tech

A year-on-year increase of 51 times, is HiSilicon back as the king?

Smartphone SoC Shipments and Sales Revenue Rankings for Q4 2023.

Recently, the research firm Canalys released the rankings for smartphone SoC shipments and sales revenue for the fourth quarter of 2023.

According to the latest data published by Canalys, MediaTek became the world's largest smartphone SoC vendor (measured by smartphone shipments) in Q4 2023. Earlier in the year, MediaTek launched the Dimensity 9300 flagship 5G generative AI mobile chip. The Dimensity 9300 is built using TSMC's third-generation 4nm process technology and is the first to support the fastest mobile memory, LPDDR5T at 9600Mbps. To meet the growing demand for mobile computing power, MediaTek broke away from traditional architectural design thinking and innovatively designed the "all large cores" CPU architecture for the Dimensity 9300.

However, the most dazzling performer in that quarter was undoubtedly HiSilicon, which, thanks to the excellent performance of the Huawei Mate 60 series, Mate X5, and nova 12 series, shipped 6.8 million units, a staggering year-on-year increase of 5121%, meaning that shipments increased more than 50 times. In terms of revenue, it reached 7 billion USD, marking an astonishing year-on-year surge of 24471%.

The specific data is as follows:

MediaTek: With the successful mass production of the third-generation flagship SoC Dimensity 9300, smartphones equipped with MediaTek SoC chips shipped 117 million units in Q4 2023. Samsung, Xiaomi, and vivo were the top three contributors, accounting for 56% of its shipments.

Advertisement

As smartphone OEM manufacturers restocked, MediaTek showed strong performance in the fourth quarter, maintaining its market leadership position.

Qualcomm: With the successful mass production of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, Qualcomm demonstrated steady performance in Q4 2023. The shipment of smartphones with Qualcomm SoCs increased by 1%, but revenue declined by 2%, with Samsung contributing to 40% of the revenue from smartphones equipped with Qualcomm SoCs.Qualcomm demonstrated stability, with a 1% increase in smartphone shipments featuring Qualcomm SoCs in Q4 2023, although revenue declined by 2%. Notably, Samsung contributed to 40% of the revenue from smartphones with Qualcomm SoCs. Additionally, according to the well-known digital leak blogger @DigitalChitChat, Qualcomm is set to release the Snapdragon 7+ Gen3 and Snapdragon 8s Gen3 processors in the near future. Judging from the naming convention and the parameters revealed at this stage, the 7+ Gen3 is positioned for the mid-to-high-end market, while the 8s Gen3 belongs to the flagship 8 series. The Snapdragon 7+ Gen3 is expected to be the strongest Snapdragon 7 series processor ever. Although Qualcomm has always been in a "leading" position in the high-end smartphone market, it has always been overshadowed by MediaTek in the mid-to-high-end and mid-to-low-end markets. Not to mention, with the return of Kirin chips, Qualcomm's entire market could be affected.

Apple: Due to the launch of the iPhone 15 series, Apple experienced an increase in SoC shipments in Q4 2023. Apple also became the double champion in global smartphone market shipments and China's smartphone market shipments in 2023.

Unisoc: Benefiting from the expansion and outstanding performance of Transsion mobile phones, Unisoc achieved a year-on-year growth of 24% in Q4 2023, with Transsion accounting for as much as 48% of Unisoc's smartphone SoC shipments.

Samsung: Due to the new flagship Samsung Galaxy S24 series adopting Samsung's own Exynos 2400, Samsung saw a slight increase in shipments in Q4 2023. The Samsung Galaxy M14 series with the Exynos 1330 chip and the Samsung Galaxy A54 series with the Exynos 1380 chip also contributed significantly to Samsung's overall data.

The data also shows that although MediaTek remained the largest global smartphone SoC vendor in Q4 2023, most of the global smartphone revenue is still monopolized by Apple.

Canalys research analysts indicated that Huawei was the biggest dark horse in Q4 last year, returning to the top five in China's market after 10 quarters. The media pointed out that, thanks to the hot sales of the Mate 60 series, Huawei set a target of 100 million smartphone shipments for 2024, a figure 40% higher than previous institutional forecasts. It is reported that the upcoming P70 series from Huawei will still feature the Kirin 9000S chip across the entire lineup, so Hisilicon's market share and ranking are expected to soar again this year.

Recently, Huawei Hisilicon released its key development plan for 2024—"Vivid Semiconductors," highlighting its passion and commitment to technological innovation and research. As one of the international leading technology leaders, Huawei's outstanding achievements in chip semiconductor research and development have been widely recognized by the industry and media.

Since the birth of the Kirin 9000S chip, Huawei Hisilicon has been continuously innovating and advancing, pushing its own chip production ratio to 70%, which has attracted much attention. Especially exciting is that they have gradually completed the localization process of EDA tools, including those for 14nm and above processes, which undoubtedly injects new vitality into the development of China's semiconductor industry. As the event theme "Vivid Semiconductors" suggests, Huawei Hisilicon has made great efforts in chip research and innovation, with ambitions clearly visible.

Recently, the new Kirin series chips developed by the Honor brand under Huawei have achieved remarkable results, with performance surpassing the current cutting-edge 7nm level, among which the highly anticipated Kirin 9000S stands out. In addition, the well-known Ascend 910B chip has also won widespread praise. What's more worth mentioning is Huawei's unique Lingxi instruction set, highlighting its in-depth research and strong capabilities in chip underlying technologies. Now, thanks to the support of its own architecture and self-developed instruction sets, Huawei has the ability to gradually replace ARM's chip technology and is committed to continuous improvement and perfection.

*Disclaimer: This article is the original creation of the author. The content of the article represents his personal views. Our reposting is solely for sharing and discussion and does not represent our approval or agreement. If you have any objections, please contact the backend.