Qualcomm (QCOM 2.55%) is dead set on winning a significant portion of the PC CPU market. The company's Arm-based Snapdragon X chips are efficient and powerful, and they can run Microsoft Windows and most standard Windows applications without issue thanks to an emulation layer.
The initial batch of Qualcomm-powered laptops launched last year were skewed toward the higher-end portion of the market. At CES 2025, Qualcomm unveiled an 8-core Snapdragon X chip that will allow partners to launch laptops and mini-PCs in the $600 range. Pushing down the price will open a large new swath of the market to Qualcomm.
Qualcomm claims that its new budget chip can deliver big performance and efficiency gains over competing chips from Intel and AMD, although third-party reviews will be necessary to get an unbiased view of performance in real-world applications. The company expects devices powered by the new chip to be launched in early 2025 from a variety of partners.
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The elephant in the room
While bringing down the cost of entry into the world of Qualcomm PCs should broaden the appeal, there remains one fundamental problem: compatibility. Windows has traditionally run on x86 processors from Intel and AMD, and every Windows application is compiled and optimized for that architecture.
Qualcomm's PC chips run an Arm-native version of Windows, but to support decades of legacy applications, the chip uses a software emulation layer. This is the same thing that Apple does with its Arm-powered Macs.
This emulation works well most of the time, but not all the time. This is the biggest problem with Qualcomm's PC chips, and it's likely a deal breaker for many potential customers. PC games are particularly problematic, with popular titles having various issues running on Qualcomm devices.
You can imagine someone walking into a Best Buy and buying a new Qualcomm laptop, only to find that some application that they depend on doesn't work right. They'll likely return it, since there's no real solution other than swapping it out for an Intel or AMD laptop. The uncertainty over what will work and what won't work is enough to make the whole prospect of buying a Qualcomm laptop less attractive.
Beyond the consumer PC market, Qualcomm is never going to win over business users until these compatibility problems are solved. A business might need to run some mission critical 20-year-old application, and if it can't be 100% sure it's going to work, Qualcomm is going to be out of the question.
The situation will get somewhat better as newer applications ship with Arm versions that run natively, but compatibility problems are likely to linger for quite some time.
This is going to take a while
Arm-powered laptops are likely here to stay, and consumers having more choices is ultimately a good thing. But Intel and AMD are going to remain dominant for the foreseeable future as compatibility issues make Qualcomm laptops less appealing than the alternatives. Both Intel and AMD have a solid lineup of laptop CPUs, and it's not clear whether Qualcomm has any real advantage when it comes to battery life or performance.
Arm's CEO stated last year that he expected Arm-powered PCs to make up more than 50% of the market by 2029. That prediction was wildly optimistic at the time, and it now looks next to impossible given that Qualcomm's initial effort has faced challenges.
PCs may eventually be an important business for Qualcomm as the Windows on Arm ecosystem matures. But for the next few years, Intel and AMD don't have too much or worry about.
