MediaTek Inc (聯發科), the nation’s biggest handset chip designer, yesterday launched a chipset aimed at the under-US$200 smartphone segment as the company hopes to establish a foothold in the fast-growing low-cost smartphone market.
The mid and entry-smartphone segment is forecast to grow from under 200 million units this year to over 500 million units in 2016, according to Strategy Analytics’ handset component technologies service director Stuart Robinson.
The new MT6577 chipset, a dual-core platform, supports 3G and High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) technologies and runs the latest Android 4.0 — codenamed “Ice Cream Sandwich” — operating system, MediaTek said in a statement.
“MediaTek’s existing HSPA smartphone platforms — the MT6573 and MT6575 — have been extremely well-received by customers ... and are currently shipping with major international brands such as Lenovo Group (聯想), TCL Alcatel, and other top tier Chinese OEMs [original equipment manufacturers],” president Hsieh Ching-jiang (謝清江) said in the statement.
The Hsinchu-based company said its customers are expected to ship the first batch of smartphones based on this new MT6577 chipset soon.
In April, Hsieh said revenue from smartphone chips would make up a bigger share, or as high as 25 percent, of its total revenue this quarter, up from around 20 percent last quarter, backed by new product launches.
Hsieh said it was the company’s strategy to safeguard its gross margin by offering more new smartphone chips to stave off persistent price competition and to offset falling feature phone demand in China.
In addition to the MT6577, MediaTek is scheduled to launch the MT6250 chipset for ultra-low-cost smartphones and the MT6255 cost-saving chipset for feature phones later this quarter.
The company has raised its smartphone-chip shipments by 50 percent to 75 million units this year, compared with a previous estimate of 50 million units. The main growth will be from China as more users are replacing their phones with low-cost smartphones, according to the company.
Revenue is expected to grow by as much as 20 percent to NT$23.5 billion (US$784 million) this quarter, from last quarter’s NT$19.6 billion, MediaTek said.
Shares of MediaTek fell 0.91 percent to NT$272 yesterday.
Taiwanese suppliers to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC, 台積電) are expected to follow the contract chipmaker’s step to invest in the US, but their relocation may be seven to eight years away, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. When asked by opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Niu Hsu-ting (牛煦庭) in the legislature about growing concerns that TSMC’s huge investments in the US will prompt its suppliers to follow suit, Kuo said based on the chipmaker’s current limited production volume, it is unlikely to lead its supply chain to go there for now. “Unless TSMC completes its planned six
Intel Corp has named Tasha Chuang (莊蓓瑜) to lead Intel Taiwan in a bid to reinforce relations between the company and its Taiwanese partners. The appointment of Chuang as general manager for Intel Taiwan takes effect on Thursday, the firm said in a statement yesterday. Chuang is to lead her team in Taiwan to pursue product development and sales growth in an effort to reinforce the company’s ties with its partners and clients, Intel said. Chuang was previously in charge of managing Intel’s ties with leading Taiwanese PC brand Asustek Computer Inc (華碩), which included helping Asustek strengthen its global businesses, the company
Power supply and electronic components maker Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) yesterday said second-quarter revenue is expected to surpass the first quarter, which rose 30 percent year-on-year to NT$118.92 billion (US$3.71 billion). Revenue this quarter is likely to grow, as US clients have front-loaded orders ahead of US President Donald Trump’s planned tariffs on Taiwanese goods, Delta chairman Ping Cheng (鄭平) said at an earnings conference in Taipei, referring to the 90-day pause in tariff implementation Trump announced on April 9. While situations in the third and fourth quarters remain unclear, “We will not halt our long-term deployments and do not plan to
TikTok abounds with viral videos accusing prestigious brands of secretly manufacturing luxury goods in China so they can be sold at cut prices. However, while these “revelations” are spurious, behind them lurks a well-oiled machine for selling counterfeit goods that is making the most of the confusion surrounding trade tariffs. Chinese content creators who portray themselves as workers or subcontractors in the luxury goods business claim that Beijing has lifted confidentiality clauses on local subcontractors as a way to respond to the huge hike in customs duties imposed on China by US President Donald Trump. They say this Chinese decision, of which Agence
RSS