MediaTek vows to fulfil chip demand
Taiwanese semiconductor giant MediaTek says it is gearing up efforts to work with partners throughout its supply chain to ensure it is able to meet rising demand amid an ongoing global chipset shortage.
“The pandemic has driven demand for smartphones, TV and gaming equipment as people need devices and high-speed connectivity for remote work, which is driving the need for more chips than the industry has the capacity to supply,” Finbarr Moynihan, vice-president for corporate marketing at MediaTek, said during a press briefing.
He said that this year, the company has managed to continue to supply significant upside for customers.
“But unfortunately, we’re also not meeting all customer demand right now. We are having to make some very tough decisions and we’re working through that with our partners in the supply chain to improve the situation going forward,” Mr Moynihan said.
Chunyan See, country manager for Thailand of MediaTek, said the company has been advising its customers to make plans to order chipsets for manufacturing.
“We are actively engaged with customers to make sure their production goes well,” he said.
With the rise of chipset demand, MediaTek’s global annual revenue hit a high of US$10.9 billion (358.2 billion baht) in 2020, an increase from $8 billion earlier, according to Mr Moynihan.
Mobile computing devices such as smartphones and Chromebooks contributed 43-48% of the firm’s revenue in 2020. Smart home-related devices such as broadband access equipment, shared 22-27%.
In the third quarter of last year, MediaTek became the global market leader in smartphone chipsets for the first time based on data by Counterpoint.
Last year, MediaTek was the market leader with 32% of the market share, followed by Qualcomm from the US with 28%.
So far in 2021, MediaTek has 37% of the market share and Qualcomm has 31%.
In 2021, 5G smartphone shipments are expected to reach 500 million people globally compared to 200 million last year, according to Mr Moynihan. Some 400 million 5G subscribers are expected by 2026.
Chinlin Low, technical account manager for APAC at MediaTek, said Thailand is among five Asean countries which have launched a 5G network. The others are Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines and Singapore.
“5G subscribers are still below 2 million in the region but it will grow strongly to 400 million by 2026,” Mr Low said.
According to tech market research firm IDC, MediaTek gained 50% of the market share in Thailand last year. In the first quarter of 2021, its market share rose to 60%.
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