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Google has a wonderfully frustrating practice of not revealing or sharing the number of phones that it sells in any given quarter or year. This leaves us looking to outside reports in an effort to get an idea of just how well Pixel sales actually are performing.
This brings us to a new report from Counterpoint Research, which breaks down the “Android smartphone SoC market”. In the report, we can see that MediaTek has dominated the sub-$299 market to the point where it’s actually overtaken Qualcomm in terms of overall market share.
At the end of 2021, MediaTek held a 46% market share in the Android space, while Qualcomm dropped down to 35%. That’s not to say that Qualcomm is down and out, as the company is still the de-facto choice for phone makers that want to release premium and flagship devices. Instead, Qualcomm has been losing out on the budget and mid-range race to MediaTek.
This shift in the market has allowed MediaTek to work on developing a true flagship Android chipset, with the Dimensity 9000 expected to arrive in the near future. But until we actually start seeing phones released with MediaTek’s chip, we’ll have to reserve our judgment as to whether Qualcomm has to start worrying.
If you look at the chart, you might notice a few green spots on the right side. No, there’s nothing wrong with your screen (presumably), but this is actually Google holding a bit of market share for its various devices in 2021. The Pixel 6 is represented in the $500-$699 range thanks to the Pixel 6, with the Pixel 6 Pro showing up between $700 and $900.
While it may not seem like this is a big deal, the truth is that it’s much bigger than you might think. Google didn’t officially release the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro until the tail-end of 2021, with the phones becoming available at the end of October. This gave Google just a couple of months compared to other devices powered by MediaTek and Qualcomm chipsets.
And that’s what makes this so impressive. In just two months, Google managed to at least make the list, even if it’s for just a couple of percentage points. Perhaps Google’s decision to throw a bunch of money into the marketing budget actually paid off for once. It will be interesting to see what the numbers were to look like today, but the real hope is that Google can continue this trend when it launches the Tensor-powered Pixel 6a and the rumored Tensor 2 chip along with the Pixel 7 and 7 Pro.
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