Look out, AMD, because Qualcomm is coming for your crown. During an annual investor day, Qualcomm executives shared that the company plans to ship $4 billion worth of CPUs for the laptop and PC market by 2029, placing it very close to AMD’s current regular revenue from Ryzen gaming CPUs.
If that came to pass, it might suggest AMD‘s supremacy over the gaming CPU market could be in danger. While the company has been trouncing Intel in the battle to produce the best gaming CPU in recent years, the duopoly is under threat from new pretenders like Qualcomm. Newer, energy efficient Arm CPUs, like Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X, are quickly gaining steam, especially in laptops and mobile devices.
As reported by CNBC, Qualcomm expects to make $22 billion each year by 2029, following a move into new markets as a way to reduce its reliance on its CPU revenue from smartphones. Of that $22 billion, $4 billion will come from chips it intends to make for the PC market, especially among laptops, with Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon telling investors that the company’s technologies are “very relevant to a number of different industries” beyond smartphones.
Qualcomm is a very new entrant into the PC market, with its Snapdragon chips only reaching Windows laptops this year, and it’s the laptop market where Qualcomm is likely to see the most success. Its latest Snapdragon X hardware has generally impressed, thanks in part to low power consumption, although Snapdragon X gaming performance isn’t good enough yet to make them interesting enough for gamers.
Right now, there’s a lot of uncertainty in the PC market for companies like Intel and AMD, but there’s no guarantee that Qualcomm can find success here the way it hopes. While AMD continues to see great success, AMD revenue from its client segment, which includes Ryzen gaming CPUs, was $4.7 billion in 2023 – 25% lower than it was the previous year.
That said, there are opportunities. Intel’s disastrous Arrow Lake launch and the Raptor Lake failures before it prove that gamers and PC builders will shift, should they need to, for better and more stable performance, at least over time. If Intel continues to fall back, and if AMD itself falters, then Qualcomm could have a bigger opportunity to upend the market in its favor.
Either way, Qualcomm’s aim to grab billions of dollars in market revenue for itself is a sure sign that it intends to muscle its way into the PC hardware market, one way or another, even if it involves buying its way in. Rumors about an Qualcomm takeover of Intel have persisted in recent months, following the torrid year that Intel has faced, with a share price drop and crashing Raptor Lake CPUs making it a tempting target.
While an Intel takeover might not be in the market’s wider interests, independent healthy competition from upstarts like Qualcomm could potentially benefit gamers, especially in a market where complacency can be disastrous. AMD is proving that itself, bossing it with 3D V-Cache CPUs that Intel just can’t seem to find an answer for, despite years of Intel dominance in the past. Qualcomm isn’t quite ready to challenge that power just yet, but that’s not to say that it can’t, or won’t, in the future.
Whatever happens, you’re a few years off a Qualcomm CPU if you’re planning to build a new gaming PC. So, in the meantime, take a look at our AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D review to see what we think about AMD’s new powerhouse. Although, with 9800X3D stock levels so low, you might be better placed to look through our AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D review instead.