Qualcomm has lost its leadership position and is no longer considered the largest manufacturer of smartphone processors in the world. In 2020, the Taiwanese company MediaTek surpassed its competitor, according to data from the Omdia report quoted by Digitimes.

Qualcomm processors have always been linked to top-of-the-line smartphones on the market, such as the Samsung Galaxy S, and are a benchmark for high quality. However, this alone was not enough to keep the North American company at the top of the world rankings as the largest chipset manufacturer.

MediaTek's success has been driven by the sales performance of Xiaomi and Samsung and its focus on entry-level and mid-range phones that use its processors. MediaTek shipped about 351,8 million smartphone chipsets last year and holds a global market share of 27,2% compared to 2019, when it had 17,2% of the industry.

Xiaomi explosion

Xiaomi's explosive growth last year has seen MediaTek swim with ease and make the Qualcomm lose its position as the world's largest processor manufacturer. The company's largest customer, Xiaomi demanded 223% more processors in 2020 than the previous year. Oppo, the second largest consumer of MediaTek chips, consumed 55,3 million chipsets for its devices, compared to 46,3 million in 2019.

Meanwhile, Samsung saw demand for mid-range and more affordable smartphones with MediaTek chipsets increase by 250% in 2020. Amid the crisis of lack of technology equipment, the outlook for 2021 is good for the company. MediaTek to become the world's largest manufacturer of the device, ahead of Qualcomm. Now we just have to wait and see if the numbers hold up with the possibility of new manufacturers arriving on the market, such as Huawei and Honor.

China business

MediaTek became China's largest chipset supplier in the second half of last year, partly because of Donald Trump's campaign against Huawei, China's largest cellphone maker, to buy components from US companies such as Qualcomm.

Until 2019, Qualcomm dominated the Chinese market, with a 37,9% share, and in the last six months of last year alone, MediaTek reached 31,7% of the market, doubling its presence compared to the previous year and surpassing its American competitor.

China is an important market for these companies, having supplied more than 307 million processors last year alone. With Chinese manufacturers looking to diversify their suppliers, the rise of MediaTek and the fall of Qualcomm as the world’s largest chipset maker is something to watch closely.

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