Misfit to players such as Epson, Symphony Teleca, Varta and bigger players such as Microsoft, Samsung, Google, Jawbone, Nissan and Sony.

Top

Coverage

Insights

Social media

Contact us

Top