MediaTek plans to enable entry-level 5G smartphone market

Taiwanese fabless semiconductor company MediaTek said that it is eyeing the entry level 5G device market to drive the next phase of 5G growth in the coming two years.

The original equipment makers are planning to develop mobile devices with the right feature sets at right price points for India. The Taiwanese company said that there are a few natural barriers due to the semiconductor shortage industry that has pushed the prices up, including memories and sensors and other components.

The company also has a partnership with Intel for 5G connected personal computing devices and it has started to deliver solutions for 5G fixed wireless access or MiFi products.

Finbarr Moynihan, Vice President — Corporate Marketing at MediaTek said, “The next phase of 5G growth is going to come from bringing those 5G prices down for everybody. I think, over the next couple of years, we will continue to see some more work on that.”

MediaTek believes that 5G would increase the system-on-chip (SoC) uptake across varied devices with Internet of Things (IoT), industrial private networks and automotive telematics becoming future growth drivers in the larger 5G business arena.

Moynihan added, “Despite all of the semiconductor supply challenges over the last year or two, we have managed to supply quite a significant volume of 4G LTE products. Obviously, that's still a very critical category of devices for the India market as well as Southeast Asia, Latin America and Africa today.”

The company's revenue jumped 113% to $17 billion in 2021, as compared to that of $8 billion in 2019. The company's revenue grew 60% from 2020 to 2021 driven by the 4G to 5G transition.