Apple Expected to Surpass Intel as Top Mobile Chipmaker

News
By Douglas Perry
published

Market research firm NPD In-Stat believes that Apple will become the top-seller of mobile processors due to the success of its iPhone and iPad devices.

Of course, there is no reason to believe that Intel will give up its leadership position in x86 notebook processors, but there is an ongoing shift in the use of ARM-based processors in compact computing products, such as laptops and smartphones.

"Apple will likely capture the top spot in 2012, driven by its success in devices, such as the iPhone and iPad," said Jim McGregor, NPD In-Stat's chief technology strategist, in a statement published by PC Mag. "Other companies that benefitted greatly from new product releases or dominance by their OEM customers included Nvidia, Texas Instruments, Qualcomm, and Samsung." McGregor estimates that ARM will take about 73 percent of the mobile processor market this year.

"Although the total available market for mobile processors continues to grow, the emergence of industry leaders in the high-growth mobile device segment is becoming a key factor in the success of processor vendors," McGregor said. "Just having a captive market has propelled Apple into second place [in 2011] for the entire mobile processor market just behind industry leader Intel."

Intel's Medfield processor, which will debut this year in smartphones, can capture substantial market share in the mobile processor market as defined by In-Stat. The market research firm, however, believes that it will not arrive soon enough this year to make a big impact.

Douglas Perry
51 Comments Comment from the forums
  • ksampanna
    Fail headline considering Apple doesn't manufacture any chips whatsoever. Will Tom's please step up n not use tabloid language.
    Reply
  • shardey
    Apple designs their chips, Samsung manufactures.

    This headline is misleading, unless they consider designing chips as a "chipmaker"
    Reply
  • de5_Roy
    lol. it's be fun if apple surpassed intel in mobile chip sector. intel will have nowhere to go...
    Reply
  • BSMonitor
    Everyone has been dethroning Intel for 20 years. Yet. They still are the industry leader. Weird how bloggers lack any sense of reality.
    Reply
  • A5 is manufactured by Samsung and uses ARM A9 architecture. Who writes this kind of articles? Or is this an Apple add? In both cases it is false - like most Apple commercials :)
    Reply
  • silverblue
    Along with the AMD competing with Ivy Bridge headline, we've gone from factuality to downright sensationalism. Oddly enough, both by the same author.

    Is it 1st April yet?
    Reply
  • Au_equus
    shardeyApple designs their chips, Samsung manufactures. This headline is misleading, unless they consider designing chips as a "chipmaker"other way around: http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/12/03/16/ipad_a5x_processor_built_on_samsungs_45nm_technology.html
    samsung does manufacture the "retina" display though
    Reply
  • dragonsqrrl
    shardeyApple designs their chips, Samsung manufactures. This headline is misleading, unless they consider designing chips as a "chipmaker"They don't even really design any of the individual components in their SOC's. They just compile the components from various "designers" into a single package.
    Reply
  • Lol no.
    Reply
  • pharge
    dragonsqrrlThey don't even really design any of the individual components in their SOC's. They just compile the components from various "designers" into a single package.
    But that is what most of the mobile chip manufactures do, don't they? Most of mobile ships from Samsung, Apple, or Qualcomm's are all based on the A4/A9/A12 CPU and PowerVR GPUs, aren't they?..
    Reply