MediaTek Inc (聯發科) made further progress in gaining a foothold in the 4G long-term-evolution (LTE) market after China’s Lenovo Group Ltd (聯想) yesterday said that it has adopted the chip designer’s octa-core processors for its new premium smartphone.
MediaTek’s system-on-chip (SoC) MT6595 processor is set to be used in Lenovo’s VIBE X2 smartphone as MediaTek is expanding its lineup of LTE-enabled mobile devices.
Last month, MediaTek announced the commercial availability of its first 4G LTE SoC processor in Europe, with Vodafone Group PLC the first company to adopt the new processor.
MediaTek is ramping up its 4G LTE SoC solutions this quarter. While the company has lagged behind bigger rival Qualcomm Inc in making inroads into the LTE market, the launch of new SoC solutions could help MediaTek catch up with the US chipmaker next year.
MediaTek president Hsieh Ching-jiang (謝清江) told investors in July that the company would be able to make handset chips as good as those made by Qualcomm next year, and at lower costs than its rival.
The Hsinchu-based company predicted that 4G LTE SoC processors would account for 20 percent of its LTE processor sales next quarter.
MediaTek yesterday posted record-breaking revenue for last month on the back of robust demand for smartphone chips.
Revenue rose 2 percent to NT$19.66 billion (US$655 million) from NT$19.27 billion in July, 54.19 percent higher than the NT$12.75 billion seen in the same period a year earlier and pushing its cumulative sales in the first eight months of this year up by 67.11 percent year-on-year to NT$139.07 billion.
The company’s shipments of smartphone chips could reach 350 million units this year, higher than an earlier estimate of 300 million, owing to strong smartphone demand in China and other emerging markets, MediaTek said in July.
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