The global smartphone applications processor (AP) market grew by a modest 1.5% from a year earlier in the second quarter of 2015, while the tablet AP sector saw an on-year decline for the second consecutive quarter, according to Strategy Analytics.

Qualcomm, Apple, MediaTek, Samsung LSI and Spreadtrum captured the top-five revenue rankings in the global smartphone AP market in the second quarter of 2015, when the market generated revenues of US$5 billion, said Strategy Analytics. Qualcomm maintained its smartphone AP market share leadership with 45% revenue share, followed by Apple with 19% revenue share and MediaTek with 18% revenue share.

Qualcomm's smartphone AP revenues declined 17% year-over-year in the second quarter of 2015, Strategy Analytics estimated. "Qualcomm continues to face a challenging market environment in 2015 as a result of lower volume contribution from its flagship Snapdragon 800 series of chips, increased competition from MediaTek and Samsung LSI and overall smartphone market slowdown," commented Sravan Kundojjala, associate director at Strategy Analytics.

"Strategy Analytics believes Qualcomm's upcoming Snapdragon 820 chip is shaping up to be a pivotal product in its history as the success of this chip likely to define Qualcomm's semiconductor future and Strategy Analytics feels Qualcomm's strong heritage in custom CPU, GPU and DSP architectures will help significantly in its mission to regain market share," Kundojjala continued.

After a difficult 2014, Samsung LSI continued to recover and more than doubled its smartphone AP shipments in the second quarter of 2015 compared to the same period last year. "Much of this success can be attributed Samsung LSI's 14 nm-based Exynos 7420 chip, which featured in multiple flagship devices from Samsung Mobile. Samsung LSI is also stepping up its efforts to expand into mid-range smartphones with the help of integrated APs," noted Stuart Robinson, executive director of Strategy Analytics' handset component technologies service.

The global tablet AP market declined 28% year-over-year to reach US$679 million in the second quarter of 2015, according to Strategy Analytics. Apple, Intel, Qualcomm, MediaTek and Samsung LSI captured the top-five revenue share rankings in the market during the quarter.

Apple led the tablet AP market with 27% revenue share, followed by Intel with 18% revenue share. Qualcomm ranked number three, narrowly behind Intel, said Strategy Analytics.

"For the second consecutive quarter the tablet AP market declined year-over-year, thanks to longer replacement cycles and strong competition from large screen smartphone devices," Kundojjala indicated. "Despite the slowdown, Intel maintained its top spot in the non-Apple tablet AP market in unit terms for five straight quarters since Q2 2014. Intel is well positioned to maintain this momentum with its broad portfolio of tablet APs, which support Android and Windows-based devices."

"Baseband-integrated tablet APs continued to gain traction and accounted for over 30% of total tablet AP shipments in Q2 2015. Qualcomm, MediaTek, Intel, Rockchip and Spreadtrum were prime beneficiaries of this growth. Strategy Analytics predicts this trend will continue in the next few quarters," said Robinson.