According to Counterpoint's latest tracking study of global cellular IoT modules and chips by application, global cellular IoT chip shipments in the fourth quarter of 2021 increased by 57% year-on-year. China continues to dominate the cellular IoT chip market, accounting for nearly 60% of shipments. 5G increased by 392% year-on-year, followed by 4G Cat1, which increased by 154% year-on-year. Routers/CPEs, PCs, and industrial are the top three applications for 5G.
Share of global cellular IoT chip shipments in Q4 2021 by chip vendor
Source: Counterpoint's New Global Cellular IoT Modules and Chips Tracking Study by Region, Q4 2021
Qualcomm, Unison, and ASR accounted for the top three spots in the global cellular IoT chip market in the fourth quarter of 2021, accounting for nearly 75% of total shipments. Unigroup, Qualcomm and ASR rank in the top three in the Chinese market. In the rest of the world, Qualcomm leads the market, followed by Unigroup and Intel.
Among them, Qualcomm leads the global cellular IoT chip market with a shipment share of 38%. However, competition from local Chinese companies such as Unigroup Andr in key fast-growing segments such as LTE Cat-1/Cat-1 bis and NB-IoT limits Qualcomm's growth opportunities in the world's largest IoT market. However, Qualcomm has expanded its portfolio of IoT solutions to target specific verticals such as retail, automotive, industrial IoT, and smart cities.
UNISOC is the world's second-largest manufacturer of cellular IoT chips, with a strong performance in NB-IoT and 4G Cat technologies. Its cellular IoT chip shipments continued to grow for nearly four quarters, successfully filling the gap left by HiSilicon in the market. In addition, the high-end technologies of 5G, 4G Cat4 and above are steadily improving, successfully expanding the customer base to Mobile, Guanghetong, China Mobile and more module manufacturers. This helped UNIGroup achieve more than a quarter of its shipments in the fourth quarter of 2021.
Due to the strong performance in the 4G Cat1 and 4G Cat4 module segments, ASR Microelectronics maintained its third position in the cellular IoT chip market in the fourth quarter of 2021.
MediaTek occupied the fourth place in the market in the fourth quarter of 2021. However, it has not paid much attention to the cellular IoT market compared to the smartphone chip market, which is one of the key reasons why it lost 4% of its market share in a row in the quarter.
Share of global cellular IoT chip shipments in Q4 2021 by application
Source: Counterpoint Tracking Study of New Global Cellular IoT Modules and Chips by Region, Q4 2021* Note: Due to rounding, the numbers may not add up to 100%
C114 Communication Network Yan Yi