Корпорация Samsung Electronics планирует начать продажи своих чиов семейства Exynos сторонним производителям смартфонов с целью расширить присутствие на рынке мобильных процессоров и увеличить загрузку мощностей фаундри-бизнеса, сообщают отраслевые источники.
В 2017-м году Samsung занял 4-е место на мировом рынке чипов для персональных смарт-устройств, уступив Qualcomm, Apple и MediaTek. Если задуманная стратегия южнокорейского вендора сработает, это прежде всего скажется на благополучии тайваньской MediaTek, которая выпускает чипы для смартфонов средней ценовой категории. Именно в этот сегмент готовит вторжение Samsung.
Впрочем, успех южнокорейского чеболя во многом будет зависеть о того, какие дополнительные бонусы он сможет предложить потенциальным партнёрам. Эксперты полагают, что Samsung, к примеру, может стимулировать производителей к покупке процессоров Exynos, пообещав им поставки OLED-дисплеев, чипов памяти DRAM или NAND Flash, а также выгодные расценки на услуги контрактного производства микросхем.
Эта стратегия позволит техногиганту улучшить позиции и извлечь больше выгод на рынке в нынешних условиях, когда рост мировых поставок смартфонов существенно ослаб. Что касается MediaTek, то давление со стороны Samsung способно расстроить её бизнес-планы на 2018 год, предупредили специалисты.
Samsung to sell Exynos processors to other smartphone vendors
A fresh report emanating from sources familiar with the mobile chip industry indicate that Samsung is planning to commence sales of its Exynos chipset to interested smartphone manufacturers in a bid to expand the scale of its smartphone chip platform. The aim of Samsung’s latest plans is to boost the rate of usage of its chip and raise its earnings from the segment. Samsung runs a foundry which manufactures chipsets for fabless manufacturers like Qualcomm. Recall that the Snapdragon 835 was manufactured in Samsung’s foundry and the foundry is also fingered to be the one handling the Snapdragon 845 chipset production.
Already, Samsung’s latest Exynos 7872 was utilized by Meizu on its budget M6s full-screen smartphone. Although Meizu had utilized Samsung’s chipsets in the past, in recent times the Chinese phone maker had stuck with MediaTek and even recently returned to Qualcomm chipsets. Samsung ranked as the 4th largest chip maker last year, finishing behind Qualcomm, Apple, and MediaTek. But if this move sees the light of day, MediaTek may be the biggest loser and Samsung could topple the Taiwanese company to emerge the world’s third-largest chipmaker this year.
MediaTek’s share of the mobile phone chip market has taken a considerable dive following the strong preference for Qualcomm chipsets by phone manufacturers. The flagship market is already out of the reach of the Taiwanese fabless chip maker as its last dash for a slice of the pie with the Helio X30 met a disappointing response. Only the Meizu Pro 7 was the major flagship model on which the chip was featured. The chipmaker recently decided to focus on the mid-range chip category where it holds some prominence. Even at that, Qualcomm isn’t losing steam in its bid to control both the high-end and mid to low-end market and with Samsung joining the battle for the mid/low-end market, this may just be another of MediaTek’s growing worries.
Market watchers said now that global smartphone shipment growth is significantly weakening, it is an important market strategy for Samsung to expand its smartphone chip market share by using in-house developed chips in more of its own smartphone models and selling the solutions to other smartphone vendors. The strategy is expected to put Samsung in a better position to benefit more from the official run of 5G mobile communication networks in 2020 while also driving the global smartphone chip market into a greater turbulence, the watchers indicated.
