TSMC grabs 70% share of global smartphone chipset market

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) has captured nearly 70 percent share of global smartphone chipset market in Q1, followed by Samsung Foundry at 30 percent market share, according to Counterpoint Research.
TSMC for iPhonesTSMC captured the market from the complete System-on-Chip (SoC) to discrete Application Processors (AP) and cellular modems.

Global smartphone chipset shipment declined 5 percent (on-year) in Q1 due to seasonality, weaker demand in China amid lockdowns and over shipping from some chipset vendors in Q4 2021.

This decline was offset by strong growth in the chipset revenues which grew a healthy 23 per cent YoY in Q1 2022, as the chipset mix shifted towards costlier 5G smartphones.

“TSMC and Samsung Foundry together control the entire smartphone chipset market and TSMC is more than double Samsung in terms of manufacturing scale and market share,” said senior research analyst Parv Sharma.
TSMC share in smartphone chipset business
Of the total smartphone chipsets on advanced nodes (4nm, 5nm, 6nm and 7nm), TSMC captured 65 percent market share.

“Samsung Foundry captured around 30 percent share of the smartphone chipset shipments thanks to Qualcomm and Samsung Semiconductor’s internal Exynos chipset division,” said senior analyst Jene Park.

Samsung has begun mass production of 3-nanometer semiconductors, stepping up its game in the most advanced chipmaking process node, beating its rival TSMC.

Samsung said its first-generation of the 3nm process node achieves a 16 percent area reduction, 23 percent higher performance and a 45 percent lower power consumption.