Arm CPUs forecast to capture a quarter of laptop market by 2027

[Shawn Knight]

In brief: Global PC shipments dipped more than 16 percent last year and the outlook for the majority of 2023 isn't much better, but there is at least one ray of hope in an otherwise stormy sky.

According to the latest data from Counterpoint Research, Arm-based laptops are on track to claim significant market share from traditional x86-based machines in the coming years.

Apple helped pave the way with the launch of its M1 SoC in late 2020, and successive iterations have only widened the company's lead in the space. In 2022, Apple led the Arm laptop market with a 90 percent share and helped push the category to a 13 percent overall laptop CPU market share.

Counterpoint's data jives with what IDC reported last month. If you recall, the market research firm said Apple shipped 7.5 million Macs in the fourth quarter and 28.6 million units for the full year. Among the top five major PC makers, Apple was the only one with positive year-over-year growth. The next closest was Asus with a 5.7 percent year-over-year decline in shipments.

Analysts with Counterpoint expect Arm-based machines to account for 15 percent of laptop shipments this year and 18 percent in 2024, thanks largely in part to increasing ecosystem support and a diminishing performance gap versus x86 offerings.

By that time, Counterpoint anticipates other major CPU providers like MediaTek and Qualcomm to have their Arm-based solutions ready to roll. Barring any unforeseen circumstances, one in four laptops sold in 2027 could be powered by an Arm processor.

Arm's gain will inevitably come at the expense of current market leaders AMD and Intel. Counterpoint believes Intel could suffer the most and forfeit nearly 10 percent of its market share to Arm systems in the next five years.

The overall PC market might not see a return to growth until late this year with a broader recovery expected in 2024. For now, as IDC put it, the consumer market remains a wildcard.

Image credit: Fritzchens Fritz

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https://www.techspot.com/news/97571-arm-cpus-forecast-capture-quarter-laptop-market-2027.html

 

[BadThad]

Very believable! For the average person CPU power is becoming less important as even the most basic modern CPU can handle the common tasks with no delay. The biggest issue with PC/laptop has been the use of craptastic rotating platter drives and, thank God, we've binned those in favor of SSD's which can make even a lowest level computer seem snappy.

 

[Axeia]

As AMD seems to refuse to make an APU powerful enough to make NVIDIA xx60 products irrelevant* an 'easy' way for arm to gain massive marketshare is to put some solid gfx power on at least one chip.

I hope they will and I hope that's the kick AMD needs to finally put all their puzzle pieces of infinity cache, RDNA3, chiplets and Zen together. The market has been ready for it since the last crypto boom, AMD is sleeping on it so I'd welcome someone else stepping in.

*The steam deck is a step in the right direction, but more performance and able to fit an AM4/5 socket would've been a massive hit. ARM would face the same challenge as Intel in having to quickly mature their gfx drivers.

 

[redgarl]

This is probably an April Fool in advance...

 

[VitalyT]

Arm's market share will come at the expense of AMD and Intel

They invited their own downfall, Intel in particular, pushing out 300W+ CPU-s like an answer to all prayers, and then patting themselves on the shoulder every time.

 

[psycros]

And what OS are all these ARM laptops going to run? Last I checked Microsoft only supports Windows for ARM on its own Surface devices, and an awful lot of important programs aren't built for Apple silicon yet (including a good number that DO run on the x86 Macs).

 

[kiwigraeme]

And what OS are all these ARM laptops going to run? Last I checked Microsoft only supports Windows for ARM on its own Surface devices, and an awful lot of important programs aren't built for Apple silicon yet (including a good number that DO run on the x86 Macs).

Definitely edge of the seat stuff for the next 10 years - as Apple knows it's about controlling the eyes , app store and subscriptions

Games are becoming more agnostic - so Steam on Linux - Steam on Chromebooks etc
I think Micro Soft has no choice but to do ARM windows - they try and make their big sellers available to everyone - revenue from Windows licenses are probably less and less - Probably still can do free upgrades from W7 to W10/11

MS lost a lot of future revenue losing the phone market
Handhold portables will bloom
Powerful Chromebooks on x86 or ARM will be pushed

Probably the only company not too nervous is Value as they stand to gain with agnostic platforms
Google has to make a commitment and go hard - Chinese OS could take over in some markets
MS has to embrace ARM and even android
Apple has to worry about just being a high cost niche player with limited stuff ( ie if stuff becomes agnostic except on Apples OS - then huge revolution in the open world - Apple users will be locked out )

MS can have game pass for ARM as well

 

[brucek]

On the one hand, it sounds reasonable; on the other, I feel like I've read this story every year for at least the last decade and it has yet to happen.

 

[Mr Majestyk]

This will seen to be a total load of horsesh!t come 2027. The improvements coming to x86 over the next 4 years are massive, hell even Arrow Lake will be a massive upgrade in [performance and more importantly efficiency. By 20027 we will have Zen 7 RDNA6 and Nova Lake and 4th gen Intel Xe graphics. Intel and AMD aren't just twiddling their thumbs. Qualcomm on the other hand I have little faith in ever attaining stated goals. But I hope they do because come 2027 we may have 3 major players for laptops outside of Apple.

 

[GeforcerFX]

And what OS are all these ARM laptops going to run? Last I checked Microsoft only supports Windows for ARM on its own Surface devices, and an awful lot of important programs aren't built for Apple silicon yet (including a good number that DO run on the x86 Macs).

asus, acer, samsung, and lenovo all make windows on arm laptops, all of them pretty much use the same qualcomm chips. Chromebooks have been using arm since there early days and still do today.


I am looking forward to this, I run all passively cooled laptops now since fan noise drives me insane and laptop fans are far worse then desktop fans where I have control over size and speed. ARM can be insanely fast while being passively cooled and by 2027 Microsoft and Linux distros will have there program support more ironed out.

 

[Tams80]

Definitely edge of the seat stuff for the next 10 years - as Apple knows it's about controlling the eyes , app store and subscriptions

Games are becoming more agnostic - so Steam on Linux - Steam on Chromebooks etc
I think Micro Soft has no choice but to do ARM windows - they try and make their big sellers available to everyone - revenue from Windows licenses are probably less and less - Probably still can do free upgrades from W7 to W10/11

MS lost a lot of future revenue losing the phone market
Handhold portables will bloom
Powerful Chromebooks on x86 or ARM will be pushed

Probably the only company not too nervous is Value as they stand to gain with agnostic platforms
Google has to make a commitment and go hard - Chinese OS could take over in some markets
MS has to embrace ARM and even android
Apple has to worry about just being a high cost niche player with limited stuff ( ie if stuff becomes agnostic except on Apples OS - then huge revolution in the open world - Apple users will be locked out )

MS can have game pass for ARM as well

The Chromebook market has utterly tanked.

 

[kiwigraeme]

The Chromebook market has utterly tanked.

It's a hard market all around - but if google does not optimize Steam , the Play store for Chromebooks they will continue to lose - Plus they need to do it for 3rd party vendors.
I don't download many apps - but assume most optimise for phones and not tablets.
I assume Apple has a defined system to ensure Ipad/phone - that both work well.

With faster processes full SOCs , APUs etc , full Oled screens coming cheaper etc

Google need to commit and commit hard - Look at MS with their phones - they lost a trillion dollars over a longtime

Google have to stop being lazy - get a linux tablet , steam integration , a chapbot for searches - then where is your money Google - Those tablets will stream media , cast to TVs etc .
Steam requirements will mean some standization .

As I said it's all about eyeballs, and controlling their sheep

Google may lose it search advantage - that leaves YT , and Docs - all their coming AI stuff - that's a huge income hit

Sometimes I think Google is run by *****s - afraid to compete with Apple head on - with 10 year security updates and well controlled app store , a premium service option etc

 

[zamroni111]

But qualcomm main agenda is putting 5g modem, not arm, in windows laptop.
Apple has proven that high end laptop buyers don't need built in cellular modems.

Nvidia might be new cpu player after qualcomm exclusivity deal with microsoft ends.
Nvidia arm cpu will be the biggest threat to Intel and amd consumer processor business

 

[mbk34]

It would of been interesting to have learnt what the key differences are between an x86 processor and one based on ARM. I'm a developer and I'll admit I haven't a clue. Is it just the instruction set? Is there a reason an application or O/S can't compile on both?

 

[neeyik]

It would of been interesting to have learnt what the key differences are between an x86 processor and one based on ARM. I'm a developer and I'll admit I haven't a clue. Is it just the instruction set? Is there a reason an application or O/S can't compile on both?

In short, Arm and x86 are two very different ISAs. The former is RISC, and the latter is essentially CISC, although modern x86 processors are all RISC at heart and have hardware that breaks down x86 instructions into threads of RISC-like instructions.

Consider the OS your computer is using -- to function correctly, it needs to be compiled for the target processor. So if you wanted a one-size-fits-all OS, you would need to have multiple compiled versions of the operating system on the boot medium, to cover each processor architecture. Then the computer's BIOS would need to run a boot-loading program that determines which OS version to execute. That's just far too messy, hence why there are different versions of Windows, Linux, et al for the target processor ISA.

 

[mbk34]

In short, Arm and x86 are two very different ISAs. The former is RISC, and the latter is essentially CISC, although modern x86 processors are all RISC at heart and have hardware that breaks down x86 instructions into threads of RISC-like instructions.

Consider the OS your computer is using -- to function correctly, it needs to be compiled for the target processor. So if you wanted a one-size-fits-all OS, you would need to have multiple compiled versions of the operating system on the boot medium, to cover each processor architecture. Then the computer's BIOS would need to run a boot-loading program that determines which OS version to execute. That's just far too messy, hence why there are different versions of Windows, Linux, et al for the target processor ISA.

It used to be that they'd only produce a single p-code compiler (which was a very simple language) for a given architecture then compilers for other languages would just compile into this simpler language before being turned into a runnable code. They probably use Java byte code or C++ now. In this way, an application, or OS, "should" compile onto any architecture. Has this way of doing things gone now?

 

[neeyik]

It used to be that they'd only produce a single p-code compiler (which was a very simple language) for a given architecture then compilers for other languages would just compile into this simpler language before being turned into a runnable code. They probably use Java byte code or C++ now. In this way, an application, or OS, "should" compile onto any architecture. Has this way of doing things gone now?

Applications can certainly compile into a variety of architectures -- that's how one is able to write software for, say, Android using a Windows-based computer, after all. Graphics card drivers do this too, compiling API instructions into the relevant GPU architecture being used.

Operating systems are rather different, though. Imagine how long it would take to boot your computer if it had to compile everything each time you fired it up!

 

[mbk34]

Operating systems are rather different, though. Imagine how long it would take to boot your computer if it had to compile everything each time you fired it up!

I think it would only have to compile the OS once, when you first install the OS. After that point it would run natively.

 

[neeyik]

I think it would only have to compile the OS once, when you first install the OS. After that point it would run natively.

True, and that's a good point, but still -- that first boot would be a bit of a grim time. For better or worse, the industry has been x86-based for over 40 years now, so there's no real need to have an OS capable of compiling for multiple ISAs. Not to mention every time a new ISA does get released (e.g. SIMD extensions), the response by Microsoft, et al is nearly always half-hearted.