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shub
Some disagreement on ranking i will take out Broadcom and put Renesas there with ...
Silicon_Smith
This market has already seen big players slipping down the ladder and there is ...
Analyst: Infineon, TI are second tier in mobile chips
Peter Clarke
7/21/2010 3:37 PM EDT
LONDON – Infineon, Marvell, Renesas and Texas Instruments are forming the second tier of chip suppliers to the mobile phone industry and the mobile business units of these companies are potentially liable to merger and acquisition activity, according to Mike Bryant, an analyst with Future Horizons.
Companies with even less market share and startups will have no place in the new order, which puts the survival of companies such as Icera at risk, Bryant said.
Speaking at a mid-year semiconductor market forecast organized here by Future Horizons (Sevenoaks, England), Bryant observed that depite consolidations such as the one that created ST-Ericsson, there are still a similar number of tier-one tier semiconductor suppliers as there are top-tier cell phone manufacturers, which in the long term is not tenable.
"We expect MediaTek, Qualcomm, Broadcom and ST-Ericsson to survive as the main suppliers, with a second tier of Renesas, Marvell, Infineon, TI, and maybe a few others also present," said Bryant. "We cannot see smaller or niche players, such as Icera, surviving in this market as OEMs want complete solutions," he added.
MediaTek Inc. (Hsinchu, Taiwan) has burst into the top tier of mobile phone chip suppliers mainly on the strength of its offering at the low end, Bryant said.
"MediaTek of Taiwan is the fastest growing chipset supplier and is pushing other suppliers out of the low- to medium-end business. However over 150 million units are to the illegal non-IEMI numbered market," said Bryant.
The International Mobile Equipment Identity or IMEI is a number, intended to be unique and used to identify GSM, WCDMA, and iDEN mobile phones, as well as some satellite phones.
The mis- or non-use of the IEMI number has been rife in China, Bryant said but China is beginning to crack down on the practice. However, this may have an additional benefit for MediaTek because as illegal phones with duplicate or no IMEI number are disabled by operators it will stimulate the replacement market for legitimate sales.
Related links and articles:
Renesas strategy: Domestic chip player to global mobile tech leader
Renesas to buy Nokia's wireless modem business
ST-Ericsson, Sagem to launch LTE-to-GSM platform
Winners, losers in cell-phone baseband biz
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abc555
7/22/2010 2:47 PM EDT
Difficult to see why Meditak would be tier 1
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asian
7/22/2010 5:50 PM EDT
Because they are hardworking and deserve it !!! it is really difficult for you ...
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Baolt
7/23/2010 6:04 PM EDT
Fellows, mobile biz is transforming to someway clever one, future phones are everything else but a phone. Mobile internet device, clever e-reader/editer, social connection hub. The reason why big guys will remain is just becauase they have power, money and recources to create future chips. Mediatek simply not that huge thats why wont be tier 1... But admire hard work or Taiwanese and Chinese folks
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goafrit
7/23/2010 10:11 PM EDT
I am impressed with MediaTek. They have great products and deserve this momentum. However, I am still confident that the market can tolerate more players since this industry is disruptive. We are still looking for that low cost low power chip to power the 4G phones. The phones of today are primitives in terms of power usage; we need better. Any firm that breaks that mold could certainly disrupts. And the top players better not hope it will not have more competitors. If you sleep, you die in this business.
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Silicon_Smith
7/25/2010 2:05 AM EDT
This market has already seen big players slipping down the ladder and there is no reason why this will not happen again. Media-Tek might have good products but to sustain is to win! Companies like Marvell and TI have enough ammo to last any shoot-out. I do not see the biggies folding cards. On the contrary, I expect them to raise the bets in the next round!!
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shub
7/25/2010 10:45 PM EDT
Some disagreement on ranking i will take out Broadcom and put Renesas there with new development of them purchasing Nokia Wireless Modem and slowly they will become big supplier to Nokia for there S40 and Symbian Platform watch it out which will push out Broadcom completely.
Second thought is we all had forgotten big big giant Intel which will become No-1 tier after purchasing Infineon which i think is on way.
My bet is there will be
Tier1: Qualcomm, Renesas, Intel with Infineon purchase and Mediatek.
Tier2: Broadcom, ST-E.
TI will either close there wireless business or exist, they dont have scope to survive this market and Marvel will be there but just becuase of design win for RIM and TD-SCDMA.
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