Global smartphone AP chip revenue growth ranking: Qualcomm, Apple, and MediaTek top three

On December 24, this morning, Strategy Analytics released a report stating that in Q3 2021, the global smartphone application processor (AP) market revenue increased by 17% to US$8.3 billion.

IT Home learned that the report shows that Qualcomm, Apple, MediaTek, Samsung LSI and Unisoc ranked the top five in terms of smartphone application processor market revenue share.

Among them, Qualcomm ranked first with a revenue share of 34%, followed by Apple (28%) and MediaTek (27%).

Strategy Analytics said that MediaTek led Qualcomm with 26 million units shipped in the first nine months of 2021. Therefore, based on the 2021 annual benchmark, MediaTek is expected to become the TOP 1 in smartphone application processor shipments for the first time.

The report said that Qualcomm abandoned the low-end and mid-range 4G application processors and focused on the high-end and high-price segment application processors so that it could fully utilize the available foundry capacity. As a result, MediaTek gained 4G application processor shipment share through its Helio A/G/P lineup.

Compared with the same period last year, shipments of 5G application processors increased by 82%, increasing the overall average selling price of application processors by 19%.

Qualcomm's high-end application processor Snapdragon 888/888+ was the best-selling Android application processor this quarter.

TSMC's smartphone application processor shipments accounted for three-quarters of total shipments in Q3 2021, followed by Samsung Foundry.

Smartphone application processors with 7nm and below processes accounted for 47% of total shipments.

Strategy Analytics pointed out that HiSilicon Semiconductor was hit by trade sanctions, and its smartphone application processor shipments fell 96% in Q3 2021. At the same time, Samsung LSI's application processor shipments decreased by 12%. New entrant Google took a 0.1% market share with its Pixel Tensor application processor.