MTK Enhances the Business Ecosystem Efficiency

Abstract

MediaTek (MTK), founded in 1997,1 was a leading IC design company for wireless communications and digital multimedia solutions. The company was a market leader and well known for its single-chip solutions for mobile chips, digital TV, DVD and VCD products. MTK got the reputation mostly because of their Turnkey solutions (single-chip solution) for mobile phone in Shenzhen region of China in 2008. MTK started this business in 2006, and became one of the biggest contributors with 20 per cent of world mobile chip shipments in south China, followed by the top players such as Qualcomm, Infineon, TI (Zhu & Shi 2010). The Turnkey solution integrated most chips inside the mobile phone board, which was presented to customers in a ready-to-use condition. The single-chip style lowered the technology barrier for SMEs with little R&D capability. Meanwhile many customers shortened the design-cycle time and reduced the design cost thereby raising their competitiveness in the market.2 Actually, the Turnkey model was not new at all. MTK started the Turnkey model with the first of their products — the VCD chip, which was followed by DVD and mobile phone chips. The reason why Turnkey was highlighted in the mobile phone market was the huge shipment of mobile phones compared with those of the VCD or DVD markets because the mobile phones were bought by almost every individual, whereas VCD players were bought by families.