A new report from the Yonhap News Agency suggests that Samsung’s Exynos has surpassed Apple to become the top third player in the global mobile processor market. The data comes from a recent research conducted by research firm Counterpoint Research.
As per the report, Samsung had a market share of 14.1 percent, which is a 2.2 percent improvement over the past year. Samsung pushed Apple to the fourth position after the Cupertino giant’s market share fell 0.5 percent to 13.1 percent last year.
The report credits Samsung’s increasing number of sales in North America and India for its growth. Ironically, customers are not so happy with Samsung selling Exynos phones that there is an ongoing Change.org petition urging Samsung to stop using Exynos chipsets in its flagship Galaxy smartphones outside the US. Almost 17,888 have signed the petition at the time of writing this article, which shows a wide range of people is affected by Samsung’s current strategies.
Qualcomm, the market leader in the SoC business retains its first position with a significant 33.4 market share. It is followed closely by MediaTek with a 24.6 percent share. Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 865 chipset is currently being used in almost every other Android flagship smartphone in the market.
There are reports hinting that Qualcomm would refresh its 865 SoC by releasing the Snapdragon 865+ sometime in the third quarter of this year. With the number of smartphones powered by Qualcomm’s processors showing steady growth, it is highly unlikely that the company would face some serious competition from its rivals in the business anytime soon.
