With the arrival of Qualcomm's Snapdragon X chips, Windows on Arm—once a niche player—is poised to step into the spotlight. This shift is nothing short of a revolution, and with Microsoft's push for Copilot+ PCs for its notebooks, Arm CEO Rene Haas apparently predicts that Arm-based Windows PCs will soon capture 50% of the market.

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Arm Wants to Dominate the Desktop and Laptop Market on Windows

In an interview with Reuters, Haas stated that "Arm's market share in Windows could exceed 50% within the next five years." While this likely contains a fair amount of wishful thinking, it isn't a completely baseless prediction either.

For many users, when purchasing a PC, whether it's x86/x64-based or Arm-based isn't really the issue—what matters is what tasks it can handle and, in the case of laptops, how long the battery lasts. And AI performance is drawing particular attention. Points like what useful AI features a device can offer tend to resonate more strongly with users than detailed specs, and are likely to have significant appeal.

The new Windows on Arm Copilot+ PCs equipped with Snapdragon X chips precisely address these priorities that many users have for their PCs. According to Microsoft, the latest Surface laptops equipped with the Snapdragon X Elite reportedly perform up to 58% faster than Apple's M3 MacBook Air in early third-party tests, while also boasting superior battery life compared to the M3 MacBook Air.

Haas also added that Microsoft has been deeply committed to Arm from a software perspective, doing more than ever before over the past several years.

While Arm-based Copilot+ PCs from Microsoft and other vendors have focused on laptops, Qualcomm is also offering the Windows Snapdragon X Dev Kit in the form of a NUC-style mini desktop similar to the Mac mini. Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon announced at Computex that the Snapdragon X Elite and X Plus chips would support all form factors, hinting at future desktop PCs powered by the SoC. Haas's prediction appears to suggest expanding Windows PC market share across both desktop and laptop form factors.

That said, even with significant growth in Arm-based PCs, it's hard to imagine x86 PCs falling below a 50% market share in just five years.

Canalys analyst Kieren Jessop told The Register that Arm-based devices currently account for only 8-10% of quarterly PC shipments, with the majority being Apple silicon. However, analysts predict that Arm-based devices will make up 30% of the PC market by 2026. Further expansion of Arm's share may require some major catalyst—such as one of Intel's competitors entering the Arm space.

In that sense, the recently reported news that AMD is developing a new Arm-based chip called "Soundwave" is intriguing. If AMD shifts focus toward Arm, it would naturally erode x86's market share. Additionally, as Arm itself has indicated, other companies entering the space—such as the recently rumored new Arm-based chip resulting from a partnership between MediaTek and NVIDIA—could also contribute to Arm's growing market share.

Following the Arm CEO's prediction, Tom's Hardware interviewed Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon, and according to the publication, OEMs are holding relatively optimistic projections, with some anticipating that 60% of their sales will be Arm-based: "OEM thinking is changing. Some OEMs are saying they'll hit 40-60% of total revenue within three years. There was even one OEM that said 50%, which is a staggering number."

Sources