Smartphones crush feature phone market

MESA, USA: Forward Concepts has announced the publication of its newest study of the worldwide market for the principal chips that enable cellphones and cellular-enabled tablets. According to the study, high-end smartphones punch through the $600 level but low-end smartphones available this year are reaching the $100 level. This has negatively impacted the formerly less-expensive "feature phone" market.

The new study, “Cellular Handset & Tablet Core Chip Trends '12,” provides an overview of these trends along with in-depth market analysis of baseband, application processor, RF & power management chips. The study estimates 2011 market shares of all chip vendors and forecasts each chip type in units, average selling price and revenue through 2016. Market metrics and company profiles are the central focus of the study, and cellular handset and tablet core chip markets for 2011 were:

* Baseband chips in three main classes, constituting the largest non-memory cellphone chip market at $15.9 billion.

* Power management units are critical companions for all cellphone processors to enable efficient operation and long battery life. They reached $5.5 billion.

* RF transceivers are increasingly complex as LTE and new multi-band 2G/3G/LTE multi-mode devices emerge. That market reached $3.7 billion.

* RF power amplifiers also have to cope with increasingly complex multi-band operation and revenues for them reached $3.6 billion.

* Stand-alone application processors reached $2.8 billion, but many more were part of the $5.9 billion market for communication processors that consisted of both baseband and application processors on the same die or in the same package.

* The tablet cellular modem market reached an estimated 9.4 million units in 2011, and is forecast to grow another 62 percent this year.

Will Strauss, Forward Concepts’ president said, "We are confident that this study provides the comprehensive information needed for new product and business planning."