Thanks to the outstanding performance of Dimensity chips, in 2020 MediaTek beat Qualcomm to become the largest supplier in the smartphone chip market. It also caught the attention of tech giant Apple. Now, it appears that MediaTek has entered Apple's supply chain and should officially begin shipping in February and March.
MediaTek has become a member of Apple's supply chain
This is the first time MediaTek has entered Apple's supply chain. This is also the first time that Apple has introduced foreign chips into its headset products.
Apple has officially canceled the included headphones for the iPhone 12 series. The Cupertino-based company will launch cheaper “Beats Flex” headphones at an upcoming press conference, priced at just $49,99. Apple will use this to get more iPhone users to buy wireless headphones.
With current iPhone shipments exceeding 200 million units per year, the market opportunity for Beats headsets is huge. In other words, Apple's supplier companies, according to MediaTek, will also receive significant revenue.
MediaTek has experience making chips for headsets
It is worth mentioning that MediaTek received the Beats order through its subsidiary company, which develops highly integrated circuits for wireless communication. In recent years, it has been well-known for supplying many counterfeit chips for the AirPods product. It is possible that MediaTek chips will be used in its own product line, and it is also expected that MediaTek chips will be introduced into more products.
Shipments of counterfeit AirPods will reach 600 million units in 2020. This is 6 times more than real AirPods.
A few days ago, we reported that MediaTek has become the largest supplier of mobile SoCs for smartphones in China. Despite the decline in the Chinese market, MediaTek managed to outpace the competition and lead the market. SoC shipments to China totaled 307 million units in 2020, down 20,8% from 2019.
