Analyst: MediaTek had the largest market share of smartphone chips in the third quarter

MediaTek had the largest market share when it comes to socs for smartphones in the third quarter of 2020. It is the first time that MediaTek is the largest player. Phones with MediaTek-soc are mainly for sale in India and China.

31 percent of all smartphones sold in the third quarter contained a MediaTek soc, calculates Counterpoint Research. It would concern more than a hundred million smartphones. The Taiwanese MediaTek has thus overtaken Qualcomm, chips from that manufacturer were in 29 percent of the sold devices in the third quarter.

Last year in the same period, Qualcomm still had a market share of 31 percent and MediaTek’s share was 26 percent. The market share of Samsung-socs has decreased significantly, that was 16 percent last year and this year it is 12 percent. Samsung also uses MediaTek socs in its budget smartphones.

According to Counterpoint, MediaTek’s success is due to emerging markets such as Latin America, India and China. MediaTek socs are mostly in cheap phones, which are popular in those regions. The US trade ban against Huawei would also have helped MediaTek. More manufacturers would therefore have partnered with MediaTek, instead of Huawe’s HiSilicon.

Images: Counterpoint Research