On May 20, the well-known research firm Canalys released a report on the global smartphone processor (AP) market in the first quarter of 2024. According to the report, MediaTek maintained its leading position with a 39% shipment market share. However, in terms of sales revenue share, Apple ranked first with a 41% market share.
In terms of specific shipment volumes, MediaTek shipped 1.141 billion units in the first quarter, marking a 17% year-on-year growth.
Qualcomm shipped 75 million units, showing an 11% year-on-year increase. Apple shipped 49 million units, experiencing a 16% decline compared to the same period last year.
UNISOC shipped 26 million units, witnessing a remarkable 64% year-on-year surge, making it the fastest-growing among the top five smartphone processor manufacturers.
Samsung shipped 18 million units, declining by 18% year-on-year.
Huawei HiSilicon shipped 8 million units, a significant increase from nearly zero units in the same period last year.
Google shipped 2 million units, maintaining a stable performance year-on-year.
According to the shipment volume share of various smartphone processor manufacturers (calculated based on a total shipment volume of 2.921 billion units in the first quarter), MediaTek holds a 39% share, followed closely by Qualcomm (25.7%), Apple (16.8%), Spreadtrum (8.9%), Samsung (6.2%), HiSilicon (2.7%), and Google (0.7%).
It should be noted that Canalys' chart only provides approximate share numbers for the top four manufacturers.
In terms of sales revenue share of various smartphone processor brand manufacturers, Apple leads with a 41% share, a significant decrease of 14 percentage points from the previous quarter's 55%. Qualcomm holds a 27% share, while MediaTek's share is 17%, an increase of 2 percentage points from the previous quarter's 15%. The shares of Samsung, HiSilicon, and Google are not clearly specified.
Canalys data shows that in terms of smartphone sales revenue based on the brands of processors they carry, in the first quarter of this year, Apple's iPhone ranked first with $56 billion, although its sales decreased by 6% year-on-year (this data differs significantly from Apple's financial report, which indicated a 10.5% year-on-year decline to $45.96 billion in iPhone sales); smartphones with Qualcomm processors saw a 2% year-on-year increase to $37 billion in sales; smartphones with MediaTek chips experienced a 19% year-on-year growth to $23 billion in sales.
Looking at the shipment volumes of smartphone processor brands in the first quarter:
Xiaomi, Samsung, and OPPO are the top three customers for MediaTek smartphone processors, accounting for 23%, 20%, and 17% of MediaTek's smartphone processor shipments respectively, with Transsion and vivo each holding 12%.
Samsung, Xiaomi, and Honor are the top three customers for Qualcomm smartphone processors, making up 26%, 20%, and 17% of Qualcomm's smartphone processor shipments respectively, with vivo at 10%, OPPO at 8%, and Hisilicon at 5%.
Unisoc's smartphone chip shipments are dominated by Transsion, realme, and Lenovo, with shares of 51%, 17%, and 16% respectively, and ZTE also holding a 9% share.
If we look at the sales figures of smartphone processor brands in the first quarter:
For MediaTek, the sales of smartphone processors mainly come from Xiaomi (23%), Samsung (20%), OPPO (17%), and vivo (12%).
For Qualcomm, the sales of smartphone processors mainly come from Samsung (26%), Xiaomi (20%), Honor (17%), vivo (10%), and OPPO (8%).
For UNISOC, the sales of smartphone processors mainly come from Transsion (51%), realme (17%), Lenovo (16%), and ZTE (9%).
In summary, in the first quarter, MediaTek's smartphone processor shipments increased by 17% year-on-year, with a revenue growth of 19%, surpassing the growth in shipments. This reflects an increase in the average selling price of MediaTek's smartphone processors.
In contrast, Qualcomm's shipments in the first quarter increased by 11% year-on-year, but the revenue only grew by 2%. This indicates that MediaTek's Dimensity series is eroding Qualcomm's market share in the mid-to-high-end segment. Faced with competition from MediaTek, Qualcomm's average selling price of smartphone processors is decreasing.
Furthermore, looking at the contribution of smartphone brands to the shipments of various processor platform manufacturers, Xiaomi and OPPO seem to be adopting MediaTek's platform more, while Transsion and vivo also make some contributions, including the adoption of MediaTek's Dimensity flagship platform products.
For Qualcomm, Samsung and Xiaomi remain its first and second largest customers, while Honor has become Qualcomm's third largest customer after years of growth and its main products are mostly based on Qualcomm's platform. In contrast, shipments of products based on MediaTek's platform are relatively fewer.
As the only domestic 5G smartphone chip manufacturer targeting the open market, UNISOC's shipments are recovering after experiencing internal turmoil and a downturn in the smartphone market over the past two years. However, its shipments still mainly rely on overseas markets, especially the significant growth in shipments of Transsion (TECNO, iTel, and Infinix) in the past year has greatly boosted UNISOC's smartphone chip shipments, contributing up to 51% in the first quarter of this year. Additionally, there is support from domestic smartphone manufacturers such as realme, Lenovo, and ZTE for domestic smartphone chips.
Lastly, it is worth noting that the Huawei Kirin series of smartphone chips officially returned last year in the third quarter with the launch of the Mate 60 series. By the end of the first quarter, smartphones equipped with the Kirin 9000s included the Mate 60 series, Mate X5 series, the newly released Huawei Nova 12 and Nova 12 Pro with the Kirin 8000 series, and the Huawei Pocket 2 series launched in late February this year.
In the first quarter of this year, approximately 8 million Huawei smartphones based on Kirin chips were shipped.
According to Canalys data, driven by the strong sales of the Mate and nova series, Huawei's smartphone shipments in the first quarter of this year reached 11.7 million units, with a 17% market share in the domestic market, ranking first.
Based on this data, the shipments of Huawei smartphones based on Qualcomm chips are continuously declining, with shipments in the first quarter estimated to be around 3.7 million units.
