TRENDING
Duopoly
IDTechEx sees the mobile chipset landscape as highly concentrated with there being the duopoly of Qualcomm ( an American company ) and MediaTek ( a Taiwanese company ), who provide System-on- Chips ( SoCs ) to many mobile device manufacturers , as well as Apple and Google , who design their own chipsets for their devices .
The report pitches Samsung and Oppo as chipset designers of particular note in relation to market consolidation .
In previous generations of the Samsung Galaxy smartphone , Samsung had employed the Samsung Exynos , a SoC designed by System LSI , a subdivision of Samsung .
Conversely , the report says , Samsung ’ s smartphone business is managed by the Mobile experience ( MX ) division .
The Elec reported in December 2022 that an application processor development team had been set up within the MX division , which could possibly usurp the role that System LSI have so far played in providing chipsets for Galaxy smartphones .
This came on the heels of reports that Samsung would be discontinuing the Exynos line of chipsets , a claim that – while appearing to be premature – was lent credence when , in February 2023 , the latest Galaxy smartphone , the S23 , was unveiled .
This flagship smartphone incorporates a Qualcomm SnapDragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy chipset ( a custom piece of silicon for the Galaxy phones ), dispensing with Exynos chips for the first time .
For the time being , the report says , Qualcomm are providing chipsets for Samsung flagship smartphones , with the future of Exynos and proprietary Samsung mobile chipsets unclear . smartphone movement from low to high end , as these regions already account for much of the premium smartphone market .
However , the report says developing markets will naturally move from the low to high end as their economies grow – supported by the increasing share of the sale of premium smartphones to total sales ( premiumization ) even while the overall smartphone volume decreases .
As premium smartphones tend to almost entirely have AI acceleration incorporated into their chipsets now , it ‘ stands to reason ’ that the use of AI in smartphones will grow by volume compared to chipsets that do not incorporate AI coprocessing , the report says .
The ultimate ceiling , however , is seen as having already presented itself through the saturation of the smartphone market .
The share of smartphone chipsets that incorporate AI coprocessing may take some years to increase to the level of saturation , the report says .
But trends suggest that this movement is inevitable , with the growth of AI in smartphones providing a valuable model for AI adoption in other consumer electronic products , the report says . p
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