Qualcomm remained the largest SoC provider in Q3 2017 ,II Report: Qualcomm Leads Smartphone SoC Market For Q3 2017

Qualcomm remained the largest SoC provider in Q3 2017 ,II Report: Qualcomm Leads Smartphone SoC Market For Q3 2017

For the third quarter of 2017’s fiscal year, Qualcomm once again led the market in terms of chip sales, according to a new report from Counterpoint Research. Meanwhile, that portion of the technology market saw global annual growth by 19-percent and companies managed to accrue upwards of $8 billion in total chipset revenues. Although Qualcomm held a clear lead for the quarter – with 42-percent of the SoC market revenues going to the company and a growth in shipments of 15-percent – the report also includes figures for other major players in that space. That’s in addition to overall trends for the quarter for that market. Apple, perhaps unsurprisingly, took the second spot in terms of the portion of sales it took in – with 20-percent of the market. MediaTek, Samsung, and Huawei’s HiSilicon, on the other hand, fell in at the third, fourth, and fifth positions, respectively.

Breaking things down by the numbers, Qualcomm accounted for a staggering 38-percent of smartphone SoC shipments, thanks to growth in overall smartphones in combination with its placement as the premiere chip-maker for the devices. Predominantly, its sales were tied in with devices selling in the $300 to $400 wholesale price range – devices shipping with its Snapdragon 400 to 600 SoCs – with those sales nearly doubling year-over-year. It’s premium device segment sales, meanwhile, were actually down for the quarter. Despite that slight setback, the sales equated to a year-over-year revenue growth for Qualcomm of around 23-percent. Stemming solely from its iPhone product line, meanwhile, Apple saw an increase in shipments of around 4-percent from last year and a 15-percent in growth from last quarter. The company found itself in fifth place, in terms of revenue, with 12-percent of the overall income. Huawei’s HiSilicon, which managed 42-percent growth in shipments from last year, was the second chipset manufacturer in terms of growth for the quarter and from year-to-year. HiSilicon is also responsible for the Kirin 970, which is the world’s first announced A.I. integrated smartphone chipset that also recently beat out Qualcomm’s top chip in terms of performance in some hypothetical benchmarks. The company also set a trend through the announcement and inclusion of dedicated A.I. processing, which is currently being followed by every other major player in the industry. Huawei’s chipset business grew in revenues by half year-over-year, as more of Huawei’s devices take advantage of HiSilicon chips. More specifically, the mid-range device market for the company saw a growth of over 150-percent annually for HiSilicon.


Rounding out the top five companies in smartphone SoCs are MediaTek and Samsung. MediaTek may be the only company on the list which saw revue drop annually, by around 10-percent, though it did improve by 4-percent quarter-over-quarter. Tthe company actually officially left the top-tier smartphone market earlier in the year, which may have led to at least some of that decline, though the company still plans to compete by introducing a new lineup of A.I.-centered chipsets. Meanwhile, MediaTek did manage to enter into Samsung’s supply chain for that company’s Galaxy J series of devices. Finally, Samsung was the fastest growing smartphone SoC manufacturer for the quarter, with a growth of 59-percent in shipments year-over-year and revenue growth for the period at 69-percent. Its growth is accounted for by its increased use of Exynos chipsets in devices falling below the $100 wholesale market price.

The report said that Qualcomm's SoC shipments almost doubled annually in the $300 to $400 wholesale price segment, driven by increased shipments of brands like OPPO, Vivo, and Xiaomi.

Research Analyst, Shobhit Srivastava, "Qualcomm led the smartphone SoC market strengthening its position further capturing 42 percent of the total SoC revenues in Q3 2017. The San Diego based technology company saw rising adoption for its mid to high range SoCs by the fast-growing Chinese brands, boosting its SOC shipments 15 percent compared to last year. Apple took the second spot capturing 20 percent value share banking on steady performance for its iPhone portfolio followed by MediaTek, Samsung, and HiSilicon (Huawei).

Meanwhile global smartphone SoC market grew 19 percent annually in Q3 2017 crossing $8 billion in chipset revenues.

Apple SoC shipments increased 4 percent annually and recorded a 15 percent growth sequentially due to the launch new iPhones in Q3 2017, however, MediaTek's smartphone SoC revenues declined 10 percent annually, but increased 4 percent sequentially.

Samsung was the fastest growing smartphone SoC player in Q3 2017 in terms of shipment but growing from a smaller base. The SoC shipments grew 59 percent annually for the Korean vendor benefiting its LSI division supplying to its own Mobile division, the report added.

Srivastava, further added, "The vertically integrated players like Samsung, Apple and Huawei have been increasingly employing their own SOCs within their portfolio over the last few years. As a result, the combined share of the SoCs of these big three has rose from 20 percent level in 2015 to around 30 percent level in terms of volumes. This has somewhat hurt hare of some of the horizontal players such as MediaTek mainly and likes of Marvell, Broadcom and others which were forced to exit this space."

"The focus in the smartphone SoC market has shifted away from the number of processor cores to the integration of newer technologies driving newer experiences. For example: focusing on immersion to unlock new experiences such as AR/VR/Depth Sensing leveraging integrated ISP (Image Signal Processors) and GPUs, to other areas such as Artificial Intelligence engines, dedicated security architecture at chipset level, enhanced connectivity paving the path to 5G and higher performance at lower power consumption levels, " Counterpoint Research Director Neil Shah said.

Qualcomm remained the largest SoC provider in Q3 2017 ,II Report: Qualcomm Leads Smartphone SoC Market For Q3 2017

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