Apple dominates the market for Arm-based laptop processors

The Arm-based mobile computing chip market (smartphones, tablets and notebook PCs) grew 27% to US$35.1 billion in 2021, according to Strategy Analytics‘ “Handset Component Technologies (HCT)” service report.

The research group says that Qualcomm led the Arm-based mobile computing chip market with a 34% revenue share, followed by Apple with 31%, and MediaTek with 24 percent. Smartphone, tablet, and notebook computer processors accounted for 88%, 9%, and 3% of total Arm-based mobile computing chip revenue in 2021.

Arm-based mobile computing market outperformed the x86-based mobile computing market in revenues and units. Per Strategy Anlytics’ estimates, the total Arm-based mobile computing chip revenue was almost 20% higher than that of x86 (excluding chipsets and discrete GPUs) in 2021.

“Apple established itself as a distant market leader in Arm-based notebook PC processors with almost 90%t revenue share,” says Sravan Kudojjala, author of the Strategy Analytics report. “Apple’s M-series family of processors set the benchmark and gave Apple a 2–3-year lead over the rest of the Arm-based PC processor vendors.”

Qualcomm captured just 3% revenue share in the Arm-based notebook PC processor market in 2021 and lags Apple in CPU performance, he adds.