Infineon takes number two position in cellular baseband market in Q3 2010

BOSTON, USA: Global cellular baseband revenues reached $3.4 billion in Q3 2010, registering a 12.6 percent year-on-year growth, according to the latest report from the Strategy Analytics Baseband Quarterly Metrics Service module, “BASEBAND Market Tracker: Infineon Grabs Second Spot in Q3 2010.” This report provisionally estimates that cellular baseband revenues for the first nine months in 2010 reached $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 Q3 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 Q3 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 Q3 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 Q3 2010.”

“Broadcom and Spreadtrum continued to gain market share in cellular basebands and showed impressive growth in units and revenue in Q3 2010,” commented Sravan Kundojjala, senior analyst. He added, “Strategy Analytics estimates that Broadcom and Spreadtrum together accounted for 12 percent of GSM/GPRS/EDGE baseband shipments in Q3 2010, up from just 7 percent in Q3 2009.”