Move over, Qualcomm and MediaTek. Here comes Xiaomi:
According to a report from The Wall Street Journal , Chinese smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi is looking to join the ranks of Apple, Samsung, and Huawei by developing its own smartphone chips. The report says the move is part of "aspirations to join the top tier" of smartphone manufacturers and an attempt to stand out from the slew of other OEMs.
For now, Xiaomi's processor is apparently called "Pinecone," and it will be released "within a month" according to the report. This might be talking about the processor of the Xiaomi Mi 6, which, if Xiaomi keeps to the usual yearly release cycle, should be out sometime in March. Xiaomi's chip design division isn't coming from nowhere—using a shell company called "Beijing Pinecone Electronics," Xiaomi paid $15 million to acquire mobile processor technology from Datang subsidiary Leadcore Technology Ltd.
Also at TechCrunch and Engadget.
(Score: 3, Informative) by RamiK on Sunday February 12 2017, @06:43PM
Drawing attention to the distinction between fabs, fabless, ISA licensees, OEMs, brand names and so on while cross-referencing volume of sales, target platforms, revenues and profits might be a bit above the average pay-grade of a WSJ press-release re-digestion.
From what I can tell, the WSJ reporter tried finding the up-to-date q4 smartphone market share breakdown and instead mistakenly looked at the global yearly shipping figures here: https://www.strategyanalytics.com/strategy-analytics/blogs/devices/smartphones/smart-phones/2017/01/31/global-smartphone-shipments-hit-a-record-1.5-billion-units-in-2016 [strategyanalytics.com]
The problem being, that those follow brand names rather then SoCs...
Any who, as for MT, they had another bump in revenues and shipping in Q3/Q4 2016: http://www.fudzilla.com/news/42602-mediatek-revenues-jump-29-percent-in-2016 [fudzilla.com] https://www.strategyanalytics.com/access-services/components/handset-components/reports/report-detail/smartphone-apps-processor-market-share-q3-2016-mediatek-catching-qualcomm-in-unit-shipments [strategyanalytics.com]
I guess next time we'll know better then getting our tech news from the WSJ :D
compiling...