MediaTek reportedly giving up of flagship SoC to focus in midrange segment


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MediaTek has been playing a big role in the smartphone segment, as one among the world’s top chipset manufacturer. But just recently, on the past few years the company started to play big in the segment with cost effective and powerful SoCs.

However this year isn’t being the best for the company in terms of competition and presence in the mobile scenario. While the midrange chipset Helio P25 is present in a vast array of handsets, the company is hardly meeting previous expectations for their 2017’s flagship chipset, the Helio X30.

The Helio X30 is a deca-core built in the impressive 10nm process composed by three clusters, being a 2.6Ghz ARM-Cortex A73 dual core coupled by two quad-cores Cortex-A53 2.2GHz and a ARM Cortex-A35 1.9GHz respectively.

Although the company have put long efforts and market over the decacore flagship SoC, the expectations haven’t lived so long, since the chipset can’t compete with the other market offerings, such as Exynos 8895, Kirin 970 and Snapdragon 835. That can pretty much explain why companies are showing few to no interest in adopting the Taiwanese company solution on their smartphones.

Currently, the Helio X30 is only present in the Meizu PRO 7 Plus, but that isn’t a coincidence or a fully minded choice from Meizu. The chipset manufacturer plays a big role as one of Meizu’s main investor, since this kind of “partnership” started, Meizu got “exclusivity” over the first shipments of MediaTek Flagship chipsets. That happened with Helio X10, also with X20 and explain why the latest Meizu’s flagship also sports the Helio X30.

Meizu Pro 7

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According to a report collected by industry researcher Gearburn, MediaTek will no longer focus its strength in the high range processors segment, since they can’t or are no longer interested in competing with the current market’s offerings.

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Additionally the MediaTek’s General Manager for International Sales, Mr. Finbarr Moynihan, the company will pause its focus on the flagship-grade and will focus on the midrange segment instead. The midrange always have been a place where MediaTek did well, but the company can still improve their performance in the area.

The current offering Helio P range is away from being bad, instead it deliver a very sincere performance over the advertised. However it still lags behind Qualcomm’s offerings such as the excellent Snapdragon 660 and the latest Snapdragon 636.

Some years ago, MediaTek’s midrange SoCs delivered good performance while also came for a very low price when compared with any midrange packing a Snapdragon SoC. This has drastically changed during the past years, with Qualcomm improving its performance-value ratio and grabbing a lot of potential MediaTek costumers. Now with main focus being given to the mid range class, MediaTek is aiming to take back its costumers and also revolutionize once again the midrange market.

Lastly, although the reports can bury any chance of a flagship MediaTek chipset arrival the company is not totally giving up of this segment. We  probably are not going to see any Helio X chipset popping out on 2018, however the company don’t scrap a comeback sometime later.

What you think about it? It’s a smart move from MediaTek to focus where they always did well? Or are you going to miss the Helio X series with their multiple cores and clusters. Let us know in the comments section.

 

 

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14 Comments

  1. November 10, 2017

    So sad, but the Qualcomm + chinese brands move using Qualcomm SoCs on devices with a nice price + The problem of Mediatek devices of some restrictions in updates or source code, makes Qualcomm eat it near to complete.

  2. Deiki
    November 11, 2017

    So sad, but the Qualcomm + chinese brands move using Qualcomm SoCs on devices with a nice price + The problem of Mediatek devices of some restrictions in updates or source code, makes Qualcomm eat it near to complete.

  3. Simion-Florin
    November 11, 2017

    The Helio P25 is somehow on par with the Snapdragon 625, 625 is more efficient and has a better ISP camera and im not sure if it has a slightly better GPU. Ok, but there are Snapdragon 626, 630, 636 and the 660, all these SoCs kills the entire midrange chips of Mediatek. In the entry level, the Snapdragon 430, 435, and the new 450 built on 14 nm process completely obliterate the entry level lineup of Mediatek. I know the Qualcomm chips are more expensive, but the prices of these chips are getting better and more manufacturers are beginning to use them more.

    • z4ck
      November 11, 2017

      s625 does not support DDR4 while P25 does
      s625 does not support dual channel while P25 does
      s625 is a True Octa while P25 is Big.Little

      Anyway, Do you know about qualcomm’s dirty patent strategy ?
      There are many dirty things they do, but let me explain you one of them.

      Qualcomm has cdma modem patent, and they can demand for royalty to OEMs using cdma. When the OEM is using non-qualcomm chip they will demande a much higher royalty compared to when the OEM use qualcomm chip.
      OEMs are mostly forced to go with qualcomm if they need cdma and don’t want to be demanded for high royalty.
      You can learn more about many lawsuit against qualcomm. Qualcomm is dominating the market not because of their high quality product but because of their dirty strategy and dirty marketing.

      Helio x30 were supposed to power many devices, but “something” happened in Jan 2017, and Most OEMs canceled their order. And the only company which didn’t cancel is Meizu, which had some lawsuit trouble against Qualcomm.
      Very easy to guess what happened; Qualcomm said to OEMs that if they buy Helio X30, qualcomm will diminish the rebate (just as what they tried to do against apple).

      Exynos and Kirin chip does not integrate cdma (Kirin has an original alternative modem for cdma), so that’s why they are not victim of this dominating strategy.

  4. Simion-Florin
    November 11, 2017

    The Helio P25 is somehow on par with the Snapdragon 625, 625 is more efficient and has a better ISP camera and im not sure if it has a slightly better GPU. Ok, but there are Snapdragon 626, 630, 636 and the 660, all these SoCs kills the entire midrange chips of Mediatek. In the entry level, the Snapdragon 430, 435, and the new 450 built on 14 nm process completely obliterate the entry level lineup of Mediatek. I know the Qualcomm chips are more expensive, but the prices of these chips are getting better and more manufacturers are beginning to use them more.

    • z4ck
      November 11, 2017

      s625 does not support DDR4 while P25 does
      s625 does not support dual channel while P25 does
      s625 is a True Octa while P25 is Big.Little

      Anyway, Do you know about qualcomm’s dirty patent strategy ?
      There are many dirty things they do, but let me explain you one of them.

      Qualcomm has cdma modem patent, and they can demand for royalty to OEMs using cdma. When the OEM is using non-qualcomm chip they will demande a much higher royalty compared to when the OEM use qualcomm chip.
      OEMs are mostly forced to go with qualcomm if they need cdma and don’t want to be demanded for high royalty.
      You can learn more about many lawsuit against qualcomm. Qualcomm is dominating the market not because of their high quality product but because of their dirty strategy and dirty marketing.

      Helio x30 were supposed to power many devices, but “something” happened in Jan 2017, and Most OEMs canceled their order. And the only company which didn’t cancel is Meizu, which had some lawsuit trouble against Qualcomm.
      Very easy to guess what happened; Qualcomm said to OEMs that if they buy Helio X30, qualcomm will diminish the rebate (just as what they tried to do against apple).

      Exynos and Kirin chip does not integrate cdma (Kirin has an original alternative modem for cdma), so that’s why they are not victim of this dominating strategy.

  5. Rick
    November 12, 2017

    They should obey the licences first and publish the source code of the kernel modules.

  6. Guest
    November 12, 2017

    They should obey the licences first and publish the source code of the kernel modules.

  7. fido futte
    November 12, 2017

    Also Spreadtrum together with Intel are moving up in the high-mid sector with P25/S625 and with SC9851 And Power VR GT7xxx should be even faster than S625

    • Magma
      November 12, 2017

      spreadtrum has not released a decent Processor in like 2 Years. It says its in pipeline but never gets released or not beginning mass production.

  8. Mario
    November 12, 2017

    “FLAGSHIP SOC” Helio x30 has less power than SD 820 from 2015 so what is there more to say…

  9. fido futte
    November 12, 2017

    Also Spreadtrum together with Intel are moving up in the high-mid sector with P25/S625 and with SC9851 And Power VR GT7xxx should be even faster than S625

    • Magma
      November 12, 2017

      spreadtrum has not released a decent Processor in like 2 Years. It says its in pipeline but never gets released or not beginning mass production.

  10. Mario
    November 12, 2017

    “FLAGSHIP SOC” Helio x30 has less power than SD 820 from 2015 so what is there more to say…