Qualcomm’s expansion into the PC market is failing – laptops on Snapdragon X occupied only 0.8% of the market

Qualcomm failed to quickly conquer the PC market: according to the results of the first full quarter since the release of Snapdragon X computer processors, total sales of laptops on these chips amounted to less than 720,000 units. This figure corresponds to a share of less than 0.8% of the total number of PCs sold worldwide during the same period – laptops with Qualcomm chips accounted for only one in 125 devices.

Image source: microsoft.com

Despite significant sales growth of 180% in the third quarter compared to the previous quarter, Snapdragon X occupied only a small segment of the Windows PC market – less than 1.5% of the ecosystem. Qualcomm has made some progress in penetrating consumer and business devices, and Microsoft and other popular brands have moved some of their offerings to Snapdragon X, but the market for such devices remains niche.

«In the first full quarter of Snapdragon X-powered PC shipments, we saw sequential growth of approximately 180% compared to Q2 2024. But in terms of share of the overall Windows market, products remain very niche with a share of less than 1.5%. The largest supplier turned out to be Microsoft, which transferred most of its Surface line to this platform. It is followed by Dell, which has actively adopted the new platform in terms of the number of SKUs, followed by HP, Lenovo, Acer and Asus (all four with similar volumes),” analytics company Canalys told TechRadar.

Sales of all systems in the AI ​​PC category show higher figures – 13.3 million such machines were sold in the third quarter, or 20% of all PCs. This category includes desktops and laptops with integrated processor accelerators designed specifically for AI workloads: AMD XDNA, Intel AI Boost, Qualcomm Hexagon and Apple Neural Engine. At the same time, PCs running Windows in this segment occupied only 53% – the rest was made up of Apple Macs. The growth in demand was facilitated by the Windows 11 update cycle and the release of new generation processors; Sales of PCs with AI grew 49% quarter-on-quarter.

For most consumers, AI support is not yet a determining factor for buying a PC, but competition is heating up among manufacturers and they are exploring unique strategies: HP bundles its products with AI software from third-party developers, and Lenovo has relied on its own AI tools. Apple has traditionally taken its own approach by starting to integrate AI into the ecosystem.