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>In particular, see their attempts to break into mobile chip land; I wouldn't exactly say it was a failure, all those chips ended up being used in the Nintendo

>In particular, see their attempts to break into mobile chip land; I wouldn't exactly say it was a failure, all those chips ended up being used in the Nintendo Switch

rsynnott 1y ago
If you are aiming to have your chips in a decent portion of all mid/high-end phones sold, which they appear to have been aiming for, then the Nintendo Switch isn't really that much of a consolation prize. The Switch had very high sales... for a console, with 150 million over 7 years. Smartphone sales peaked at 1.5 billion units a year. You'd probably prefer to be Qualcomm than Nvidia in this particular market segment, all things considered.
- oblio 1y ago
  Yearly global smartphone sales are around 300 million.
  - rsynnott 1y ago
    ... Where are you getting that? The iPhone _alone_ sells about 200 million units a year. There are almost 5 billion smartphone users; sales of 300 million a year would imply that those are only replaced every 16 years, which is obviously absurd.
    - oblio 1y ago
      Oh, that was quarterly: https://canalys.com/newsroom/global-smartphone-market-q2-2025 https://canalys.com/newsroom/global-smartphone-market-q2-202... On a separate note, speaking of the average lifespan of a phone, I'm fairly sure that with how expensive they're becoming, smartphone lifespans are increasing. Especially with: * hardware performance largely plateauing (not in the absolute sense, that of "this phone can do most of what I need") * the EU pushing for easy battery and screen replacement and also for 7 years of OS updates * the vast majority of phones having cases to protect against physical damage
      - rsynnott 1y ago
        Yeah, peak sales per year were a few years back. People are definitely keeping them longer than they used to.
xgkickt 1y ago
I thought those came from the automotive sector.
- rsynnott 1y ago
  Nah, they also managed to fob them off on the auto sector to some extent, but they were originally envisaged as a mobile chip.

>In particular, see their attempts to break into mobile chip land; I wouldn't exactly say it was a failure, all those chips ended up being used in the Nintendo Switch

rsynnott 1y ago

If you are aiming to have your chips in a decent portion of all mid/high-end phones sold, which they appear to have been aiming for, then the Nintendo Switch isn't really that much of a consolation prize. The Switch had very high sales... for a console, with 150 million over 7 years. Smartphone sales peaked at 1.5 billion units a year. You'd probably prefer to be Qualcomm than Nvidia in this particular market segment, all things considered.

oblio 1y ago
Yearly global smartphone sales are around 300 million.
- rsynnott 1y ago
  ... Where are you getting that? The iPhone _alone_ sells about 200 million units a year. There are almost 5 billion smartphone users; sales of 300 million a year would imply that those are only replaced every 16 years, which is obviously absurd.
  - oblio 1y ago
    Oh, that was quarterly: https://canalys.com/newsroom/global-smartphone-market-q2-2025 https://canalys.com/newsroom/global-smartphone-market-q2-202... On a separate note, speaking of the average lifespan of a phone, I'm fairly sure that with how expensive they're becoming, smartphone lifespans are increasing. Especially with: * hardware performance largely plateauing (not in the absolute sense, that of "this phone can do most of what I need") * the EU pushing for easy battery and screen replacement and also for 7 years of OS updates * the vast majority of phones having cases to protect against physical damage
    - rsynnott 1y ago
      Yeah, peak sales per year were a few years back. People are definitely keeping them longer than they used to.

xgkickt 1y ago

I thought those came from the automotive sector.

rsynnott 1y ago
Nah, they also managed to fob them off on the auto sector to some extent, but they were originally envisaged as a mobile chip.