Qualcomm Triples Windows On Arm OEM Design Wins Since May

Qualcomm is flexing its Arm muscle in the x86 market, highlighting the push into the Windows laptop market during its Q4 2024 earnings call.

Head honcho and CEO Cristiano R Amon revealed the chipmaker had racked up 58 design wins for the Snapdragon X Plus eight-core platform, a leap nearly tripling the 20 designs it had back in May. On paper, that sounds like a big win for Arm-based PCs. However, in a market where Intel and AMD continue to have a vice-like grip on the vast majority of personal computers, these design wins need to translate into sales.

Arm-based Windows machines have long promised efficiency and battery life improvements. Yet Qualcomm's march into Windows laptops has historically been a slow affair, with plenty of hype but limited impact. For years, compatibility issues, performance trade-offs, and the sheer weight behind the Intel and AMD x86's legacy have held Arm back from seriously challenging both chip rivals.

Qualcomm's leap from 20 to 58 designs in just six months is a solid sign of growing OEM interest, and it's the kind of uptick the Arm proponents have been hoping for, suggesting that major players are at least willing to give the Snapdragon X powered laptops a shot. For Qualcomm, the real challenge isn't just winning over OEMs, but whether it manages to translate these designs into devices that consumers actually buy.

Intel and AMD have been racking up hundreds of design wins each year for decades, and they come with a level of trust and compatibility that Arm on Windows is still working to build.

So, is this rate of adoption really a breakthrough for Arm? Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Plus platform is certainly one that's more polished than its previous efforts, packing AI capabilities, 5G, and promises of improved battery life that traditional x86 laptops can't easily match. But technical promise and market readiness aren't always the same thing.

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Arm on Windows still struggles to match the broad software compatibility and performance users expect, and while Microsoft's x64 emulation has helped a bit, it is still far from flawless. For most laptop buyers, the concept that "it works sometimes" doesn't exactly inspire confidence that turns devices into profits. Snapdragon's battery life and mobile connectivity might add a lot of polish, but that's a tough sell when users know that x86 just works, especially on Microsoft Window's ecosystem.

For now, Intel and AMD rule the Windows roost, and while Arm's big breakthrough remains perpetually around the corner, it is a positive signal and making traction for non x86 Windows OS compatible designs. Only shipments on a broad scale will seal the deal.

As for Qualcomm's latest quarterly financials for Q4 of its fiscal 2024, it reported revenue of $10.2 billion, up 19 percent year-on-year and recorded net income of $2.92 billion, up 96 percent.

For the year, revenue was up 9 percent to $39 billion and net profit jumped 40 percent to $10.14 billion. ®