Qualcomm and MediaTek might lose business in the long-term as more smartphone vendors look to self-design their System-on-Chipsets (SoCs). Currently, Apple, Samsung, and Google are the major smartphone companies that are selling smartphones with self-designed and developed chipsets. While they may depend on other manufacturing companies for the final production of these chipsets, the fact that they can design their own chips gives them the freedom to customise the product (smartphone) according to the chipset for the most efficient and powerful performance.
After these three, more companies might catch up with the trend of using self-developed and designed chipsets on their smartphones.
Qualcomm and MediaTek's Major Customers are Chinese OEMs
There are many Chinese Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) that depend too much on Qualcomm and MediaTek for their chipset needs. Companies such as OnePlus, Oppo, Vivo, Realme and more use chipsets from Qualcomm and MediaTek, regardless of whether they are selling a flagship or a mid-range or a budget device.
Oppo is already making moves in this department. According to a report we published earlier today, Oppo is planning to launch its own chipset for smartphones by 2024. The company might go for a low-end chipset meant for budget devices initially. But no one can deny that this is a step that is in the right direction for the company.
Becoming self-reliant will solve a lot of problems that arise for these smartphone vendors. During the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the supply chains were majorly hit, smartphone makers couldn’t fulfil their estimated production targets because they didn’t have sufficient SoCs. However, by designing their own chipsets, OEMs can control the performance of their product in a much better and more efficient manner.
Other companies will soon start planning something around the same. Who knows, even OnePlus might be working on its own SoC since Oppo has started down that path.
