Qualcomm, which was once invincible, is now surpassed, which is beyond the imagination of many people, and even Qualcomm himself has not reacted, and what is more shocking is that this time it is an old domestic chip manufacturer that surpasses him, which is MediaTek.
2021 became a year of MediaTek's counterattack, first of all in terms of chip sales comprehensively crushed Qualcomm, with more than 40% of the market quota ranked first in the world, revenue reached 113 billion, and it is also the world's first chip company to launch 4nm chips. Industry insiders analyzed that the reason why Qualcomm lost this time in addition to its own slackness, it is also inseparable from the old Beauty's spoiler.
Qualcomm's arrogance is an important reason for the defeat
Carefully observing the small partners can find that although Qualcomm's chip replacement speed is getting faster and faster, it is getting smaller and smaller in the performance and production process of the chip. Of course, the factor of technical bottleneck is not excluded, but the bigger reason is Qualcomm's arrogance and "routine" that has led to this phenomenon. In fact, Qualcomm's behavior of "squeezing toothpaste" is itself a means taken by Qualcomm in order to obtain more benefits.
Doing so can increase the iteration speed of the product. We all know that Qualcomm once represented the highest level of chip design in the world. So every time Qualcomm launches a new product, it will cause an uproar around the world, and everyone feels that this is the most powerful chip in the world.
Therefore, even if the improvement in performance is not particularly large, many manufacturers are still willing to pay for Qualcomm, in order to compete for a "first" name. It is precisely because of the purchase of large factories that Qualcomm is more fearless. Qualcomm gradually lowered its requirements for itself, and as long as there is a little progress in technology, it will immediately launch a new chip, so that it can harvest more "leeks" from capitalists.
The technological improvement is getting smaller and smaller, but the price is rising, this situation has caused many people to be dissatisfied, but most people feel more helpless, after all, no company at that time could shake Qualcomm's position in technology.
Some capitalists paid the bill, coupled with Qualcomm's belief that no other company could catch up with it technically, so it began its own long "road of squeezing toothpaste", but what Qualcomm did not expect was that MediaTek, which had disappeared for a long time in the high-end market, suddenly ushered in an outbreak.
MediaTek's victory was not by luck
No one could have imagined that a year ago, mediatek, which was not able to touch the threshold of high-end chips, would take the lead in opening the door of 4nm before Qualcomm. If all the reasons are boiled down to Qualcomm being too light on the enemy, it is obviously a little too hasty. In fact, although MediaTek has always been at a disadvantage in the competition with Qualcomm, Apple and other companies, it has never relaxed its requirements for itself.
MediaTek lost to Qualcomm and Apple that year, and finally had no choice but to commit to the low-end market, which seemed to be a fatal blow to MediaTek, but now it seems that it may give MediaTek the capital to achieve a counterattack.
At that time, the high-end chip market was as strong as a forest, Qualcomm, Apple, Samsung each occupied one side, which made MediaTek, which suffered many heavy blows, have no ability to prevent the confrontation, so MediaTek changed the rate of development, decided to first take root in the terminal chip market, let themselves survive first, and then continuously improve technology.
At that time, manufacturers like Apple and Qualcomm were competing for the dominance of the high-end chip market, and there was very little attention to the mid-end market, which led to the mid-range chip market being very empty and there were not many high-quality mid-range chips to choose from. MediaTek began to focus on chips with better cost performance, made a good balance between performance and price, and quickly occupied the mid-range chip market, because it adopted a strategy of small profits and quick sales, so MediaTek was very impressive in sales.
Although MediaTek is not as good as Qualcomm, Apple and other companies in terms of chip unit price, it is not lost to them at all in terms of profits. This also allowed MediaTek to slowly accumulate a certain amount of funds and technology, which won the conditions for MediaTek's counterattack.
However, MediaTek has not been willing to stay in the mid-market, and MediaTek has always regarded surpassing Qualcomm and Apple as its goal. MediaTek even proposed a 4nm chip research and development plan before Qualcomm, and almost everyone at the time thought that MediaTek was a fool's dream.
However, I did not expect that MediaTek really did it, and when Qualcomm was still smugly "squeezing toothpaste" and filing lawsuits everywhere to collect royalties, MediaTek was developing technology in a down-to-earth manner, which eventually allowed MediaTek to achieve curve overtaking.
summary
Overall, MediaTek has been able to achieve such success because of many factors. On the one hand, the reason is Qualcomm's ideological slackness, resulting in a continuous decline in its own research and development speed, on the other hand, it is also because of MediaTek's own efforts to continuously accelerate technology research and development, correct decision-making to survive in the crisis, and finally achieve counterattack.
We can see that the field of science and technology is changing rapidly, once suppressed by Qualcomm for nearly a decade MediaTek, in 2021 suddenly broke out, there is not much foreshadowing, which also shows that technology companies want to always survive must not be proud and complacent, can not stop the pace of scientific and technological research and development.
Anti-ultra Qualcomm is firmly in the first place, MediaTek's "counterattack" can not only rely on good luck
Behind the 113 billion yuan revenue counterattack Qualcomm, it is not just "luck"