ARM Holdings PLC, which designs chips used in smart devices including Apple Inc’s iPhones and iPads, expects half of this year’s 1.5 billion smartphones to be equipped with its latest 64-bit processor, which runs faster and delivers better-quality videos, a company executive said yesterday.
Approximately 75 percent of the new Android-based smartphones introduced at the Mobile World Congress this year have been based on ARM’s latest 64-bit processor, ARMv8-A, Ian Thornton, the head of ARM’s investor relations division, told a news conference in Taipei.
Half of those phones comes from China, he added.
“In 2015, smartphones shipping in 2015, we believe half of them will be based on ARMv8-A,” Thornton said. “The 50 percent on ARMv8-A is based on our analysis looking at the product lines of our customers’ customers, which are handset OEMs, [and] what they are telling us about the orders from mobile operators.”
The penetration rate could go up to 80 to 90 percent next year, he said.
Going against the usual model of putting new chips in high-end phones first and then into mid-range and entry-level models, Thornton said that “ARM’s latest 64-bit processor appears to be in all smartphones all at the same time, from entry-level to premium devices.”
Those new 64-bit smartphones fall in a wide price range from US$100 to US$750, according to the Cambridge, UK-based company.
LG Electronics Co’s flagship model, Flex2, HTC Corp’s (宏達電) Desire 820, Samsung Electronics Co’s Galaxy A7 and Xiaomi Corp’s (小米) Redmi 2 are among those phones, according to ARM.
Most of ARMv8-A-based smartphone chips are to start shipping in the second quarter, Thornton said.
ARM commands an 85 percent share of chips used in smart devices market worldwide.
“Fifty percent penetration for this year is quite a realistic forecast as Apple Inc and Samsung’s flagship phones are outfitted with 64-bit processors,” TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) analyst Avril Wu (吳雅婷) said by telephone.
“MediaTek Inc (聯發科) and Qualcomm Inc have factored in this trend in their product design. Such 64-bit processors will help lift average selling prices for chip designers,” Wu said. “However, end demand could be a concern as a strong US dollar could increase handset costs and dampen demand from China and emerging markets.”
In addition to its strength in mobile device chips, Thornton said server chip business is a future growth force and ARM is targeting a boost in its share of the world’s server chip market to 20 percent in 2020, compared with less than 1 percent last year.
In the fourth quarter of last year, Hewlett Packard Co shipped its first ARM-based server solutions to its customers.
Thornton said ARM may start to see the first ARM-based server deployment sometime towards the end of this year.
The global server market is expected to grow at an annual compound growth rate of 12 percent to 100 million units in 2020, compared with 50 million chips last year, according to ARM’s forecast.
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