Global cellular baseband revenue reached $13.2 billion in 2010 showing an impressive 20 percent year-over-year growth while unit shipments grew 25.5 percent.

Here are some highlights from our cellular baseband market share estimates for 2010:

• Qualcomm ranked number one with 40 percent revenue share in 2010 with the hep of its strong market position in CDMA and W-CDMA markets. We believe much of the Qualcomm's growth came from smartphones and data-centric non-handset products. By our estimates, Qualcomm also ranked number one in the smartphone apps processor market in 2010.

• Despite shipping the most cellular baseband units in 2010, MediaTek struggled to increase its revenue share due to intense price competition in the low-end GSM/GPRS/EDGE (GGE) market from MStar and Spreadtrum. By our estimates, MediaTek ranked number one in GGE and TD-SCDMA markets. MediaTek couldn't ramp up its first W-CDMA baseband MT6268 shipments in 2010 and as a result the company had less than 1 percent unit shipment share in the W-CDMA market in 2010. MediaTek's recent MT6573 HSPA smartphone product compares well against competitors' products and should help the company to gain some traction in 2011.

• Through its acquisition of Infineon's wireless business, Intel ranked number four overall in units and revenue and the company's basebands featured in multiple high-volume products in 2011. By our estimates, Infineon ranked number two in the second half of 2010 in revenue terms behind Qualcomm. We think Intel's immediate task is to maintain this momentum and ramp up its HSPA+ platform XMM6260.

• Both Broadcom and Spreadtrum registered triple-digit year-over-year growth in 2010 in their baseband unit volume and revenue. We estimate that Spreadtrum shipped more basebands than Broadcom, Marvell and ST-Ericsson in the second half of 2010. Spreadtrum is well positioned to make further share gains with its upcoming 40 nm TD-SCDMA and GGE products. Broadcom benefited from its ramp ups at Nokia and Samsung while Spreadtrum gained from its international expansion in 2010.

• ST-Ericsson registered relatively flat growth in 2010. Strategy Analytics believes that ST-Ericsson's market share losses are bottoming out and the company is well positioned to improve its share from the second half of 2011 with its upcoming W-CDMA design-wins at tier-one OEMs. We think ST-Ericsson's renewed product portfolio positions the company well to compete in the smartphone market in 2011.

• Icera, a soft modem baseband vendor, also registered impressive growth in 2011 with its momentum in the mobile broadband market. We note that Icera is one of only a few companies to have market-ready HSPA+ and LTE basebands and chipsets. Marvell and VIA Telecom also made progress in 2010.

Looking ahead, we think secular trends such as radio technology shifts (to HSPA+ and LTE), accelerated smartphone adoption, mobile broadband and emerging markets will provide growth opportunities to cellular baseband vendors. We think radio technology shifts will also provide entry points to new vendors in future.

Last week we published our smartphone applications processor market share estimates for 2010. By our estimates, the smartphone applications processor market showed an impressive 77 year-over-year revenue growth in 2010 to reach $4.52 billion. Baseband-integrated applications processors accounted for 74 percent of total apps processor revenue in 2010 and we think it will remain relatively stable in the next few years.

Here are some highlights of our smartphone applications processor market share tracker 2010 report:

• Qualcomm led the smartphone applications processor market in 2010 with 41 percent revenue share on the strength of its strong participation in the multiple software ecosystems and its broad range of integrated processors. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon processors MSM8x50 and MSM7x30 gained good traction in the second half of 2010 and featured in multiple popular smartphones. We note that Qualcomm had over 50 percent revenue share lead over its nearest competitor Texas Instruments (TI). We believe that Qualcomm has a two-to-three year advantage over most of its competitors in terms of integration and is well positioned to move further ahead of its competitors with its upcoming MSM8960 LTE apps processor.

• TI ranked number two with 27 percent revenue share in 2010 despite topped the unit shipment rankings. TI’s stand-alone apps processor unit shipment share declined to 20 percent in 2010, by our estimates. We think TI's unit shipment leadership will be challenged by Qualcomm and Samsung in 2010.

• Samsung finished with 19 percent revenue share in 2010 and its unit shipments doubled on a year-over-year basis. Samsung's 1GHz Cortex-A8 Hummingbird apps processors featured in high-volume products such as Samsung Galaxy S, Wave and Wave II.

•  Marvell ranked number four in revenue terms but the company's over-dependency on a single customer is a cause for concern.

With over ten vendors already announced 1GHz dual-core Cortex-A9 processors, we expect 2011 to be highly competitive and ARM-based applications processor vendors should build competitive barriers by investing in graphics processing technologies, integration, micro architecture, multi-core processors, semiconductor process technologies and software expertise as the entry barrier is relatively low for new vendors to enter into the ARM-based ecosystem compared to the x86 chip ecosystem.

Client reading: Smartphone Apps Processor Market Share: Qualcomm’s Revenue Share Reached 41 Percent in 2010