The latest research from market research company Strategy Analytics (SA) has revealed how the mobile processor market is cashing in on midrange smartphones, increasingly introducing better specs at more affordable price points. 

According to SA’s handset component technologies (HCT) service report, the global multi-core smartphone applications processor market registered more than two-fold year-on-year growth in the first half of 2013. This report provides details of worldwide single-core, dual-core, quad-core and octa-core smartphone applications processor shipments up to Q2 2013.

Qualcomm leads the SoC maker pack

SA stated that Qualcomm led the multi-core smartphone applications processor market, with a 43% volume share. The SoC (system-on-a-chip) maker provides the processing power for a plethora of Android-powered smartphones including the LG G2, Sony Xperia Z1 and Xperia Z Ultra, as well as every single Windows Phone running handset. Hot on the heels of Qualcomm are Apple, Samsung, MediaTek and ST-Ericsson.

Sravan Kundojjala, senior analyst at SA, asserted that Qualcomm managed to land the top spot thanks to the popularity of its Snapdragon 600 (LG Optimus G Pro; HTC One), 400 (Samsung Galaxy S4 mini; HTC One mini) and 200 series of mobile CPUs. The chip maker’s multi-core SoCs were employed in smartphones across every price range, helping to boost its mobile CPU market share past the previous multi-core chip king of the hill - Apple.

To the point

“Single-core apps processors have the highest penetration of integrated chips, while quad-core apps processors are predominantly stand-alone chips at present. This can be attributed to the complexity and time it takes to design and certify an integrated quad-core chip,” said Stuart Robinson, director of SA’s HCT service.

“Qualcomm, a strong proponent of integrated chips, gained market share in the multi-core market with stand-alone chips initially. However, we expect Broadcom, Marvell, MediaTek, Qualcomm and Spreadtrum to proliferate the market with low-cost baseband-integrated quad-core chips,” Robinson concluded.

In other mobile processor related news, Samsung recently revealed its heterogeneous multiprocessing solution for the Exynos 5 Octa, which will enable the eight-core processor to employ all of its cores at the same time.