Exclusive | MediaTek to step up investment in R&D, bet on 5G as more mainland China firms make their own chips
- MediaTek, a close competitor to US chip giant Qualcomm, makes chipsets for smartphones and home appliances such as TVs
Taiwan-based MediaTek says it is stepping up investment in research and development (R&D) and brand awareness as the semiconductor maker seeks to better compete in an environment where mainland Chinese firms are looking to produce more of their own chips.
“Facing this trend where smartphone brands are innovating and starting to develop their own chips, MediaTek needs to stay ahead and offer the best technology even if this phase reverses,” said Joe Chen, President of MediaTek, in an interview in Shenzhen on Wednesday.
MediaTek, a close competitor to US chip giant Qualcomm, makes chipsets for smartphones and home appliances such as TVs. Its smartphone chip business generates about a third of overall group revenue, with most of its sales coming from Android phone makers, especially those in China. China’s President Xi Jinping has called for greater self-sufficiency in strategic industries, such as semiconductors, as the world’s second-largest economy remains locked in a US trade war.
Oppo, the second-largest smartphone vendor in China which uses both Qualcomm and MediaTek chips for its handsets, has started to develop its own chips, according to several Chinese media reports on Wednesday, citing unidentified sources. Oppo did not reply to a request for comment sent via WeChat.
Oppo’s reported step follows Huawei Technologies, China’s leading smartphone vendor, which currently relies mostly on its self-made Kirin chips to power its smartphones. Although Qualcomm and MediaTek still provide chipsets to Huawei, which shipped around 200 million handsets last year, most of them are used on low-end, less popular models.
Xiaomi, China’s fourth-largest smartphone vendor, in April spun off a part of its China-based Pinecone chipset division into a new company to focus on AI-based IoT (AIoT) chip development. The company said it has not given up on mobile chip development although it has only unveiled one smartphone chip, the Surge S1, since its chip division was established in 2014.
