MStar looks to challenge MediaTek in white-box handset baseband chip market
According to market watchers, Taiwan IC design house MStar has shipped handset baseband chips to China white-box handset customers priced almost 30% lower than MediaTek's chips. In addition, MStar is also planning to introduce multimedia chips recently, which may affect MediaTek's margins in the future.
Both MediaTek and MStar declined to comment on the report.
Industry players pointed out that MStar's handset chip product lines are focusing on baseband chips and the company will have multimedia chips on the market soon; however, without RF chips, it will be difficult for MStar to compete with MediaTek in the short term.
China white-box handset makers also indicated MStar's handset chip solutions should first target competitors Spreadtrum Communications, Texas Instruments (TI) and Infineon Technologies. Comparing the company's solution with MediaTek's complete solutions of baseband, RF, power management and multimedia chips, along with the associated software, firmware and module solutions, leaves MStar's chip solution looking relatively weak in comparison.
China handset OEMs mentioned that customers will still incur a higher module cost when using MStar's chip solutions since they need to order related chips from other suppliers, and the size of MStar's baseband chips is slightly bigger than MediaTek's chips, which is one of the reason's MStar needs to offer a 30% price difference compared with MediaTek.
Although MediaTek's leading position will not be impacted by MStar in the short term, industry players expect MediaTek's margins hardly to reach 50%.
In addition to the handset market in China, MStar's GPS solutions have also won market share in Russia. MStar and MediaTek also have product offerings in the TV controller market.
Both MediaTek and MStar declined to comment on the report.
Industry players pointed out that MStar's handset chip product lines are focusing on baseband chips and the company will have multimedia chips on the market soon; however, without RF chips, it will be difficult for MStar to compete with MediaTek in the short term.
China white-box handset makers also indicated MStar's handset chip solutions should first target competitors Spreadtrum Communications, Texas Instruments (TI) and Infineon Technologies. Comparing the company's solution with MediaTek's complete solutions of baseband, RF, power management and multimedia chips, along with the associated software, firmware and module solutions, leaves MStar's chip solution looking relatively weak in comparison.
China handset OEMs mentioned that customers will still incur a higher module cost when using MStar's chip solutions since they need to order related chips from other suppliers, and the size of MStar's baseband chips is slightly bigger than MediaTek's chips, which is one of the reason's MStar needs to offer a 30% price difference compared with MediaTek.
Although MediaTek's leading position will not be impacted by MStar in the short term, industry players expect MediaTek's margins hardly to reach 50%.
In addition to the handset market in China, MStar's GPS solutions have also won market share in Russia. MStar and MediaTek also have product offerings in the TV controller market.
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The MStar GPS chipset just begin to show very serious problem of not getting any position fix starting June 14, 2009.
ReplyDeleteIn this respect, MediaTek is still better, not having stumbled on any serious mistakes.