In today's competitive chip market, MediaTek stands out with a global shipment share of 38%, securing the title of global shipment champion for 15 consecutive quarters. From dominating the DVD chip market to navigating the twists and turns of the mobile phone chip sector, MediaTek's journey has been nothing short of thrilling. Yet, despite its impressive market share and extensive collaborations, MediaTek continues to grapple with external doubts that cast a shadow over its seemingly glorious position.

The Lingering Shadow of the "Counterfeit King"

Tracing MediaTek's history reveals an inseparable past with counterfeit phones. In the feature phone era, MediaTek's "turnkey solution" provided counterfeit phone manufacturers with a comprehensive package of chips, software platforms, and designs, drastically lowering the threshold and cost of mobile phone R&D. This strategy led to a proliferation of counterfeit phones, earning MediaTek the moniker of "father of counterfeit phones" in the industry. These phones, often branded with MediaTek and featuring flashy lights, loudspeakers, and ultra-low prices, met the needs of some consumers but brought numerous negative impacts to the mobile phone industry due to quality inconsistencies, poor workmanship, and a lack of after-sales guarantees.

As the "heart" of these counterfeit phones, MediaTek was inevitably tarnished. Consumers often associate MediaTek with low-end, inferior counterfeit phones, a stereotype that has deeply scarred the brand's image. Despite MediaTek's subsequent efforts to shed this shadow, investing heavily in R&D, enhancing chip technology, and launching chips aimed at the mid-to-high-end market (such as the Helio and Dimensity series), consumer perceptions remain difficult to change.

In the minds of many consumers, MediaTek chips are still perceived as inferior to those from brands like Qualcomm, Apple, and Samsung. This preconception poses a significant barrier for MediaTek in penetrating the high-end market and enhancing its brand image, often placing it in an awkward position in market competitions. Even with significant improvements in product performance, the "counterfeit" stigma persists.

Performance and Experience Shortcomings

MediaTek chips also face criticism regarding their actual performance.

In terms of single-core performance, for instance, MediaTek's Dimensity 9400 lags behind Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen4. Data from Geekbench shows that the OPPO Find X8 Pro equipped with Dimensity 9400 scored 2818 points in the single-core test, while devices with Snapdragon 8 Gen4 scored 3069 points in the single-core test and as high as 10049 points in the multi-core test. This disparity highlights Dimensity 9400's disadvantage in single-core performance, crucial for daily tasks like opening apps, loading web pages, and multitasking.

Moreover, MediaTek's GPU performance is another notable weakness. For a long time, MediaTek has relied on ARM's public version solution for its GPUs, lacking independent R&D capabilities and resorting to stacking more GPU cores for performance improvements, with limited success.

This GPU performance deficit is especially evident in gaming experiences. When running high-graphic games like "Genshin Impact," phones with MediaTek chips often encounter frame drops, lag, and excessive heating, resulting in unsmooth graphics and reduced gameplay feel, making it difficult for players to immerse themselves. This contrasts sharply with Qualcomm chips in gaming performance.

In summary, MediaTek chips face numerous performance-related issues criticized by consumers. These problems not only impair the user experience but also pose significant challenges to MediaTek in market competitions. Resolving these issues and regaining consumer trust are crucial for MediaTek's future.

Lagging Technology R&D

With the rapid evolution of the smartphone market and technology, MediaTek has gradually found itself in a dilemma. Its once-proud advantages have weakened, and in fierce competitions with rivals like Qualcomm, Apple, and Samsung, MediaTek's lagging technology R&D has become increasingly apparent, eroding its market share and making it difficult to gain a foothold in the high-end chip market.

In chip manufacturing, process technology is crucial. As the industry leader, TSMC continuously launches more advanced process technologies, from 10nm to 7nm, 5nm, and now 3nm. Each advancement significantly boosts chip performance and energy efficiency.

However, MediaTek struggles to keep pace. For example, the Dimensity 9400 uses TSMC's second-generation 3nm process, which, while advanced, lags behind TSMC's more cutting-edge 2nm process under development. The 2nm process can integrate more transistors, significantly enhancing computing power and energy efficiency.

Apple's A-series chips, benefiting from advanced process technology, excel in performance and power consumption control. The A17 Pro chip in the iPhone 15 Pro, using TSMC's 3nm process, shows marked performance improvements over its predecessor while reducing power consumption, offering smoother performance and longer battery life. MediaTek's chips, due to their relatively lagging process technology, struggle to compete in performance enhancements and energy efficiency optimization with chips using more advanced processes. This limits their competitiveness in the high-end market and strains their performance in applications with extreme performance and power consumption requirements.

Beyond process technology, MediaTek also falls short in software optimization and ecosystem construction.

Software optimization is vital for chip performance, akin to a "capable assistant" maximizing the chip's hardware potential. However, MediaTek's performance in this area is unsatisfactory, with many phones experiencing system lag and slow application response.

This is mainly due to MediaTek's inadequate software-level optimization, unable to achieve efficient collaboration between the chip, operating system, and applications. In multitasking scenarios, phones with MediaTek chips may suffer from poor memory management, leading to forcibly closed applications or lag when switching, severely impacting the user experience.

In ecosystem construction, MediaTek lags behind competitors like Qualcomm, which has established close ties with many software developers and device manufacturers, fostering a vast and well-established ecosystem. MediaTek, with a weaker ecosystem, faces challenges in software support and application adaptation. Some software developers may prioritize adapting to Qualcomm chips with higher market share, causing compatibility issues or failing to fully leverage MediaTek chips' performance advantages.

Business Strategy Confusion

In market positioning, MediaTek seems to have never found its precise spot, caught in an awkward middle ground. Take the Dimensity 1000L chip, born amidst the 5G chip wave, carrying MediaTek's high-end aspirations. With a 7nm process, integrated 5G baseband, NSA/SA dual-mode 5G support, and good multi-core performance, it seemed poised to compete with high-end chips of its time.

However, reality struck hard. In the market, Dimensity 1000L is predominantly used in mid-to-low-end 5G phones due to its gaps with true high-end chips in single-core performance, GPU performance, and software optimization. Moreover, in the mid-to-low-end market, Dimensity 1000L's higher price and lack of cost-effectiveness fail to meet price-sensitive consumers' needs. This vague positioning, unable to compete in the high-end market with performance and experience or attract consumers with price advantages in the mid-to-low-end market, led to Dimensity 1000L's disappointing sales, damaging MediaTek's high-end reputation and deepening the "mid-to-low-end" stereotype, seriously affecting brand image and market share expansion.

Additionally, MediaTek faces issues with mobile phone manufacturers in chip tuning and cooperation depth. Despite MediaTek chips supporting up to 200 million-pixel cameras, their actual imaging quality lags behind Qualcomm-powered phones due to insufficient investment in imaging tuning and lack of deep optimization by phone manufacturers.

Phone manufacturers are accustomed to using Qualcomm's high-end chips in premium models, with more in-depth and mature tuning. Switching to MediaTek platforms requires additional software costs for re-exploration and optimization, hindering MediaTek from fully leveraging its chips' performance advantages in collaborations, limiting its high-end market development.

Where is the Future?

MediaTek's journey has been marked by glory and controversy. Once synonymous with counterfeit phones, its brand image suffered. Despite subsequent efforts to break free, the shadow persists. In terms of performance, shortcomings in single-core and GPU performance have drawn criticism. In technology R&D, slow progress in process technology, software optimization, and ecosystem defects hinder further chip development. In business strategy, vague market positioning and disputes over supply and cooperation have made MediaTek passive in competitions.

To excel in future competitions, MediaTek must intensify investments in technology R&D, accelerate process technology upgrades, improve software optimization capabilities, and bolster ecosystem construction. In branding, it must reshape its image and dispel consumer biases through continuous technological innovation and high-quality product experiences. In market strategy, it must clarify positioning, identify entry points across high, mid, and low-end markets, strengthen collaborations with phone manufacturers, and optimize supply chain management to ensure stable chip supply and a good market reputation.

In a fiercely competitive chip market, MediaTek must go all in to enhance its core competitiveness. With perseverance and innovation, MediaTek can reclaim its glory in the global chip market, offering consumers high-performance, low-power chip products, and injecting new vitality into industry development.