On March 18th, communication chip giant Qualcomm announced the launch of the third-generation Snapdragon 8s mobile platform. According to the company, the performance of this chip is slightly lower than the previously released Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip, but the platform supports a wide range of AI models, including mainstream large language models such as Baichuan-7B, Gemini Nano, Llama 2, and Zhipu ChatGLM.
The release of the third-generation Snapdragon 8s mobile platform by Qualcomm is widely regarded by the market as another proof of the company's strong layout in the mid-range chip market. The reporter from First Financial News noticed that in order to highlight the prospects of the product's landing in the industry, Lu Weibing, President of Xiaomi Group and General Manager of Xiaomi Brand, appeared at the press conference and stated that the Xiaomi Civi 4 Pro will be the first model of the aforementioned chip.
Embark on the battlefield of MediaTek
Qualcomm is feeling the threat from its competitors. Currently, the mobile chip market has been dominated by Qualcomm and MediaTek.
A data report released by Counterpoint on the market share of global smartphone application processor shipments shows that in the first quarter of 2023, the top five global smartphone application processor markets were MediaTek, Qualcomm, Apple, Spreadtrum, and Samsung. Among them, MediaTek's market share is 32%, while Qualcomm's market share is 28%. In the third quarter, MediaTek's market share increased to 33%, while Qualcomm still ranked second with a market share of 28%.
The data shows that although Qualcomm has a greater advantage in the high-end chip market, MediaTek's huge shipment volume in the entry-level and mid to low-end chip markets allows it to still maintain its position as the "top player" in the market. However, recent signs indicate that Qualcomm is starting to expand into the mid-range chip market.
According to a reporter from First Financial, since 2020, Qualcomm has been making efforts in the mid-range chip market. The company has successively released a series of 5G chips targeting the mid-range market, including Snapdragon 780, Snapdragon 778G, Snapdragon 690, and Snapdragon 480. The release of the third-generation Snapdragon 8s mobile platform by Qualcomm is widely regarded by the market as another strong proof of the company's strong layout of mid-range chips. Meanwhile, MediaTek has also ventured into the high-end chip market multiple times to release products, such as the company's Dimensity 9000 series and Dimensity 9200 series. On November 6, 2023, MediaTek held a new product launch event to launch the latest generation of the Dimensity 9300 chip. It is worth noting that the launch of the Dimensity 9300 is less than half a month after the launch of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, and the benchmarking purpose is very clear.
Communication industry analyst Ding Shaojiang pointed out that the pattern of the mobile chip market will continue to maintain the current situation in the next two years, that is, MediaTek will maintain its advantage in the mid to low end market while continuously narrowing the distance with Qualcomm in the mid to high end market. Qualcomm's growth space in the high-end market is increasingly limited, especially with Apple and Samsung's self-developed chip market share gradually increasing, greatly compressing Qualcomm's development space.
Communication industry analyst Ma Jihua also believes that Qualcomm and MediaTek have comprehensive competition, each with its own advantages, but there is great uncertainty in the market. If any generation of product development errors or directional errors occur, it will fall behind. Therefore, Qualcomm needs to balance the high-end and mid-range markets at the same time.
Can AI become the "second growth curve"?
A reporter from First Financial News observed at the press conference that Qualcomm spent a lot of time introducing the product's application in terminal artificial intelligence scenarios.
Qualcomm's shift towards artificial intelligence in its chip business can be seen from its financial reports. Qualcomm's Q1 2024 financial report released earlier last month showed that generative artificial intelligence runs through almost all of Qualcomm's chip business lines, including smartphones, automobiles, and PCs. The company also pointed out in its financial report that Qualcomm's third-generation Snapdragon 8 mobile platform launched this quarter focuses on end-to-end artificial intelligence, and hopes that the chip platform can provide momentum for the artificial intelligence experience of Android flagship phones in the 2024 fiscal year. At the 2023 Snapdragon Summit, Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon stated that the third-generation Snapdragon 8 mobile platform was the first to support multimodal universal AI models and now supports large models with 13 billion parameters.
MediaTek is currently also making efforts in the field of artificial intelligence chips. According to reporters, during MWC 2024, MediaTek will showcase multiple artificial intelligence applications, including the Dimensity 9300 and 8300 chips. The company claims that the Dimensity 9300 chip can provide support for end-to-end AI technology. Beyond the battlefield of mobile phone chips, MediaTek also has high hopes for the PC market. At the annual GTC conference held in April 2021, Nvidia announced that it will collaborate with MediaTek to launch new PCs and laptops, showcasing the effectiveness of AI applications. Subsequently, news of cooperation between MediaTek and Nvidia continued to spread.
At the 2023 Snapdragon Summit, Qualcomm unveiled its new intelligent PC computing platform, Snapdragon X Elite, which is closely aligned with MediaTek. It is reported that the platform has reached 45 TOPS in terms of AI computing power, which is about 100 times better than its performance in 2017. It can be seen that the competition between the two companies in the field of artificial intelligence is fierce.
At the press conference, an industry analyst told First Financial reporters that the release of the third-generation Snapdragon 8s mobile platform means that Qualcomm has added an AI chip for the mid-range market in competition with MediaTek. From the perspective of partners, most of them, such as Xiaomi, Honor, and OPPO, have announced that they will incorporate Qualcomm's artificial intelligence chip products into their own products.
In addition, Qualcomm is also attempting to combine artificial intelligence chips with its expertise in communication and new energy vehicle scenarios. The establishment of downstream ecological partners allows Qualcomm's chips to gain widespread industry support, while MediaTek previously only reached a cooperation with Nvidia and announced its entry into the automotive chip field, with a technology roadmap similar to Qualcomm, but entered relatively late.