Broadcom Grabs Fifth Spot from NVIDIA
According to Strategy Analytics, Qualcomm led the smartphone applications processor market in terms of both unit shipments and revenue during Q3 2011. Judging by numbers of units sold, Samsung, Texas Instruments, Marvell and Broadcom made up the rest of the top-five vendors. NVIDIA lost its number five position to Broadcom.
This report notes that stand-alone applications processors out-grew baseband-integrated applications processors, accounting for 41 percent of total smartphone applications processor shipments in Q3 2011, up from a solid 31 percent in the same quarter last year. This growth can be attributed to strong demand for dual-core processors and growth in LTE smartphone shipments. Qualcomm, a strong advocate of baseband-integrated processors, now also participates in the stand-alone applications processor market with its APQ8xxx-family of Snapdragon processors.
“Qualcomm continued its dominant market position in smartphone applications processors with 49 percent revenue share in Q3 2011, on the strength of its multi-tier product portfolio and its strong participation in all major mobile software ecosystems,” said Sravan Kundojjala, Senior Analyst. “Qualcomm has become the company to beat in the mobile chip market, moving far ahead of most of its competitors.”
According to Stuart Robinson, Director of the Strategy Analytics Handset Component Technologies service, “Thanks to the ramp up of its Android business, Broadcom finally broke into the top-five vendor list for smartphone applications processors in Q3 2011.” He added, "Strategy Analytics continues to believe that Broadcom has the potential to be a strong competitor to Qualcomm in the long-term, given the company’s integration capabilities, cellular IP strength and strong emphasis on wireless markets.”