Intel Corp (INTC)

[Ideal_Inv]

Consumers aren't the ones picking the components, OEMs are.

Consumers do, indirectly though.


If I ran a company that built smartphones in this highly competitive market, I would not want my competitors to have an edge on me. People would use my "dual core" phones as a weakness in all marketing/promotional materials.

It depends on which segments the OEM wants to play in. Apple targets the premium segment only, Samsung perhaps the medium-to-high tiers, and other OEMs like Asus mostly targets the value segments. The key point is: Each OEMs' devices have to be competitive in the market segments they target.

In effect, if you are a typical Smartphone OEM, you wouldn't go out with one device for all market segments. Apple goes with one device because they target only one segment - Premium.

Every OEM is going to pick their platform based on their target market, geography and the specific market segment they plan to target.


Why do you think QCOM is now doing the big.LITTLE octa-core nonsense? Do you think the folks at QCOM don't understand the technical inferiority of an 8 core Cortex A7/A53? It's all about what the customers want, and in many regions such as China, there's a real "core war".

Even QCOM will not do just octa-core. They provide and will continue to provide a range of dual, quad, and octa-core Snapdragon SoCs targeted to a range of market segments.