The global smartphone applications processor market grew by 58 percent in the third quarter of 2012 to hit $3.8 billion, according to Strategy Analytics.

The Handset Component Technologies service report found that Qualcomm continued to lead the market with a revenue share of 42 percent but came under pressure from increased competition.

“Strategy Analytics believes that Qualcomm still has plenty of room for growth in future quarters despite increasing competition as less than 50 percent of Qualcomm’s chipsets are smartphone applications processors,” said senior analyst Sravan Kundojjala.

Qualcomm was followed in the rankings by Samsung, MediaTek, Broadcom and ST-Ericsson.

The analyst firm said Samsung’s 27 percent revenue share was largely down to its agreements with Apple and its own handset division.

MediaTek’s 12 percent of revenue was helped by its EDGE, UMTS and TD-SCDMA application processors. “MediaTek continues to chase Qualcomm hard with its integrated strategy and the company gained significant share during the quarter,” said director of the Strategy Analytics Handset Component Technologies service, Stuart Robinson.

Broadcom benefited from its deal for low-end Android smartphones with Samsung while ST-Ericsson’s dual-core NovaThor processors made progress with Sony and Samsung.

Texas Instruments dropped out of the top five for the first time in terms of units shipped and revenue, as it stepped back from the handset processor market.

Strategy Analytics predicts Nvidia’s upcoming LTE-integrated Tegra processors will boost its position in 2013.

Spreadtrum showed significant growth to hit 1.7 percent revenue as its EDGE and TD-SCDMA processors performed strongly while Intel secured just 0.2 percent of revenue share.

The global tablet applications processor market grew 77 percent year on year to hit $0.9 billion with Apple maintaining its lead with a 53 percent revenue share. The iPhone maker was followed by Nvidia, Texas Instruments, Qualcomm and Samsung.

Nvidia secured a third of all unit shipments in the non-iPad market, boosted by Google’s Nexus 7 and the Microsoft Surface RT wins.