Stefan Mileschin

Developing the Qualcomm model

Global chipmakers including Qualcomm, Intel, MediaTek and UNISOC (Spreadtrum & RDA) are looking to expand their 5G solutions to include non-handset applications.

The move is part of a cunning plan to squeeze money out of the technology now that Apple, Samsung Electronics and Huawei are actively developing mobile chips in-house.

According to Digitimes, it is thought that frontend and backend ecosystems associated with 5G communication technologies and applications will together see an unprecedentedly large scale. And those who perform well in the smartphone chip market will not necessarily be the biggest winners in the new-generation 5G market.

Qualcomm and MediaTek have kept reporting non-handset chip revenue increases in recent months, highlighting their efforts in diversifying their business tentacles into more sectors to better tap the newly emerging 5G chip market.

Qualcomm has become the poster child for doing this, has not suffered from its spat with Apple and managed to sustain growth for overall revenue performance thanks to making more than $5 billion in revenues from non-handset sectors.

MediaTek has seen the revenue ratio for mobile chip business drop by half, while the ratios for growth-type product lines such as new ASICs, automotive electronics and IoT chipsets have been on the rise.

Industry sources said that 5G technologies will be combined with IoT, cloud services, Industry 4.0, AI, autonomous driving, and SR/VR/XR to create immense new application opportunities, which will be crucial for chipmakers in determining their presence and performance in the 5G era. This in turn will prompt chipmakers to adopt diverse strategies in deploying 5G chip products and markets.

https://fudzilla.com/news/iot/47449-...st-smartphones