Taiwanese smartphone IC designer MediaTek Inc (聯發科) and US rival Qualcomm Inc felt the sting of China’s COVID-19 lockdowns as their smartphone IC shipments from the country fell in April, market advisory firm CINNO Research said.
Strict COVID-19 measures in major cities such as Shanghai, Kunshan and Suzhou dampened demand for smartphones in China, the firm said.
CINNO Research was founded by semiconductor and flat-panel experts from Taiwan and China.
Weaker demand for smartphones powered by the Android operating system also took a toll on IC shipments within China, CINNO said.
As a result, system on chips (SoC) used in smartphone production fell to about 17.60 million units in April, down 21.6 percent from a year earlier and down 12.1 percent from a month earlier, the firm said.
MediaTek outperformed the overall market and remained the largest smartphone IC provider in the Chinese market in April, but saw its smartphone SoC shipments fall 9 percent from a year earlier to about 7.3 million units, it said.
MediaTek’s April shipments were also down 11.7 percent from March, it said.
Qualcomm, the second-largest smartphone IC vendor in China, took a bigger hit, with SoC shipments falling 22.5 percent from a year earlier and 14.4 percent from the previous month to 6.2 million units in April, CINNO said.
Apple Inc was more resilient, as its iPhone 13 series, powered by its iOS system, attracted solid buying in China in April.
It shipped about 3 million SoCs to China that month, down only 2.2 percent month-on-month and 3.5 percent year-on-year, it said.
MediaTek, Qualcomm and Apple had a combined share of 94.2 percent of China’s smartphone chip market in April, up 1 percentage point from March and 9 percentage points from a year earlier.
China-based HiSilicon Technologies Co (海思), a fabless semiconductor subsidiary of Chinese telecom equipment supplier Huawei Technologies Co (華為), was fourth in April with shipments of 500,000 smartphone chips in China, down 34.3 percent from a month earlier and 83.1 percent from a year earlier, CINNO said.
Unisoc (Shanghai) Technologies Co (紫光展銳) was the fifth-largest smartphone IC supplier after shipping about 400,000 units, falling 12.2 percent from a month earlier, but soaring 606.5 percent from a year earlier, it said.
In addition to the COVID-19 pandemic’s effect on global demand, geopolitical tensions and a slowdown in the global economy are expected to continue to affect smartphone demand, CINNO said.
Smartphone brands in the Android camp are expected to be hurt more by weakening demand than Apple, it added.
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