The handset chip market has gone through some rapid changes over the past 3 years and only a handful of the remaining players have long-term viability and sustainable profitability. We estimate that the total cellular baseband revenues in 2008 were $11.15 billion and $11.04 billion in 2009 (provisional).

Some of the highlights of Strategy Analytics' Quarterly Baseband Share Tracker for Q3 2009,

* Qualcomm was the market leader with 38 % revenue share and 19 % unit share;

* MediaTek was second only to Qualcomm in terms of unit and revenue share;

* Broadcom and Infineon are improving market share and expanding at their respective key customers. We estimate Broadcom's cellular baseband revenues grew 350 % in 2009. However, Broadcom is still a minor player in the cellular baseband market but is expected to be an important player in 2010;

* ST-Ericsson ranked fourth with close to 10 % baseband revenue market share;

* Texas Instruments' baseband revenues were down almost 33 % on a Y-o-Y basis in Q3 2009.

With Texas Instruments and Freescale exiting from the cellular baseband market, Strategy Analytics believes that Qualcomm, ST-Ericsson, MediaTek, Infineon and Broadcom are well positioned to remain long-term players. However, new entrants are likely to appear as demand increases for LTE and TD-SCDMA chips.

- Sravan Kundojjala