MediaTek Inc (聯發科) yesterday launched two new system-on-chip processors for mid-range smartphones in the company’s latest attempt to recoup market share.
The world’s No. 3 chip designer’s latest move comes after it hired Rick Tsai (蔡力行) in June as co-chief executive officer to help steer the company out of troubled water.
Over the past year, MediaTek has faced market share losses and profitability contraction.
After stemming a decline in gross margin last quarter, it is now trying to reclaim its market position by unveiling cost-effective smartphone processors — the Helio P23 and Helio P30 system-on-chips — for the mass market.
“The Helio P series will be our focus this year. We plan to unveil two processors in the second half of the year and another two next year. By doing so, we hope to recover our market share gradually,” Tsai told investors last month.
MediaTek’s mid-to-long-term strategy is to improve the gross margin and market share of the company’s core smartphone chip business, Tsai said.
The company expects to make headway in regaining market share next quarter, Tsai said at the time.
It is the first move in the company’s one-and-half-year resurgence plan outlined by company chairman Tsai Ming-kai (蔡明介).
The newly released Helio P30 will hit the Chinese market first next quarter, MediaTek said in a company statement released yesterday.
The Helio P23 will be available globally next quarter, it said.
MediaTek counts Chinese smartphone vendors Oppo Mobile Telecommunications Corp (歐珀移動) and Vivo Communication Technology Co Ltd (維沃移動通信) among its clients.
“Reaching the mid-range market means bringing people affordable devices that power and perform with the latest features, such as dual cameras and 4G LTE connectivity,” TL Lee (李宗霖), general manager of MediaTek’s wireless communication business unit, said in the statement.
“In the rapidly growing arena of new premium mid-range devices, mobile technology innovators know they need to stand out in a crowded field — P23 and P30 enable them to do that,” Lee said.
The new processors, made using 16-nanometer process technology, are designed to deliver performance, power efficiency, dual camera photography, dual SIM and dual 4G LTE mobile capabilities, the statement said.
The processors, built on 8 ARM Cortex-A53 cores, feature a combination of Cat-7 and Cat-13 speeds and a downlink peak speed of 300 megabits per second and an upload speed of 150 megabits per second, the statement said.
MediaTek shares fell 1.66 percent to NT$267 in Taipei trading yesterday, underperforming the TAIEX, which edged down 0.28 percent.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained