After closely following Qualcomm for years, MediaTek last year overtook the American chip giant as the largest smartphone chipset vendor in the world. The Taiwanese company has since gone on to further extend the lead over its arch-rival. It appears Qualcomm is finding it quite hard to regain the lost ground.
According to MediaTek’s CEO Rick Tsai, the company is continuously gaining market share globally. “We are now the largest smartphone SoC maker globally,” Tsai said during an investor conference in Taiwan last week. “We continue to gain share across all regions of the world.”
Over the past couple of years, MediaTek has undergone numerous strategic changes. Most notably, the company returned to the flagship smartphone SoC market with its Dimensity lineup in 2019. While Qualcomm remains the preferred supplier of most established smartphone makers when it comes to flagship devices, MediaTek has emerged to be a capable alternative and is turning quite a few heads.
According to an EET Asia report, 56 percent of MediaTek’s revenue in the third quarter this year came from smartphone SoCs. That figure marks a strong, 72 percent rise from the same period last year, thanks to the greater adoption of its Dimensity series 5G processors.
What this also means is that MediaTek is now less reliant on sales to Chinese customers than before. More smartphone OEMs are now trusting the Taiwanese firm and using its products in markets like North America, which has predominantly been Qualcomm’s happy hunting ground. It is aiming to capture more than a third (35 percent) of the Android smartphone market share in the region this year.
MediaTek is looking for further growth in the 5G segment
MediaTek supplies chips to every notable Android smartphone maker in the world. It has also made a strong entry in the 5G segment with its Dimensity processors. But the company still sees a big opportunity for growth in this segment. The Taiwanese firm is confident that its proprietary, low-power design architecture, combined with TSMC’s 4nm process technology will help it grow its share in the 5G market, where Qualcomm still holds an upper hand. It is also touting a “competitive advantage” of its sub-6GHz and mmWave solutions.
Quite clearly, MediaTek has got several things going perfectly for it in recent times. The onus is now on Qualcomm to fight back for the crown. It’ll be interesting to see how this war of chips takes shape in the coming months. The two firms’ upcoming Dimensty 2000 and Snapdragon 898 flagship SoCs respectively could define a lot of things. We will keep you posted.
2021-11-15 15:10:03