Recently, research institutions have successively released new survey reports on different markets. This includes Counterpoint's latest Q4 2021 global smartphone AP/SoC chip shipments report.
The report shows that global smartphone AP/SoC chip shipments increased by 5% year-on-year in the fourth quarter of 2021, and 5G smartphone SoC shipments accounted for almost half of total SoC shipments.
At the same time, the report also shows the shipment ranking of AP/SoC chips of different brands.
Among them, MediaTek led the smartphone SoC market with a 33% share in the fourth quarter of 2021. However, compared with the 37% share in the same period in 2020, there is still a certain decline.
Qualcomm ranked second, up 18% sequentially, accounting for 30% of the share; and driven by the baseband of Apple and high-end Android, it dominated the 5G baseband modem shipping market with 76% share.
The analyst's statement mentioned, "Despite component shortages and foundry capacity not being able to meet demand, Qualcomm's quarterly results were very strong, up 18% month-on-month and 33% year-on-year." Qualcomm is able to prioritize the sales of high-end Snapdragons. Compared with low-end mobile phones, Snapdragon has higher profitability and less impact of shortages. It is also able to increase the supply of its main foundry partners by dually sourcing key products. It accounts for 76% of Apple's iPhone 13/12 series and 5G baseband shipments driven by the high-end Android portfolio. ”
Apple is close behind, occupying the third place in this market segment. Its overall market share reached 21%, and the release of the iPhone 13 drove product shipments. However, its market share in the same period of 2020 was 22%.
Tsinghua Unigroup ranked fourth, accounting for 11% of the market share. In contrast, its share in the same period of 2020 accounted for 4%, and SoC shipments in 2021 more than doubled, exceeding 10%. During this period, the customer structure of Tsinghua Unigroup Zhanrui has changed significantly, and it has been supported by well-known brands in the field of mobile phones such as Glory, realme, Motorola, ZTE, Transsion, and Samsung.
Samsung's self-developed chip Exynos slipped to fifth place with a 4 percent share. And that's largely because Samsung is adjusting its smartphone portfolio strategy. As a result, MediaTek and Qualcomm's share of Samsung's smartphone portfolio has been growing.
In addition, Huawei HiSilicon's proportion dropped from 7% in the same period in 2020 to 1%, ranking sixth in the list.