
Qualcomm is ranked number two and its rise reflects the marketshare gains for makers of processors for mobile phone and tablet computers who, in aggregate, increased market share to 31 percent in 2013 from 26 percent in 2012.
In 2013 the MPU market was worth $58.6 billion, about 22 percent of total IC sales, IC Insights reckons.
Within the MPU category tablet application processors were about 6 percent up from 4 percent the previous year, while cellphone processors accounted for 25 percent of the revenue up from 22 percent in 2012. This leaves MPUs used in personal and server computers and embedded processing dropping to 69 percent of the total, down from 74 percent in 2012.
Leading MPU suppliers ranked by 2013 sales ($M). Source: IC Insights.
Intel and Advanced Micro Devices, makers of x86 processors, have been suffering from this trend. While Intel has been trying to break into the ARM domain of mobile equipment – with little success – Advanced Micro Devices has been persuaded to license the ARM 64b-bit architecture for use in server processors.
AMD has been hit harder by the decline in PC shipments and x86 processor sales with its total MPU revenues plunging 21 percent annually in both 2012 and 2013, according to IC Insights. AMD’s 2013 microprocessor sales (excluding stand-alone graphics processors) fell to $2.8 billion, which represented 4.8 percent of total MPU sales last year compared to its previous marketshares of 6.4 percent in 2012 and 8.2 percent in 2011.
While AMD is adopting the ARM architecture Intel is attempting to rejig the x86 architecture for mobile applications from smartphones and tablets down to wearable and Internet of Things applications.
Intel is preparing to introduce 14nm FinFET processors called Broadwell in 2H14 and aims to ship 40 million tablet MPUs in 2014 up by a factor of four from 2013 although it is paying a subsidy to manufacturers to adopt the x86 architecture. Intel’s CEO said the company shipped 5 million in 1Q14 and was "on-course" to hit the 40 million target in 2014.
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