Reports have come in stating that previously dedicated and trusted customers of major chipset provider MediaTek are now turning towards competitor and arch-rival Qualcomm.
According to data compiled by Digitimes, Chinese OEMs like Vivo as well as Oppo, who were previously major contributors to the Taiwanese company’s revenue, have now started looking for greener pastures (read: Qualcomm).
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While Oppo made use of MediaTek’s application processor (AP) solutions in almost half of its 99.3 million units last year, Vivo utilized the company’s services about 20% of its total shipments in 2016.
In the fourth quarter of 2016, however, both the companies decided to turn their backs on MediaTek and instead decided to side with Qualcomm, San Diego-based chipset maker renowned for its quality high-end SoCs.
Both the companies lowered the ratio of the company’s AP solutions being used in their respective smartphones, leading to a staggering 7.5 pps decline in the gross margin, with a final mark of 35.6%.
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The company did, however, managed to secure a 30% on year revenue growth, in which both Vivo and Oppo played a detrimental role.
Now, another Chinese OEM has joined them both in shunning MediaTek and ‘accepting’ Qualcomm. The company in question: Meizu.
Currently supplying 90% of its smartphone with MediaTek SoCs, the company will reportedly adopt Qualcomm’s AP solutions in the third quarter of the year and will make as many as 30% of its total shipment Qualcomm-enabled.
It is worth mentioning here that Meizu, with over 20 million smartphone shipments in 2016, entered into a patent licensing deal with Qualcomm sometime last year only, thus enabling it to shift some part of its shipment to the American company.
Reportedly, the security concerns clouding MediaTek’s processors as well as the relatively better performance of the Qualcomm roster are two of the main reasons behind this transition.
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For whatever it’s worth, the figure will only increase in the days to come unless MediaTek ups the ante or worse, Qualcomm slips.
