In the case of Apple computers, ARM processors are still being heralded by various mouths as the future and a technologically superior architecture, but they are not gaining ground in normal PCs yet. Microsoft promises more popularity of the combination of ARM and Windows from the new Qualcomm Snapdragon X processors with the long-awaited Oryon architecture from Nuvia. Now we have the first numbers showing how they are doing in sales and whether those dreams are coming true.
Data on the sales of ARM computers with Snapdragon X Elite and Plus processors from PC sales analysis by Canalys has now hit the Internet. The details of this paid report are not publicly available, but some have been published by TechRadar Pro, albeit somewhat vaguely. However, these are the first more specific data, so it’s the first time we can somehow quantify how much these computers are sold.
According to Canalys (or as interpreted by TechRadar Pro), 720,000 of these processors, or more precisely laptops with them, have been sold so far. Unfortunately, it is not entirely clear from the wording whether it is a figure calculated from the release of this platform until the end of the third quarter (sales started already in Q2 2024, June 18), or only for the third quarter (Q3 2024), for which the analysis was prepared. Logically, the data for the fourth quarter is not yet available.
In the worst case, sales in the third quarter alone should be around 530,000 units, and in those first days of sales at the end of June, just under 190,000 units were sold in the first wave. You can tell by the fact that, according to Canalys, 180% more Snapdragon X PCs were sold in the third quarter than in that incomplete second quarter. For Qualcomm, this would give it a market share of 0.8% among Windows-only PCs (excluding Apple’s) in the third quarter.
However, Canalys told TechRadar that Qualcomm’s share of the Windows PC segment was less than 1.5% in the third quarter, which is inconsistent with last year. So it’s possible that his analysis was misquoted, and that the 720,000 Snapdragon PCs are actually just the number for the third quarter alone. This would also be logical, since analytical firms report data primarily for individual quarters.
If it were like this and the 720k was only for the third quarter alone, and at the same time it should be 180% more than in Q2, then the sales for the second quarter (in that short period of 6/18-30) should be around 257 thousand pieces. In total, Qualcomm would have almost a million sales for Q2 + Q3. Sales during October and November probably got him over that line.
Is it not enough?
The comments that have appeared on the Internet about these numbers talk about a small or minimal share, but in our opinion, 0.8-1.5% is not too little. Apple’s personal computer market share is 7.8% (with 5.3 million devices sold in the third quarter). At the same time, its ARM processors claim to be an enormous success and also have a savvy marketing and financial machine behind them, plus of course all Apple customers simply buy these processors whether they want to or not. If computers with a Qualcomm processor and Windows reached about a tenth (or a little more) after the premiere, it is not exactly small.
How much market share Qualcomm would need to make Windows laptop processors worthwhile is another matter. It is quite possible that a 1.0-1.5% share is not enough for this. The ARM platform would also need a significantly larger “installed base” in order for software authors to pay more attention to it and release their programs in the ARM version as well. Seen realistically, the prospect of a million laptops sold this year is not a flop.
It is a little worse from the point of view of notebook manufacturers, because most of the major brands have introduced them, and the numbers for individual types and manufacturers are already small, which is not economically favorable. According to Canalys, Microsoft’s Surface family of devices were the most successful, followed by Dell’s offering. Acer, Asus, HP and Lenovo had smaller sales.
Revealing Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite processors
In any case, it will be important how the success of ARM processors with customers continues to develop. In any case, Microsoft and Qualcomm are probably ready to work on the ARM platform for the long term, because it has been on the market since 2018.
And at least for Microsoft, it is probably a strategic necessity, because it cannot afford to be unprepared for the eventuality that the x86 processor platform would catastrophically lose its competitiveness against ARM processors. Without Windows being prepared for such a scenario in advance, the personal computer market outside the Apple bubble would probably be dominated by Google with the Android and ChromeOS systems (classic desktop Linux probably doesn’t have much of a chance due to its fragmentation and the fact that it is not backed by a similar technological giant capable of determining market development).
Resources: TechRadar Pro
Source: www.cnews.cz
