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.
