Qualcomm fires back at Intel's claims of high laptop return rates — the company says Snapdragon X PCs are within 'industry norm' for returns

Late on Friday, Qualcomm reacted to a claim by an interim Intel co-CEO that the return rates of Qualcomm Snapdragon X-based PCs were high as customers were unsatisfied with their systems due to software incompatibilities. Qualcomm (via CRN) denied the claim and said that return rates of Snapdragon X-powered computers are within industry norms, saying customers are happy with their PCs.

"Our device return rates are within industry norm," a Qualcomm representative said to CRN. "Our devices continue to have greater than 4+ stars across consumer reviews and our products have received numerous accolades across the industry."

Earlier this week, Michelle Johnston Holthaus, Intel's interim co-CEO, said, citing her conversations with undisclosed retailers, that return rates of Qualcomm Snapdragon X-based systems were high due to software incompatibilities.

"I mean, if you look at the return rate for Arm PCs, you go talk to any retailer, their number one concern is 'I get a large percentage of these back,' because you go to set them up and the things that we just expect do not work, right," said Michelle Johnston Holthaus at the Barclays 22nd Annual Global Technology Conference.

A quick check at Amazon proves that Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite-based systems usually have four or more stars. However, one can only wonder whether customers dissatisfied with a system due to software incompatibilities or crashes will waste more time rating a PC that did not work for them. Nonetheless, customers who reviewed the Arm-powered laptops seemed happy with them.

However, the adoption of these notebooks is slow. In the third quarter, PCs powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite processors accounted for just 0.8% of the market. In general, Arm-based client PCs hold approximately 10% of the market share, with the majority being Apple computers running on M-series processors.

Qualcomm's chief executive predicted that Arm-based CPUs would power half of all Windows PCs within five years. In a Qualcomm statement published by CRN on Friday, the company was a bit less optimistic (or perhaps more realistic). It is projected that within the next five years, 30% to 50% of laptops will transition from x86 to alternative platforms like Arm.