GenAI-capable smartphone shipments to grow over 4X by 2027 - Counterpoint Research

GenAI smartphone share of overall smartphone shipments will reach 11% by 2024 and 43% by 2027 to pass 550 million units in 2027 with 4X growth, according to an upcoming report, 'GenAI Smartphone Shipments and Insights', from Counterpoint Research's Smartphone 360 Service. We expect the GenAI smartphone installed base to cross 1 billion by 2027. Against the backdrop of Apple's anticipated entry into the segment later this year, these estimates are higher than Counterpoint’s earlier forecast of December 2023.

Counterpoint Research defines the GenAI smartphone as a mobile device that leverages large-scale, pre-trained generative AI models to create original content or perform contextually-aware tasks. We expect such devices to have multimodal capabilities, allowing them to process text, image, voice and other inputs to generate a variety of output and enable a user experience that is fluid and seamless. We expect the hardware specifications of such devices will likely evolve as the technology advances. But at present, a device should have hardware capabilities that are comparable to or exceed the performance of current flagship smartphones to effectively run generative AI models.

Going forward, we expect GenAI smartphones to hit an inflection point in 2025 as the devices permeate the broader price segments, especially the $400-$599 price tier. The ≥$600 and $400-$599 price bands will account for 9 out of every 10 GenAI smartphones sold in 2024. Leading chipset companies such as MediaTek and Qualcomm have already taken the lead in embracing generative AI smartphones. They have launched several mobile computing platforms that support multimodal large AI models on devices. We expect Qualcomm to lead in the AI SoC space in 2024, capturing almost half of all GenAI smartphone shipments, followed by MediaTek with a 13% share.

Read the full press release here.

Counterpoint Research