Sales figures for the last three months of 2023 have come in, and with them comes the news that MediaTek sold the most chips during that quarter, beating Qualcomm's efforts. While MediaTek has been on the rise in both sales and reputation stakes in recent years, the chipmaker hasn't always found it easy in the smartphone processor segment, having missed its opportunity for growth during the 4G/LTE era. However, it's making no such mistake with 5G, thanks to a steady stream of Dimensity phone chips covering the lower-to-flagship sections.
Q4 Sales
Thanks to the performance figures issued by Canalys, we have a clear and concise view of how the various smartphone chipmakers performed towards the end of 2023.
Besides Samsung and Google, which experienced a decline of 48% and 4%, respectively, chipmakers grew their sales figures in Q4 2023. MediaTek managed a 21% jump in smartphone chip sales, with figures rising to 117m units sold, a commendable increase. The chipmaker with the biggest percentage leap is UniSoc, which managed a 24% boom in sales thanks to selling 27 million chips during the same quarter.
Apple snared second position with 78m chips sold, with Qualcomm managing just 1% growth in the same period.
Q4 Revenue
It sounds good when you say MediaTek sold 21% more smartphone processors in Q4, but what does that mean in terms of actual revenue received? This is where Apple leaps ahead, achieving a 20% rise in revenue, which caps out to $87 billion in Q4, with the next closest being Qualcomm with $30 billion, representing a drop of 2% year-on-year.
MediaTek's surge in revenue matched its sales with a 22% increase resulting in $23 billion revenue for the same time period, despite the processor segment being quite volatile during 2023. By implementing Google's Gemini Nano into its Dimensity 8300 and 9300 chipsets, the sales figures will likely continue to rise during Q1 of 2024.
HiSilicon (you might remember them from Huawei's Kirin processors a few years back) went from zero to $7 billion in revenue, having also achieved an incredible 5,121% leap in sales. These impressive numbers are only possible because there were no sales figures for Q4 of 2022. With Huawei recently launching its new Pocket foldable which is thought to be powered by the Kirin 9000S chipset, and having retrieved top spot in its home market again, it's likely that HiSilicon's numbers will continue to rise.
Who Is Buying All Those Chips?
Well, it may surprise you that Samsung bought more chips from MediaTek than Qualcomm in Q4 last year, joining the likes of Oppo and Vivo. Xiaomi and Honor, on the other hand, purchased more from Qualcomm, with UniSoc making the majority of its sales to Realme and Transsion.
There's more to MediaTek than mobile processors, and there's a good chance you have at least one of its chips in a device in your home without realizing it.
With MediaTek having mostly rehabilitated the reputation it once had for being under-supported in terms of software updates and with the launch of excellent chips such as the recently launched Dimensity 9300, will you be buying a phone powered by a MediaTek processor? Let us know in the comments below.
