MediaTek Smartphone Revenue Up 143% on High-End 5G

MediaTek’s mobile phone business was 57% of Q2 revenue and grew 143% year over year mainly through increasing adoption of its 5G high-end SoCs “among our customer base,” said CEO Rick Tsai on a quarterly call Tuesday. The first high-end smartphone model built on MediaTek’s 5G “open resource architecture” is shipping, said Tsai: “More models for multiple customers will come in the next few months.” MediaTek is standing by projections that 5G smartphone shipments will exceed 500 million units globally this year, more than double the 2020 volume, he said: “We expect the 5G migration to accelerate and penetrate into more regions next year.” Also Tuesday, Corning CEO Wendell Weeks said 5G subscriptions are nearly 300 million, “on track to double that by the end of 2021” (see separate report in this issue).