“MediaTek was also able to take advantage of the gap created due to the U.S. ban on Huawei,” said Counterpoint’s research director, Dale Gai. “Affordable MediaTek chips manufactured by TSMC have become the first option for many OEMs to quickly fill the gap left by Huawei’s absence. Huawei had also purchased a significant amount of chipsets before the ban. “
Although MediaTek’s most lucrative markets may be abroad, the company has started making inroads in the United States. Granted, Qualcomm still has the distinct advantage, but the T-Mobile variant of LG’s Velvet smartphone ran on one of MediaTek’s Dimensity 1000 chipsets, and some felt it had the potential to outperform the Snapdragon 765 used on other carrier models.
The global shift to 5G shows no signs of slowing, but many developing markets around will not be able to adopt the technology as quickly as mature ones. In the meantime, MediaTek is clearly betting on the demand for affordable mid-range chipsets to reach new highs – and we can’t blame them.