TSMC to capture 70% of smartphone AP/SoC and baseband shipments in Q1 2022

NEW DELHI and LONDON and HONG KONG and SAN DIEGO and Seoul, South Korea† July 6, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — Global shipments of smartphone chipsets (SoC/AP+Baseband) fell 5% yoy in Q1 2022 due to seasonality, weaker demand in China amid lockdowns and overshipping of some chipset suppliers in the fourth quarter of 2021, according to the Counterpoint’s Foundry and Chipset Tracker† TSMC, the world’s largest foundry, captured nearly 70% of the production of key chipsets going to smartphones, from full System-on-Chip (SoC) to discrete Application Processors (AP) and cellular modems. Samsung Foundry was the second largest foundry behind TSMC taking a 30% share.

Global Smartphone Chipset (AP/SOC/Baseband) Shipment Share as per Foundry Q1 2022. Note: Total Shipments include the AP/SoC and Discrete Baseband

Commenting on the foundry landscape for the smartphone segment, Senior Research Analyst, Parv Sharma said: “Foundries are extremely high CAPEX, cutting edge technology companies that have created a duopoly for the production of advanced chipsets for smartphones. TSMC and Samsung Foundry together control the whole smartphone. chipset market and TSMC is more than double Samsung in terms of production scale and market share.

“TSMC-based smartphone chipsets were down 9% per year in the first quarter of 2022. With Qualcomm’s choice of Samsung Foundry to manufacture X60 baseband and the annual decline in shipments of MediaTek smartphone chipsets. Due to the ramping up of the 4nm flagships from Qualcomm, Apple and MediaTek, TSMC could gain further market share in smartphone chipset by 2022.

“Of the total smartphone chipsets on advanced nodes (4nm, 5nm, 6nm and 7nm), TSMC captured 65%. TSMC started mass production for its industry-leading 4nm process node with MediaTek’s Dimensity 9000 SoC in Q1 2022. TSMC’s 4nm node-based smartphone chipset shipments are expected to grow further thanks to Qualcomm’s dual sourcing strategy for its future 4nm-based Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 SoC.”

Commenting on the performance of Samsung Foundry, Senior Analyst Jene Parksaid: “Samsung Foundry has captured about 30% of the share of global smartphone chipset shipments thanks to Qualcomm and Samsung Semiconductor’s internal Exynos chipset division. Despite relatively lower yield rates for the leading 4nm process node, Samsung Foundry led the leading nodes (4nm and 5nm) shipments of smartphone chipsets with a 60% share, followed by TSMC, which captured 40% share in the first quarter of 2022.

“However, the uncertain global macroeconomic environment, potential inventory adjustments and Qualcomm’s dual-sourcing could put pressure on Samsung Foundry’s overall market share and its leading nodes.”

Analyst contact person:

Parv Sharma

[email protected]