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Mobile devices 'drive surge' in applications processors / Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Applications processors witnessed a year of solid growth in 2007 as the technology matured and demand for mobile multimedia devices increased, new research has revealed.
Analyst IDC found that growth in the applications processor market also encouraged the spread of multimedia capabilities from high-end mobile phones and smart phones to a much wider range of mobile and consumer devices.
It highlighted mobile internet devices (MIDs), personal navigation devices (PNDs) and several other industry-specific devices as the new technologies benefiting most from this trend.
"While 2006 was the year multimedia functionality gained traction on mobile phones, 2007 was the year when it hit full stride and started expanding into other devices," said Flint Pulskamp, programme manager for wireless semiconductors at IDC.
She noted that revenues reached $2.9 billion (£1.62 billion) in 2007 - a 14 per cent increase from the previous year - adding that the top three suppliers controlled more than 50 per cent of the market.
Earlier this month, IDC reported that the global market for external disk storage systems witnessed 16.7 per cent growth year-over-year in the second quarter of 2008, its biggest quarterly increase in over two years.