Agam Shah for InfoWorld/IDG News Service:
Apple was the world’s second largest mobile processor company behind Intel in 2011, benefitting from growing smartphone and tablet shipments and a meltdown in the PC market, according to In-Stat. If that trend holds and Apple’s iPhone and iPad shipments continue to grow at an unprecedented pace, Apple will likely overtake Intel as the world’s largest mobile processor company by the end of this year.
Just remember that five years ago Apple wasn’t even in this market yet.
Apple is already the biggest. Intel does not make “mobile” processors. They make server, desktop, and portable processors. A MacBook Air is small but it is not mobile, it is portable. It is useless while carried. You make a desk out of it wherever you stop. That is *portable* by dictionary definition. “Mobile” is a device that you can use anywhere and everywhere, even while on-the-go, in-between places where you can make a desk.
This is not even a fine distinction. Intel’s number one problem is “no presence in mobile, a much bigger market for computation it turns out than desktops and portables, where they are way on top.”
The comparison is inclusive of Intel’s presence in the laptop market.