MediaTek remains world's 4th largest IC designer

Taipei, Sept. 21 (CNA) In the second quarter of the year, Taiwan's MediaTek Inc. retained its position as the fourth largest integrated circuit designer globally in terms of its sales, which showed higher growth than the average among the world's top 10 companies, according to Taipei-based market information advisory firm TrendForce Corp.

Benefiting from solid global demand for smartphones and other mobile devices, MediaTek posted US$4.49 billion in sales for the April-June period, up 98.8 percent from a year earlier, compared with the average 60.8 percent among the world's top 10 IC designers, a research paper released recently by TrendForce showed.

Sales of MediaTek chips for mobile devices soared 143 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier, while its products for other gadgets also recorded double digit sales growth, according to Trendforce.

Another Taiwanese IC designer, Novatek Microelectronics Corp., which supplies drive ICs for flat panels, was sixth in the second-quarter world rankings, generating US$1.22 billion in sales, up 96.0 percent from a year earlier and also beating the average global growth, the research paper showed.

According to TrendForce, global sales of drive ICs for flat panels jumped 81 percent year-on-year in the second quarter.

In the three-month period, Novatek's sales also benefitted from its development of system-on-a-chip (SoC) and its close cooperation with contract chipmakers such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. and United Microelectronics Corp., the research paper indicated.

Meanwhile, Taiwan-based computer network IC designer Realtek Semiconductor Corp. ranked ninth globally in the second quarter, with sales of US$834 million, up 44.0 percent from a year earlier, TrendForce said.

The top IC designers in the world generated US$29.85 billion in second-quarter sales, up 60.8 percent from a year earlier, amid a global supply shortage, according to TrendForce.

U.S.-based smartphone IC designer Qualcomm Inc. remained the world's largest IC designer, posting US$6.47 billion in second-quarter sales, up 70.0 percent from a year earlier, largely on the back of strong demand for 5G chips for international smartphone brands.

NVidia Corp., an American graphic processing unit designer, recorded the second highest sales of US$5.84 billion, up 68.8 percent from a year earlier, followed by U.S.-based Broadcom Inc. (US$4.95 billion).

Apart from the three Taiwanese IC designers, the other firms on the top-10 list in terms of second-quarter sales were the American companies Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (US$3.85 billion, No. 5), Marvell Technology Inc. (US$995 million, No. 7), Xilinx Inc. (US$879 million, No. 8), and U.K.-based Dialog Semiconductor PLC (US$318 million, No.10).