Arthur Wang, Senior Director, Head of Emerging Markets, Corporate Sales International -  MediaTek Inc was in Nepal for the official launch of Colors Pearl Black K22 Octa smartphone. MediaTek is a leading Taiwanese fabless semiconductor company for wireless communications and digital multimedia solutions. In an interview with Sanjeev Sharma of the New Business Age, Wang talked about the significance of Nepali market for the company, and about the company’s strategies. Excerpts:

 

What is the purpose of your visit?

Colors Mobile is a very important partner for us in Nepal. We are here to announce MediaTek's Octa-Core solution, the MT6592, and also to support Colors in their growth. We hope that with the MediaTek ‘True’ Octa-Core solution, they can achieve another milestone in providing premium smartphones to their customers. 

 

What are your company's areas of expertise?

MediaTek was founded in 1997. We started providing chipset solutions for optical storage of computers. Moving forward, we expanded our product line to include DVD players, digital TVs, feature phones, smartphones, tablets, and broadband solutions for ADSL and EPON fibre networks. We are well spread across technology verticals but our philosophy remains the same, which is ‘to enrich everyone's lives’. So our target is not only to provide the chipsets but also the software and system network design to help our customers develop their devices more quickly and efficiently. 

 

Earlier, technology always stayed with global brands as big companies have the capability to use CPU, software and hardware and they do their own integration. For example, developing a handset requires over 150 engineers for one model. But with MediaTek, I think what works as a competitive advantage is our approach to market; we focus on ‘full systems solution approach’. That is the real value-add which we provide to our customers. We not only provide a CPU or chipset, we also provide a lot of peripherals, software and support so that a company can develop a phone with only 30 engineers, which helps unburden their R&D & allows them to be flexible and reduce time to market. This practice has helped us achieve great success. Last year, our revenue was USD 4.58 billion and all the product lines I mentioned were in the top-three positions. We have been able to help many companies enter the industry so that a lot of local players can develop phones, and consumers of emerging markets can enjoy smartphones. 

 

How important is Nepal's market for your company?

Nepal is home to 30 million people, and hence is a big market for MediaTek. Nepal is the first country in South Asia region to roll out 3G network service. It means that the companies and government are trying to bring latest global technologies to the Nepali people. We believe that we can work with Nepali handset companies to pave a way for inclusive growth of smartphones for the local consumers. 

 

What are your expansion plans for Nepal?

We have mainly worked with Colors Mobile in Nepal. We have seen their growth and have witnessed them becoming number one in terms of market share in the country's smartphone market. Moving forward, it is all about switching from 2G t0 3G, from feature phone to smartphone. So we will continue to support Colors Mobile to achieve their ambitions. 

 

What is the status of MediaTek's products globally and in South Asia?

As I have mentioned, our philosophy is to bring technology to as many people as possible. MediaTek has been good at executing this philosophy, as we have huge resources in technical support and this helps lot of local players in developing handsets. Our business model, which started from China has expanded gradually into South East Asia, South Asia, Africa, Russia and Latin America. Recently, we have entered the United States and Western European markets as well. So, our global expansion is following step-by-step process. We have two offices in South Asia and South East Asia; one in Singapore and another in India that is trying to support the entire region.  Combined together, South Asia and South East Asia is our second biggest market after China. 

 

Who are the main competitors of MediaTek? What are its strategies to prevail in the competition?

If we talk about smartphones, we are competing with Qualcomm. In other sectors, we are contending with Broadcom. In some technology areas we are still lagging. But, we are catching up very quickly. For example, we entered the smartphone market only three years back but have already become the 3rd largest in this segment. Our core practices of providing system level design, customer focus and flexibility have helped MediaTek gain success over a short period of time. 

 

How is MediaTek's ‘True’ Octa-Core processor faring in terms of competition with other octa-core processors?

Actually, we are the first to bring to the world a ‘True’ Octa-Core processor. Unlike other octa-core solutions in the market, which can only activate half of their CPU cores at once, MediaTek True Octa-Core allows for all eight of its cores to run simultaneously. That also allows us any number of cores to be run on any application. Also, we have executed system level research while developing this processor, so the MT6592 can deal with more complicated tasks while maximizing power optimization. With our system level approach, the MT6592 can save up to 65 per cent power as compared to other octa-core processors. 

 

How do you foresee the future of multi-core processor in the South Asian smartphone market?

We have seen middle class growing in emerging markets including South Asia. These people want to stay connected, work more efficiently and enjoy their work-life balance. That's why they are moving from feature phones to smartphones and from 2G to 3G. This trend points to the fact that the multi-core processor market in this region is expanding at a rapid pace. We believe that octa-core processors can bring them more benefits, and offer better experience and premium features at an affordable price.