A semiconductor-focused market intelligence firm has charted the rise of the Arm architecture in the notebook market up to 2030. In a new research bulletin, TechInsights predicts that 40% of notebooks sold by the decade's end will be based on SoCs using the Arm architecture (via ITHome).
This would mark a massive shift away from the x86 architecture. Moreover, TechInsights' presumably independent research partially validates Arm Holdings CEO Rene Haas' bold claim that the Windows-on-Arm device market share "could be better than 50%" in the next five years.
According to TechInsights data, the global notebook PC market's x86/Arm market share is currently split around 82/18. In 2025, the needle will not have significantly moved when the new breed of Windows-on-Arm "AI PCs" will have had a full calendar year of availability. TechInsights sees an x86/Arm market share split of 80/20.
The source says that if TechInsights is correct, momentum will stay with the Arm architecture invaders over the next few years. According to TechInsights data, by the end of 2029, Arm's grasp of the notebook PC market will have doubled to 40%+ (x86/Arm ratio of 60/40-ish). Interestingly, Arm's notebook PC market revenue share will have climbed to 52% by this same date.
The obvious imbalance between the market share and revenue share will be largely due to Apple's premium-priced notebooks being members of the Arm camp. Remember, a large part of the success of the Arm architecture in notebooks can be traced back to 2020, with Apple's momentous but successful transition to Apple Silicon, starting with the M1 chip.
The Arm-flavored bump is evident in the TechInsights chart, particularly between 2020 and 2021. Windows-on-Arm devices introduced earlier this year ahead of the current wave of Snapdragon X Elite/Plus processors probably had little impact on the struggle between x86 and Arm notebook market shares.
Even with TechInsights weighing in, the inevitable rise of Arm architecture in the notebook market can't be a cast-iron certainty. Some reviewers make the case that Intel and AMD's newest x86 notebook chips have already canceled out the biggest benefit Arm-notebooks can boast of—battery life. We have yet to catch a substantial whiff of a next-gen Snapdragon X Elite/Plus chip, but we know that both AMD and Intel roadmaps will keep the pressure on key qualities like performance and power consumption.
However, we can be confident that Qualcomm is busy with its next-gen Snapdragon X processors. And there are exciting rumors of a PC processor collaboration with Nvidia and MediaTek partnering up. However, given all we know, it isn't easy for Arm to maintain the notebook market share momentum that TechInsights expects.
