Infineon takes Top2 in cellular baseband market in 3Q/2010

This report provisionally estimates that cellular baseband revenues for the first nine months in 2010 reached USD 9.4 billion. Strategy Analytics reports that the lead up to the end-of-year holiday season helped most baseband vendors to register impressive growth in terms of both units and revenue. Qualcomm led the cellular baseband market in 3Q/2010, with the help of its strong position in the CDMA and W-CDMA baseband markets. Infineon, Broadcom, Spreadtrum, Icera, Marvell and VIA Telecom all made significant progress in 3Q/2010, while MediaTek and ST-Ericsson struggled to increase their revenue share in the face of stiff competition. 2010 is proving to be a challenging year for MediaTek after several years of growth from 2004 to 2009. According to Stuart Robinson, Director of the Handset Component Technologies service: “Infineon rose to the number two revenue position in 3Q/2010, on the strength of several of high-volume design wins at tier-one handset OEMs. Strategy Analytics estimates that Apple accounted for over one-third of Infineon’s baseband revenues in 3Q/2010.” "Broadcom and Spreadtrum continued to gain market share in cellular basebands and showed impressive growth in units and revenue in 3Q/2010. Strategy Analytics estimates that Broadcom and Spreadtrum together accounted for 12% of GSM/GPRS/EDGE baseband shipments in 3Q/2010, up from just 7% in 3Q/2009", commented Sravan Kundojjala, Senior Analyst.