Report: Intel Gained Just 0.2% Of Smartphone Chip Market In 1H As Qualcomm Milked LTE Lead

Intel looks as if it’s finally getting its act together in the smartphone market. The chipmaker can now point to six phones that have launched this year with its Atom x86 Medfield chips inside, including — most recently — a partnership with Google-owned Motorola for a European handset, the Razr i. Other Intel-chipped devices are either carrier-branded and/or destined for European or Asian markets.

The U.S. has yet to see an Intel-powered phone launch — and a likely explanation is because its current smartphone chips don’t support LTE/4G. Intel says it will be introducing products this year (and next) that do support LTE but in the meanwhile chipmakers that jumped on 4G early are reaping the benefits of their foresight.

A Strategy Analytics report into the smartphone chip market notes that Intel took just 0.2 percent unit shipment share in 1H 2012, while Qualcomm, the leading chipmaker, grabbed a 48 percent revenue share in the first half of the year. Qualcomm’s LTE Snapdragon processor MSM8960 has been a big hit for the company, the analyst notes.

“The company’s high-end LTE Snapdragon processor MSM8960 gained strong traction and featured in multiple LTE flagships from global tier-one smartphone manufacturers,” writes Senior Analyst Sravan Kundojjala. “Qualcomm’s early LTE modem leadership has helped the company to stay ahead of the competition.”

Scores of devices pack the MSM8960 chip — including the Motorola Droid Razr M, Droid Razr HD, Razr Maxx HD, some models of Samsung’s Galaxy SIII flagship, the HTC One XL, HTC Evo 4G LTE, and various forthcoming Windows Phone-based handsets such as the Samsung Ativ S and the Nokia Lumia 820 and 920.

After Qualcomm, the next four smartphone chipmaker top spots were taken by Samsung, MediaTek, Broadcom and Texas Instruments, according to the report. Overall, the analyst said the market showed “robust” growth — growing 61 percent year-on-year in 1H 2012 to reach $5.5 billion.

Taiwan’s MediaTek recorded 13-fold year-on-year growth, ranking third on the strength of strong momentum in the low-to-mid range smartphone segment. While Broadcom’s fourth place position was bolstered by “strategic low-end Android smartphone design-wins at Samsung”, the analyst added.