I agree. Qualcomm is dominant, but not quite "Intel-dominant" in mobile, especially when Apple makes another few hundred millions chips of its own.
That said, it's becoming increasingly worrisome that so many OEMs just "default to Qualcomm" these days. If I were Samsung's CEO I'd put much stronger focus on making my own chips and putting them in my own devices (just like Apple), while also selling them to others, just like they sell their Super AMOLED displays and so on. I would also buy out AMD, mostly for their GPU expertise, but also to enter in the server/data-center market, which is more profitable than the mobile market. Samsung has the money and marketing clout to do much bigger things than AMD can do right now alone.
I don't know what the hell Nvidia is doing in mobile, but they always seem to screw something up. Their non-focus on energy efficiency in "mobile" and their focus on "performance" for umm..tablets, has proven to be a mistake with every single chip generation. Stop it, Nvidia! You need to win smartphones, not tablets, which are a dying breed already. And to do that you need low-end chips as well not just "PC-class mobile chips", otherwise you'll never get the market share you need to help you become "popular" in the mobile market.
And finally Intel - oh, Intel, how I despise thee. Two main reasons why I don't want Intel to win even 5 percent of the mobile market. Short version: 1) they are anti-competitive, 2) they don't deserve it.
Long version - Intel has started having quite the "monopolist culture" a while ago (at least a decade). They've learned that playing the monopolist card when in power "works" (to crush competitors and entrench themselves in the market), and they try to use it as often as they can and to the limit of the law (or even well beyond it, if no one is paying attention). Intel has almost wiped out GPU vendors from laptops through strongarming of OEMs and shady pricing tactics and, with Broadwell and Skylake having an even bigger focus on GPU performance, I predict within 2 years no one will even hear about an Nvidia GPU in an Intel-based laptop (unless we're talking $2000+ machines - maybe).
They also have a monopoly in CPUs for PCs and are now using the profits they get there to sell their their Atom chips below cost (a practice that's illegal in many countries, but either they aren't paying attention or Intel manages to twist that into some kind of "business deal" they are making with OEMs).
That's just the anticompetitive part. The "don't deserve it" part comes from the fact that Atom sucks compared to the highest-end ARM chips, even though it's built on 22nm FinFET, and those ARM chips are built on 28nm planar (if we're to compare them at the time of market launch) - essentially a 3 year/one node and a half process advantage for Intel. So they are trying to push bad products into the market and gain market share by selling them below cost to trick some OEMs into accepting their chips. And I say "trick" because that's what it is - at best, a short term advantage of them, because if Intel would ever have even 20 percent of the mobile chip market, those same OEMs would have to pay them more than what they pay for ARM chips, because it's "Intel".
So many other shady Intel practices such as tricking consumers into thinking "Celeron" chips are Celeron, when in fact they are Atom, lying about the real TDP/power values of their chips to make it seem like their PC chips are almost comparable to ARM (while being misleading about the fact that they also have much lower performance) and so on. Intel is a shady company through and through when it comes to selling its products.
> Intel has almost wiped out GPU vendors from laptops through strongarming of OEMs and shady pricing tactics
You forgot one point: good (open-source) drivers. Intel drivers Just Work (tm), no matter if the OS is Windows, Linux or OSX. AMD/ATI drivers... not so much, and NVidia's work, but are still closed-source.
And the "The drivers Just Work" doesn't end for Intel in GPU drivers, but also the other driver classes - just take wireless and chipsets. One driver package for all, supplied by Intel, no need to hunt down obscure czech or russian sites for drivers (hello, Atheros).
You shouldn't need to look very hard for Atheros drivers, since they're often included in the kernel. At the very least, they're in your distribution's repository, since they're not proprietary.
I'm talking about Windows here, to be honest. I use both Windows and Linux and, well, when I configure laptops, I always use Intel (and NV for the GPU) components because they are guaranteed to work without spending hours on Google.
Ooh it really grinds my gears imagining how much Intel might charge for mobile chips if they hypothetically had more market share. Oh that imaginary Intel really will stop at nothing!
Like the way they illegally sell their Atom chips cheaply and get away with it! They probably do it legally somehow but don't let that stop you hating them! Grr! Grr!
Come on, look how the competitive Atom chips are made with better technology! Why can't Intel use worse technology like Arm does and then we'd see how ... worse their chips are after forcing them to be worse!
That said, it's becoming increasingly worrisome that so many OEMs just "default to Qualcomm" these days. If I were Samsung's CEO I'd put much stronger focus on making my own chips and putting them in my own devices (just like Apple), while also selling them to others, just like they sell their Super AMOLED displays and so on. I would also buy out AMD, mostly for their GPU expertise, but also to enter in the server/data-center market, which is more profitable than the mobile market. Samsung has the money and marketing clout to do much bigger things than AMD can do right now alone.
I don't know what the hell Nvidia is doing in mobile, but they always seem to screw something up. Their non-focus on energy efficiency in "mobile" and their focus on "performance" for umm..tablets, has proven to be a mistake with every single chip generation. Stop it, Nvidia! You need to win smartphones, not tablets, which are a dying breed already. And to do that you need low-end chips as well not just "PC-class mobile chips", otherwise you'll never get the market share you need to help you become "popular" in the mobile market.
And finally Intel - oh, Intel, how I despise thee. Two main reasons why I don't want Intel to win even 5 percent of the mobile market. Short version: 1) they are anti-competitive, 2) they don't deserve it.
Long version - Intel has started having quite the "monopolist culture" a while ago (at least a decade). They've learned that playing the monopolist card when in power "works" (to crush competitors and entrench themselves in the market), and they try to use it as often as they can and to the limit of the law (or even well beyond it, if no one is paying attention). Intel has almost wiped out GPU vendors from laptops through strongarming of OEMs and shady pricing tactics and, with Broadwell and Skylake having an even bigger focus on GPU performance, I predict within 2 years no one will even hear about an Nvidia GPU in an Intel-based laptop (unless we're talking $2000+ machines - maybe).
They also have a monopoly in CPUs for PCs and are now using the profits they get there to sell their their Atom chips below cost (a practice that's illegal in many countries, but either they aren't paying attention or Intel manages to twist that into some kind of "business deal" they are making with OEMs).
That's just the anticompetitive part. The "don't deserve it" part comes from the fact that Atom sucks compared to the highest-end ARM chips, even though it's built on 22nm FinFET, and those ARM chips are built on 28nm planar (if we're to compare them at the time of market launch) - essentially a 3 year/one node and a half process advantage for Intel. So they are trying to push bad products into the market and gain market share by selling them below cost to trick some OEMs into accepting their chips. And I say "trick" because that's what it is - at best, a short term advantage of them, because if Intel would ever have even 20 percent of the mobile chip market, those same OEMs would have to pay them more than what they pay for ARM chips, because it's "Intel".
So many other shady Intel practices such as tricking consumers into thinking "Celeron" chips are Celeron, when in fact they are Atom, lying about the real TDP/power values of their chips to make it seem like their PC chips are almost comparable to ARM (while being misleading about the fact that they also have much lower performance) and so on. Intel is a shady company through and through when it comes to selling its products.