MediaTek Inc. (Chinese: 聯發科技股份有限公司; pinyin: Liánfā Kējì Gǔfèn Yǒuxiàn Gōngsī) is a fabless semiconductor company that provides system-on-chip solutions for wireless communications, HDTV, DVD and Blu-ray. Headquartered in Hsinchu, Taiwan, the company has 25 offices worldwide and was the 4th largest IC designer worldwide in 2013. Since its founding in 1997, MediaTek has been creating chipset solutions for the global market. MediaTek also provides its customers with reference designs.
MediaTek was originally a unit of United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC) tasked with designing chipsets for home entertainment products. On May 28, 1997, the unit was spun off and incorporated. MediaTek Inc. was listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TSEC) under the "2454" code on July 23, 2001.
The company started out designing chipsets for optical drives and subsequently expanded into chip solutions for DVD players, digital TVs, mobile phones, smartphones and tablets. In general MediaTek has had a strong record of gaining market share and displacing competitors after entering new markets.
The company's division designing solutions for mobile devices was launched in 2004. Seven years later, it was taking orders for more than 500 million mobile system-on-chip units per annum, which included solutions for both feature phones and smart devices. By providing extensive system engineering assistance the company allowed many smaller companies and new entrants to enter a mobile phone market that had previously been dominated by large, often vertically integrated corporations that had long been broadly entrenched in the telecommunications industry. The mobile chip market quickly became the main growth driver for the company.
At Mobile World Congress 2014, MediaTek unveiled its new brand “Everyday Genius”, dubbing the term “Super-mid market”, with the vision and aiming to make smartphones more accessible affordable to the wider market.
As of November 2014, over 1500 mobile models accounting for 700 million units were shipped globally in 2014, using MediaTek chips, and the company posted revenues of US$5.3 billion in the first half of 2014, nearly as much as the whole of 2013. The revenue growth was however partly due to revenue recognition from the acquisition of MStar which became effective at the beginning of 2014.[
