Counterpoint: shipments of smartphone chips with AI acceleration to grow 74% this year

Counterpoint Research has published its findings and predictions for the shipments of GenAI-capable smartphone chipsets. Generative AI or GenAI, is a catch-all term for text, image, audio and video models and these chipsets have hardware acceleration for them instead of having to offload the task to the cloud.

GenAI-capable chipsets will make up 35% of all smartphone chipsets that will be shipped this year, predicts Counterpoint. That would be a 74% year-on-year increase from 2024.

Interestingly, Apple is the leader with an expected 46% share, followed by Qualcomm with 35% and MediaTek with 12%.

Almost all (88%) of premium chipsets to be shipped this year support GenAI, a growth of 53% YoY driven by the arrival of new flagships from the major vendors: Apple A19 (Pro), Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 and Dimensity 9500.

However, this isn’t a feature that is exclusive to flagships. The mid-range smartphone segment ($300-$499) is seeing rapid growth – 3x increase compared to last year – and will make up 38% of the total number of GenAI-capable phones this year.

These are based on chips from the Snapdragon 7 and 6 series and the Dimensity 8000 series. Qualcomm leads the segment with a 57% share.

Via