The latest "2025 Global Smart Phone SoC Shipping and Forecast Tracking Report" released by Counterpoint, the shipment of smart phone SoCs with GenAI functions in 2025 will account for 35% of the global total and annual growth of 74%.
This longer-term energy mainly comes from the rapid penetration of GenAI functions at various price points. Apple is expected to be the leader in market share of 46%, with Qualcomm ranked second with 35%, and Joint Development ranked third with 12%.
To be the first priority, Apple and OpenAI have cooperated to deeply integrate ChatGPT into iOS, iPadOS and macOS, so that users can directly experience its functions. At the same time, Apple has also continued to develop its own generative models, including a 3 billion parameter device-side language model, and a larger server-side model accessible through Private Cloud Compute via Apple Silicon servers.
On Android, Qualcomm launched AI Orchestrator to help OEMs focus on application and service development without dealing with complex LLM, hardware and software integration; joint development technology further optimizes the AI performance of CPU, GPU and NPU through the NeuroPilot tool set. The two companies are actively cooperating with Chinese smart phone brands to ensure that the GenAI model can operate efficiently on their SoCs.
The shipment volume of high-level smart phone SoCs with GenAI capabilities is expected to increase by 53% year-on-year, of which 88% will support device-side GenAI. Apple's A19 and A19 Pro, Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, and Joint Technology's Dimensity 9500 will further accelerate GenAI's penetration in the high-level smart phone market.
Counterpoint research analyst Shivani Parashar believes that since the rapid rise of smart phone GenAI in 2024, the competition for high-efficiency AI computing units has become increasingly fierce. The peak AI performance of high-level mobile platforms in 2025 will exceed 100 TOPS, nearly four times higher than in 2021.
As GenAI continues to increase its penetration rate in high-level smart phones, the average sales price of SoC will continue to increase, mainly benefiting from the brand's introduction of more advanced processes and increasing the content of semiconductors such as CPU, GPU and NPU to enhance the support capabilities of GenAI on the device side.
Apple continues to lead the high-level GenAI SoC market through A series chips, combining Neural Engine with deep software and hardware integration to demonstrate highly optimized performance; on the other hand, Qualcomm has started a stable and high-level Android market position in Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, and has improved multi-mode AI capabilities through Hexagon AI engine; Development Technology has started to be an aggressive layout from the Dimensity 9300 series, emphasizing core architecture design, energy efficiency optimization and advanced LLM applications.
With the price range of US$300-499, the shipment of smart phone SoCs with GenAI capabilities will triple the year in 2025, with a market share of 38%. Qualcomm will lead with a market share of 57%, followed by Joint Development Technology. It is worth noting that CTIC was the first to introduce GenAI SoC through the Dimensity 8000 series at this price, while Qualcomm entered later to launch the Snapdragon 700 series, and began to use the Snapdragon 6 series to target the entry market between US$100 and US$299.
Counterpoint experienced analyst Parv Sharma said that the growth of GenAI SoC in the mid-price position mainly comes from the rapid penetration of GenAI SoC in the mid-price position. Smart phone brands hope to bring better experience to users through GenAI. SoC manufacturers are continuing to upgrade LLM to enable them to operate efficiently on mid-level devices. As new products at low prices gradually introduce GenAI functions in the future, the penetration rate will be further improved.