Taiwanese chipset unit looks at financial, strategic investment in India

Taiwanese chipset maker MediaTek, which competes with Qualcomm globally, is looking for more financial and strategic investment in the country through its equity venture MediaTek Ventures.
 

Anku Jain, managing director, MediaTek India, said: “The venture is looking at opportunities to invest in India, both strategic and financial. In financial investment, the key criterion will be returns and a business that connects with our operations.”
 

Responding to whether he sees an opportunity in investing in post-fab assembly testing, marking, and packaging (ATMP) companies from Taiwan looking at setting shop in India under the productivity-linked incentive (PLI) scheme, Jain said: “We have close relations with these companies. If there is something interesting, we will look at them.”
 

MediaTek Ventures has invested, especially in the payment space, like in Paytm ($60 million) and its rival MobiKwik, but the number of transactions is small. ATMP companies do third-party integrated-circuit packaging and test services for fabrication or semi-conductor companies as well as fabless firms like MediaTek.
 

They supply firms making mobile devices, consumer electronics, telecom parts, etc. Its arm investing in start-ups is in many ways similar to Qualcomm Ventures, which, however, has made much more aggressive investment, including a 0.15 per cent stake for Rs 730 crore in Jio Platforms.

The move is significant as Reliance has tied up with Google to build cheap smartphones on the Android platform and it is expected to generate volumes and will require chipsets.
 

The Taiwanese company is building research and development centres in India and has a team of more than 700 working in two areas: One, it is part of many global projects, and, two, it helps Indian device manufacturers to customise their design requirements for the chip. MediaTek is also prepared for 5G devices. Last year it launched a chipset, and followed it up with two 5G chipsets this year. “We want to play a leading role in 5G chipsets and will have the entire range of smartphones,” said Jain.

In 2019, the Taiwanese company’s 32-37 per cent of India revenue was from mobile computing while the rest came from connectivity (wifi and blue tooth) smart TVs, set-top boxes, smart homes, etc.

Jain said MediaTek powered 70 per cent of all smart TVs in the world and in India too all major TV brands brought components from it. Also one of every three chipsets in the country is from its stable.
 

According to techArc, which looks at chipset market share, MediaTek in 2018 had a 42 per cent share of the third-party chipset market in the country.
 

At the entry smartphone LTE device segment, MediaTek is placed at number two, after UNISOC. However, while MediaTek was dominant in the basic chip segment, Qualcomm entered the fray in 2018, making its presence felt with original equipment manufacturers like Xioami, Vivo, and Asus.
 

In the mid-tier segment, Qualcomm tops the list with more than half the market, followed by MediaTek.