Texas Instruments abandons smartphones - FT.com Texas Instruments, the second-largest US chipmaker by revenues, is beating a retreat from the smartphone and tablet markets as competition intensifies. Once the leading manufacturer of chips for wireless devices globally, TI has been overtaken in recent years by its US rival Qualcomm, while new entrants such as Nvidia and Intel have appeared and device makers Apple and Samsung have been designing their own mobile chips. The chipmaker, based in Dallas, Texas, told an investor conference in New York on Tuesday that TI's chips for smartphones and tablets were "less attractive" with the emergence of a few large players and changing market trends. It would be "reprofiling" its investment in those markets and concentrating on addressing the broader market of embedded processing, the company said. TI makes a wide range of chips for many different industries. "In effect, the company will stop investing in R&D for new products in those markets, and instead focus on a more horizontal approach," said Sumit Dhanda, semiconductor analyst with the International Strategy and Investment group, in a note. ISI estimates TI has 10 customers and $900m in annual revenues for its smartphone and tablet chips. Its shares closed 3 per cent lower at $27.83 on the news. A TI processor features in the new Kindle Fire HD tablet, but its only input in the iPhone 5 is a touchscreen controller chip, according to the IHS iSuppli research firm. That showed Qualcomm provided the baseband wireless processor for the handset and Samsung manufactured Apple's A6 microprocessor.