On April 27, MediaTek released its financial report for the first quarter of 2022, with both revenue and profit hitting a single-quarter record high. The data shows that the company's total revenue for the quarter was NT$142.711 billion (about RMB31.795 billion), an increase of 10.9% quarterly and an annual increase of 32.1%. Operating profit for the quarter was NT$36,467 million (approximately RMB8,124 million), an increase of 80.5% year-on-year, with an average daily net profit of RMB90.27 million.
MediaTek said that operating expenses increased in the quarter compared with previous quarters, mainly due to the increase in R&D investment expenses. This includes research and development costs of 6.36 billion yuan, marketing expenses of 758 million yuan and management expenses of 749 million yuan. MediaTek's ability to occupy more and more market share in the Android mobile phone market is closely related to the growth of its R&D investment. Only those who have money have the ability to build more powerful processors and continue to charge the high-end market.
This year, MediaTek brought two high-end processors of the Tianji 9000 and Tianji 8000 series, the performance of the former is completely enough to compete with qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, which is applied by mobile phone manufacturers on high-end flagship models, and Qualcomm is equally divided into this year's high-end mobile phone market. The sub-flagship Tianji 8000 series, the performance is also comparable to a generation of Snapdragon 888, and has a very good power performance, has successfully replaced the Snapdragon 870 as a new generation of God U, by all mobile phone manufacturers applied in the 2000 ~ 4000 yuan gear model.
The emergence of these two chips has given MediaTek a greater voice in the high-end market, while further expanding its market share. Since the previous year, MediaTek has become the leader of the global smartphone Soc market and is gradually expanding the gap with Qualcomm.
Counterpoint data shows that in the fourth quarter of 2021, MediaTek led the smartphone Soc market with a 33% share, and Qualcomm ranked second with a 30% share. According to IDC data, in the fourth quarter of 2021, MediaTek's market share of Android phones in the United States reached 48.1%, and Qualcomm's was 43.9%. In the domestic market, MediaTek mobile phone processor shipments in 2021 were 110 million, exceeding Qualcomm's 106 million.
Last year, Qualcomm had the help of Snapdragon 888 and Shen U Snapdragon 870, and it was still opened by MediaTek. This year, the market position of snapdragon 870 was replaced by the Tianji 8000 series, and Qualcomm's competitive advantage declined significantly. If Qualcomm can't come up with a more capable product, perhaps this year's Android market is MediaTek's monopoly.