Counterpoint: Unisoc overtakes Samsung in smartphone socs market

The Chinese Unisoc has surpassed Samsung in the smartphone socs market, Counterpoint Research reports. The analyst firm estimates that Unisoc will reach a market share of 9 percent, compared to 7 percent for Samsung.

Unisoc-socs are mainly found in cheap smartphones, while the Samsung-socs are often found in Samsung’s own midrange and high-end smartphones. Unisoc’s market share is largely due to increased adoption in the home market, Counterpoint says. Realme, Honor and Motorola, among others, use socs from that manufacturer. Samsung uses less of its own socs in its smartphones, because the development of cheaper models has now come to lie more with ODMs.

MediaTek has been the market leader in the smartphone socs market since last fall and remained so this spring. The share came in at 43 percent, according to Counterpoint, compared to 28 percent for closest competitor Qualcomm. Apple remains third, with a stable market share.

Counterpoint also estimated the market shares for 5G modems. It is striking that Qualcomm dominates with 55 percent of the market. This is probably partly due to Apple, which purchases Qualcomm modems for its iPhone 12 series. MediaTek’s modems have a 30 percent share of the 5G market, which is three times as much as in the same period a year ago. Samsung’s 5G modems are in 10 percent of the 5G phones delivered.