Agentic AI-capable smartphone chips reach about 4% of shipments, Counterpoint says

Counterpoint Research said on May 15 that agentic AI-capable smartphone chip shipments reached about 4% of the market by the end of 2025, a figure the firm said was concentrated in premium Android devices. The research firm said Qualcomm and MediaTek are the two main chip vendors competing for early leadership in the category. (msn.com) Counterpoint described the segment as being in an early adoption phase, with devices moving beyond AI assistants toward systems that can handle more context-aware, multi-step tasks on the device. (communicationstoday.co.in) The figure refers to smartphone system-on-chip shipments rather than all phones in use, and it captures a narrow slice of the market at the end of 2025. Counterpoint said those chips are appearing first in higher-priced handsets because the hardware requirements are heavier, including advanced neural processing, faster memory bandwidth and more power-efficient manufacturing nodes. (marketdash.com) ### What does Counterpoint mean by an “agentic AI-capable” smartphone chip? Counterpoint said an agentic AI smartphone is one that can run AI systems able to understand context, plan actions, make decisions and execute multi-step tasks on behalf of the user. The firm distinguished that from earlier smartphone AI features centered on assistants or single prompts. (msn.com) The hardware list Counterpoint attached to that definition was specific. The firm said these devices generally need a high-performance NPU, TPU or Neural Engine with low-precision support such as INT2 or INT4, along with faster memory bandwidth, advanced cache architecture, near-compute processing or processing-in-memory, 4-nanometer-or-below process technology and sustained power efficiency for real-time workloads. (communicationstoday.co.in) ### Why is the 4% number concentrated in premium Android phones? Counterpoint said premium Android devices were the first landing spot because flagship chips and premium handset pricing can absorb the extra silicon area, memory and software optimization needed for on-device AI. The firm separately said premium Android smartphone SoC revenues rose 34% in 2024, driven in part by more powerful AI-capable platforms. (communicationstoday.co.in) Parv Sharma, a senior analyst at Counterpoint, said on May 6, 2025 that on-device AI capabilities were pushing SoC average selling prices and revenues higher because more powerful NPUs and larger die sizes were increasing semiconductor content and wafer costs. That helps explain why the earliest agentic AI chips have shown up first in flagship-tier devices rather than the mass market. (communicationstoday.co.in) ### Which companies got to market first? MediaTek launched the Dimensity 9400 on Oct. 9, 2024 and described it as a flagship smartphone chipset optimized for edge-AI applications. Counterpoint said MediaTek became the first chipset vendor to commercialize agentic AI capabilities through the Dimensity 9400 series. (communicationstoday.co.in) Qualcomm announced the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 on Sept. 24, 2025 at its Snapdragon Summit in Maui. Counterpoint said Qualcomm followed MediaTek with the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 and Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 platforms, then gained scale through partnerships with Samsung and Chinese smartphone makers. (counterpointresearch.com) Soumen Mandal, a principal analyst at Counterpoint, said Qualcomm “quickly gained scale advantage” through its premium Android partnerships, while MediaTek used its earlier move and Chinese OEM relationships to strengthen its position in high-performance AI processing. ### Where does Apple fit if Android is leading early shipments? (mediatek.com) Counterpoint said Apple did not have a dedicated agentic AI smartphone at the end of 2025. The firm said Apple’s custom silicon, Neural Engine, unified memory architecture and integrated ecosystem still position it for the transition. That leaves the early 2025 and 2026 installed base tilted toward Android vendors using Qualcomm and MediaTek chips, even as Counterpoint’s earlier generative-AI smartphone research had projected Apple would become a major participant once it entered the segment. (qualcomm.com) In April 2024, Counterpoint said Apple’s entry would help make AI a must-have feature in mid-to-premium launches starting in 2025. (communicationstoday.co.in) ### What numbers is Counterpoint pointing to next? Counterpoint said the next major marker is 2027. The firm’s projection, as cited in reports on May 14 and May 15, is that agentic AI-capable smartphone chip shipments will reach about 32% penetration by 2027, up from 4% at the end of 2025. (communicationstoday.co.in) Counterpoint’s report also said Qualcomm and MediaTek remain the main near-term competitors in the global race for those chips, while Apple, Samsung and Google are positioned as later or broader ecosystem participants. The firm’s latest figures were published in its Smartphone SoC AI Strategy Report and circulated publicly on May 15. (communicationstoday.co.in) (marketdash.com) (counterpointresearch.com)