At a time when the smartphone makers are facing challenges owing to a weak demand, devices chipset vendor MediaTek said the current trend in the smartphone market will not affect its overall growth as the company powers a diversified portfolio of products such as smart TVs, smart speakers, wireless headsets, laptops, Wi-Fi products, etc, with both software and hardware solutions.
Globally, mobile phone segment accounts for 52% of the revenues for MediaTek, whereas 42% of the revenues come from smart edge platforms which includes wireless/wired connectivity and chips for router, broadband, laptop, wireless headset, and smart speakers. The company designs chips for smartphones under its Dimensity and Helio series.
“The macros are in front of us and that is kind of affecting all the companies. But we are still very bullish about the whole scenario right now in India, as we are focussing a lot on our range of products,” Anku Jain, managing director of MediaTek India told Fe in an interaction.
“The pace of growth for other product segments could surpass smartphones and that might happen not by design but by circumstances. We have many different new segments which are growing rapidly. So, that is the reason maybe the percentage of non-smartphone categories (in the revenue) might increase going forward,” Jain said, adding that a combination of artificial intelligence and internet of things (IoT), will be part of many devices across sectors going forward.
According to analysts, MediaTek is the largest smartphone chipset vendor in India. While the company did not give any India-specific market share, globally it enables nearly 2 billion connected devices a year and powers one in five connected devices.
In India, the company has two research and development centres in Noida and Bengaluru which caters to hardware design for chips and software design for modems, 5G softwares, Wi-Fi softwares, etc. MediaTek has over 900 employees in the country and believes that the current Rs 76,000-crore incentive scheme for semiconductors will indirectly contribute to its growth in the country.
Being a fabless semiconductor maker, the company does not manufacture but only design chips. “Manufacturing is done by our partners such as TSMC, we have a lot of Indian OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) that we are working with. So if the ecosystem becomes local here that also helps MediaTek to actually source chips locally from here,” Jain said.
The company competes with the likes of California-based Qualcomm and believes that the reason for MediaTek’s preference of products among the OEMs and end consumers can be attributed to the product innovations. “The reason why people are looking for MediaTek is because of a lot of technological updates on which the company has been working on. Our 4 nanometer technology actually brings a lot of advantages not only for OEMs but also for a consumer,” said Anuj Sidharth, deputy director of marketing and communications at MediaTek India.
Apart from innovations and technology advancements, the right kind of awareness among the retailers and consumers about having a device powered by MediaTek is also giving the brand an added advantage over competition, Sidharth added.
At the Mobile World Congress
With the launch, the company becomes the third player after Apple and Qualcomm to offer satellite-based connectivity solutions.
In 2022, MediaTek’s revenue was $18.7 billion, up 6% YoY. The company witnessed a strong growth in the first half of 2022 driven by 5G chips but its overall growth got constrained due to macroeconomic headwinds and customer inventory adjustments, according to Counterpoint.
When asked about the prices of smartphones, Jain said that those are the function of market forces and once the technology gets matured, the prices do come down.
Since India is a key market for MediaTek, the company is looking to expand its focus in the market in terms of increasing its portfolio devices and growing its talent base.