Qualcomm has been an undisputed chipset leader but the manufacturer has been pushed off the pinnacle for the first time by MediaTek. The Taiwanese chipmaker has become the biggest smartphone processor supplier for the first time with a 27-percent market share in 2020 as compared to 17.2-percent in 2019. According to a recent report, MediaTek shipped over 351.8 million units this past year to major smartphone suppliers.
As per Omida – an analysis, consultancy firm based out of London – in 2019 MediaTek had only supplied 238 million units to smartphone OEMs. With the sales volume increasing to about 113.8 million units, the company was able to grab 27.2-percent market share this past year.
Qualcomm was able to capture only 25-percent of the global market share, which was not enough for the company to retain the top spot, which MediaTek gobbled owning to its year-on-year growth in 2020. Reportedly, Xiaomi was the biggest customer for MediaTek chipsets in the last year.
Xiaomi shipped almost 64 million smartphones featuring MediaTek chipsets in 2020 as opposed to a little under 20 million in the year before that. In addition to Xiaomi, Samsung and OPPO have been on the top list of MediaTek chipsets.
That said, the biggest advantage that played in favor of MediaTek was the restrictions imposed on Huawei in the United States. The sanctions restrict the use of Qualcomm chipsets in Huawei smartphones, which cost the former a great deal and MediaTek was able to sell chips to Huawei (a leading global smartphone brand).
