ARM Holdings plc (NASDAQ:ARMH) (LON:ARM) continues to be a viable competitor to Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) and it is making even greater strides with its expanding semiconductor for machine businesses. This wide-reaching area encompasses cars and cutlery.
Called “embedded processing,” this represents the fastest-growing market for ARM Holdings plc (NASDAQ:ARMH) (LON:ARM) as it jumped 25 percent last year. For the first time in the third quarter, the company saw more than half of its product sales aside from mobile phones and in January, ARM Chief Executive forecast this growth will continue.
This comes as different companies are buying chips to create all sorts of products such as dashboard stereos, utility meters and additional everyday appliances that are more computer-like in nature, reported Bloomberg.
Embedded processors revenue is on the rise and has been estimated to increase to $47.3 billion in 2016, up 23 percent from 2012, according to researcher IDC. This is driving demand for ARM’s technology, reported Bloomberg, as its utilized by such as chipmakers as Freescale Semiconductor Ltd. (NYSE:FSL) and Texas Instruments Incorporated (NASDAQ:TXN).; this is assisting ARM is seeing an advantage versus Intel.
Mali Venkatesan, an IDC analyst, said to Bloomberg, “Intel is trying to get into the market, but ARM is already there.”
For Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC), it has had a tough time getting products into new markets. In 2012, the company had under 1 percent of the mobile-phone processor market and only 2 percent of shipments for embedded processors; IDC estimates this is a market that will rise to 3.65 billion processors in 2016, up from 2012’s 2.54 billion.
As for ARM Holdings plc (NASDAQ:ARMH) (LON:ARM), its embedded market share is estimated to hit 68 percent in 2016, up from 2012’s 60 percent. This will come from its intelligent systems, which are common devices that are increasingly more interactive via technology.
For Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC), its share will only rise 5 percent, predicts IDC. Its shipments are smaller than ARM’s and its embedded chips cost more but can do greater complex computing; this enables the company to have an unequal share of the market’s revenue, according to IDC.
Intel technology represented 20 percent of embedded processor revenues in 2012 as compared to ARM’s 30 percent. The balance had been distributed across other chipmakers.
ARM Holdings plc (NASDAQ:ARMH) (LON:ARM) also has momentum going in this area as device makers and their chip suppliers go to the company because of its smartphone dominance, which has made it easier and less expensive for software developers and engineers to standardize.
Hans Mosesmann, a Raymond James & Associates Inc. said to Bloomberg, “It has become ubiquitous and everyone wants to design off of it. It’s a monumental task to offset the tsunami that’s happening. We’re big fans of the non-smartphone part of their business.”
So what’s Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) to do? It’s not all gloom and doom.
The company is spending time on its automotive, retail and industrial-control markets. This comes as an attempt to “bring a greater ability to analyze data locally and keep it secure,” according said Ton Steenman, the head of Intel’s Intelligent Systems group.
In addition, the company’s chips and software are all over. They sit in phone systems, PepsiCo, Inc.’s (NYSE:PEP) smart vending machines, Bayerische Motoren Werke AG (ETR:BMW) (FRA:BMW) and Kia Motors Corporation (KRX:000270) cars, and in industrial tools.
Steenman told Bloomberg, “We are not building solutions today that control a little valve and doesn’t do much more than that. We are investing in the type of application where the richness of the data processing is a key attribute. That is where there is a lot more differentiated and sustainable value that can be created.”
