Published in PC Hardware

Analysts expect MediaTek to gain share

by on09 February 2015


At Qualcomm’s expense

UBS expects MediaTek to gain market share at Qualcomm’s expense this year. The Swiss financial services company has upgraded MediaTek’s stock to “buy” recently. 

Qualcomm is in a bit of trouble. The company’s upcoming Snapdragon 810 flagship SoC was reportedly facing some overheating issues, which the company had to address in recent weeks. Qualcomm also said it lost a major customer for the new chip, most likely Samsung.

UBS analysts expect MediaTek to grab a 46% market share in the Chinese 4G market, up from about 30% last year. It is important to note that analysts do not expect growth solely in entry and mainstream markets, as they expect MediaTek to get high-end design wins with its MT6795 SoC.

“We believe clients for MT6795 include Sony, LGE, HTC, Xiaomi, Oppo, Meizu, TCL, and Lenovo, among others,” UBS said. “With its design win of over 10 models, we anticipate Mediatek will ship 2m units per month in Q215 and 4m units per month in H215. That indicates revenue will reach 14% in Q215 and 21% in H215, up from 3% in Q115.”

Fudzilla tried out the MT6595 earlier this year, and we got some very impressive results. The 28nm chip uses 32-bit CPU cores (Cortex-A7 and Cortex-A17 in big.LITTLE configuration), but MediaTek has already announced a 64-bit successor in the form of the MT6795, based on Cortex-A53 and Cortex-A57 cores.

UBS went out on a limb by stating that the biggest Chinese smartphone brands will switch from the Qualcomm MSM8939 to MediaTek’s MT6752, a 64-bit Cortex-A53 octa-core due to Qualcomm’s inferior design, reports Barron’s.

While this is good news for MediaTek, Qualcomm is finding itself under a lot of pressure. Samsung and MediaTek are going after its smartphone business, while Intel, Nvidia, and small brands like Allwinner are aggressively pursuing tablet design wins.

Being the biggest player in any market comes at a price – it also makes you the biggest target.

Last modified on 09 February 2015
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