The First Half of 2013 Shows Penetration of Multi-Core Smartphone Apps

According to a report from Strategy Analytics, the global multi-core smartphone applications processor (MCSPAP) market more than doubled on year-on-year growth in the first six months of 2013. The name of the report is “Smartphone Multi-Core Apps Processor Market Share: Quad-Core Snapdragons Propel Qualcomm to Top Spot in 1H 2013.”

Sravan Kundojjala, who is senior analyst at Strategy Analytics and the author of the 34 page report, commented that "Strategy Analytics estimates that Qualcomm captured top-spot in the MCSPAP market in 1H 2013, thanks to its Snapdragon 600, 400 and 200 families of chips. Qualcomm's multi-core chips gained strong traction across all price ranges and propelled its share past previous multi-core chip leader Apple in 1H 2013."

It should not be a surprise to see that the report shows that Qualcomm led the multi-core smartphone applications processor (MCSPAP) market with 43 percent volume share. In June 2013, ABI Research released a report showing that devices that are powered by Qualcomm are capturing the high end of the device market. The remainder of the market share for the first half of 2013 goes to Samsung, Apple, MediaTek and ST-Ericsson.

According to Stuart Robinson, Director of the Strategy Analytics Handset Component Technologies service, "Single-core apps processors have the highest penetration of integrated chips, while quad-core apps processors are predominantly stand-alone chips at present. This can be attributed to the complexity and time it takes to design and certify an integrated quad-core chip. Qualcomm, a strong proponent of integrated chips, gained market share in the multi-core market with stand-alone chips initially. However, we expect Broadcom, Marvell, MediaTek, Qualcomm and Spreadtrum to proliferate the market with low-cost baseband-integrated quad-core chips."

The report shows that multi-core processors accounted for about 66 percent of all smartphone apps processor shipments in the first six months of 2013. This is up from 40 percent in the same time period last year.

Quad-core smartphone applications processor shipments registered five-fold year-on-year growth, while single-core smartphone applications processor shipments declined by 14 percent in the same period. Qualcomm, Apple, Samsung, MediaTek and ST-Ericsson captured top-five volume share spots in the smartphone multi-core applications processor market.