Friday, February 7th 2025
Qualcomm CEO Claims Positive Growth For Snapdragon X Elite-Powered Laptops
Ever since Apple graced the industry with its M-series chips, Windows enthusiasts have been holding out for a similar Arm-powered revolution for Windows laptops. Qualcomm attempted to do just that with its Snapdragon X Elite chip, advertising performance and efficiency that trades blows with Apple Silicon, while outpacing x86-based laptops in battery life. In reality, the X Elite SoC did bring impressive efficiency to the table, although its CPU performance and efficiency were soon bested by AMD's offerings, while the Adreno iGPU struggled to keep up with even last-gen counterparts since day-one.
Moreover, software compatibility was a major hurdle, making the X Elite systems borderline unusable for professionals with specific requirements that do not have Arm-native alternatives. As a result, the X Elite laptops had a sub 1% market share last fall - a daunting figure considering that Qualcomm had initially targeted 30 - 50% market share by 2029. That said, the story appears to be taking somewhat of a positive turn, with CEO Christiano Amon asserting that Snapdragon X-powered laptops accounted for over 10% of all $800+ laptops sold in December, in the US. Of course, the statement clearly addresses a very specific segment of the market, which makes the 10%+ number more modest that it may appear on paper.
With the newly unveiled entry-level Snapdragon X processor now targeting the $600 laptop segment as well, an increase in demand may be foreseen, which will incentivize app developers to take Windows on Arm more seriously, thereby leading to a positive-feedback loop of consumer demand driving compatibility progress. That said, both Intel and AMD are by no means sitting on the sidelines, making the arena even more challenging for Qualcomm to break into. Things may take yet another positive turn for the company in the coming quarters, but that, of course, remains to be seen.
Source:
Notebookcheck
Moreover, software compatibility was a major hurdle, making the X Elite systems borderline unusable for professionals with specific requirements that do not have Arm-native alternatives. As a result, the X Elite laptops had a sub 1% market share last fall - a daunting figure considering that Qualcomm had initially targeted 30 - 50% market share by 2029. That said, the story appears to be taking somewhat of a positive turn, with CEO Christiano Amon asserting that Snapdragon X-powered laptops accounted for over 10% of all $800+ laptops sold in December, in the US. Of course, the statement clearly addresses a very specific segment of the market, which makes the 10%+ number more modest that it may appear on paper.
15 Comments on Qualcomm CEO Claims Positive Growth For Snapdragon X Elite-Powered Laptops
Apple 15%
AMD 25%
Intel 25%
Qualcomm 15%
Nvidia 10%
Other (Mediatek, Huawei, RISC-V, etc) 10%
OSes might include Windows, MacOS, ChromeOS (or Android), SteamOS, other Linux distros
My prediction is ARM will continue to push out x86, first in the mobile space and later, once drivers and applications have matured, out of the desktop space as well.
I expect migration will accelerate as PCIe and driver support increases because a lot of us are awaiting the moment it becomes easy to add a modern dGPU to an ARM system and by easy I mean in the same way it is with x86 today. I think that'll happen within then a decade because the piece of the pie is just to big and juicy for companies to ignore and when it does ARM will roll over x86.
I've said it before: x86 is already dead. It'll continue to kick and scream for a few decades in the same way some places still use mainframes from the 70s but that's it.
The last time I said it I ruffled quite a few feathers so feel free to come at me with your arguments
:ohwell:
People are deluding themselves into thinking ARM will easily take over the PC market. This is a billion-dollar game, and Qualcomm made a misstep. Will it take another generation or two before they finally give up? :p
Therefore, NO compelling reason to switch and buy ARM, even if it ran everything right, which is doesn't
- x86: Stablished desktop/laptop dominance.
- ARM: Power-efficient and cheap.
Right now ARM cannot not compete simply because a lot existing software and hardware cannot not be used with it. That'll solve itself as more ARM devices hit the market, which will happen simply because ARM is cheaper both to licence and to manufacture and Microsoft made it easier in general by releasing Windows for ARM.The remaining issue is getting people to switch. Most people will have no issues whatsoever as long as the software they use works fine and that include the whole of the Education sector where cost is a major concern. From there on is just a matter of time.
The key to all of this is the price. If ARM devices cost less and sell at at reasonable price they'll take over without too much trouble. The lower the price compared to x86 in the same relative performace tier the faster ARM will take over.
TL;DR "cheap" is power. Just look at how many companies are manufacturing x86 vs ARM.
Meanwhile, x86 is still the target for modern software development.You say cheap, yet all the "windows ARM" laptops out there are monstrously expensive compared to their x86 counterparts, and anything not optimized specifically for ARM runs like total dogshit.
There's also the subject of more powerful ARM devices, where you cant just throw 100 cores at something. When it comes to scaling up the cores ARM has repeatedly run into roadblocks. That will be a sticking point in the desktop space for some time to come.
Globally apple is about 8% now, but 16% in US.
So this equates to in 5 years:
Apple doubling or flat
AMD flat
Intel shrinks at expense of Qualcomm, a large company who can't get out of the way of Microsoft's platform issues, Nvidia a company who doesn't have any consumer platform currently, 2 companies who are so far away from the PC market that they can barely manage to run Linux due to not upstreaming kernel support, and finally RISC-V.
I dunno about that. Perhaps intel shrinks, amd grows, and qualcomm starts to become seen in the wild. I expect seeing RISC-V out in public in 2030 to be as common as seeing someone running with a librem or pinephone.I think it's even harder than price. It's also about having a supply and support chain.
ARM doesn't sell direct, so you get ARM by Lenovo or someone else selling a whole computer.
Apple can make an ARM laptop because they own the whole chain.
Dell, Lenovo, etc... they use a CPU made by someone else, and combine it with a motherboard platform including firmware and drivers written by someone else.
An ARM chip can be for sale and Dell & Lenovo may still not use it.
Consider that AMD chips were and have been better than Intel chips for a while and it's still taking time for these companies to make the AMD models good, available, common.
Additionally businesses. They use some of the most entrenched & incompatible software out there. They're gonna be stuck on whatever platform their software allows, and that software will be updated uh... who knows when.
Being dead doesn't mean they've ceased to exist. It just means they became irrelevant and they did so because they lost the cost war.
When I say x86 is dead I don't mean it will dissapear completely. It'll just loose relevance to ARM until they're as irrelevant as mainframes are today.