Smartphones will remain the largest market for application processors (AP) through 2020, accounting for over 80% of all APs shipped annually during the period, according to Digitimes Research.
In terms of growth, IoT applications will be the main driver of AP shipments through 2020 while shipments for smartphones and tablets will grow at a slower pace, said Digitimes Research.
About 1.78 billion APs were shipped in 2016, rising 7.2% on year. Shipments will increase 8.4% to 1.93 billion units in 2017, with the annual growth rate set to slow down to 5.9% in 2020, Digitimes Research indicated.
Smartphones accounted for 84.3% of all APs shipped in 2016, followed by tablets with 14.2% and others with 1.5%. The shipment ratio for smartphones will climb to 84.4% in 2017, but begin to drop in 2018 and reach 82.9% in 2020. Meanwhile, non-smartphone and -tablet applications will account for 6.5% of all APs shipped in 2020, Digitimes Research said.
Qualcomm and MediaTek will remain the largest AP provider through 2020, Digitimes Research noted. Qualcomm's share of the global AP market will rise to 25.4% in 2017 and reach 26.8% in 2020 from 24% in 2016, but MediaTek's market share will begin to fall in 2018 and reach 20.5% in 2020.
As for production technology, 28nm remained the mainstream process for the production of APs in 2016 accounting for 69% of all APs shipped during the year. The node will be replaced by 14/16nm and 7nm, which will account for a combined 48% of all APs shipped, in 2020, according to Digitimes Research.