LTE and TD-SCDMA Drive Cellular Baseband Growth in Q2 2013

Qualcomm Captures a Record 63 Percent Revenue Share

Boston, MA - October 14, 2013 - The global cellular baseband processor market grew a modest 5.4 percent year-over-year to reach $4.4 billion in Q2 2013, according to the Strategy Analytics Handset Component Technologies (HCT) service report, "Baseband Market Share Tracker Q2 2013: LTE Dominance Helps Qualcomm to Record Revenue Share."

According to this Strategy Analytics report, Qualcomm, MediaTek, Intel, Spreadtrum, and Broadcom captured the top-five revenue share rankings in the cellular baseband processor market in Q2 2013. By Strategy Analytics estimates, Qualcomm captured a record 63 percent revenue share in the cellular baseband market in Q2 2013, followed by MediaTek with 13 percent revenue share and Intel with 7 percent revenue share.

According to Sravan Kundojjala, Senior Analyst, "Qualcomm's LTE and LTE-Advanced basebands gained strong traction and propelled its share to a record 63 percent in the cellular baseband market in Q2 2013. LTE basebands accounted for over 40 percent of Qualcomm's total baseband shipments in Q2 2013 and we expect Qualcomm to improve its LTE baseband mix as a percentage of its total baseband shipments further."

According to Stuart Robinson, Director of the Strategy Analytics Handset Component Technologies service, "During Q2 2013, baseband unit shipments declined by 6.5 percent, which can be attributed to a decline in basebands for feature phones. For the first time, smartphone basebands out-shipped feature phone basebands in Q2 2013. LTE and TD-SCDMA baseband shipments grew at a triple-digit rate, while GSM/GPRS/EDGE, UMTS, CDMA and iDEN baseband shipments all declined from the year-ago quarter."

According to Christopher Taylor, Director of the Strategy Analytics RF and Wireless Component (RFWC) service, "The LTE baseband market is still waiting for a strong second source supplier, and we believe that Intel, Broadcom, Ericsson, Marvell, MediaTek, NVIDIA and Spreadtrum have the potential to step in and capture multimode LTE share in 2014. However, these vendors have a difficult task ahead in challenging the current LTE market leader Qualcomm, which is moving swiftly with its highly integrated multi-mode LTE-A chips."