Smartphone AP sales rise 6% in Q1: SA

Smartphone application processor (AP) sales grew 6% year over year to US$4.7 billion in the first quarter of 2020, Strategy Analytics said.

This is despite the research firm saying earlier in April that smartphone shipment fell 16.9% year over year in the quarter.

Average sales prices of APs rose due to 5G smartphones and this helped the growth despite the fall in smartphone shipment, the firm said.

Processors for 5G will continue to lead this growth in the second half of the year, Strategy Analytics added.

Qualcomm clinched the top spot in market share with 40%, followed by HiSilicon’s 20% and Apple’s 15%. It is a drop of 0.4%, rise of 7.1% and fall of 4.9%, respectively.

JP Morgan has earlier said semiconductors in 5G smartphone costed 85% more compared to 4G ones due to the addition of new telecom components such as 5G RF front-end and increased capacity of memories from DRAM to NAND flash.