Recently, MediaTek officially released the Dimensity 9000 processor at the 2021 Executive Summit. This is the world's first mobile phone chip using TSMC's latest 4nm process technology. The new naming method and powerful performance mean that the Dimensity 9000 is positioned above the high-end, which can be seen as an important step for MediaTek to become a top flagship.

In the mobile chip market, MediaTek's chip products are mainly concentrated in the mid-to-low-end market. Although it has also made some efforts in the high-end market, due to the lack of product support, MediaTek has always been outside the door of the high-end market. At present, flagship mobile phones are basically dominated by Qualcomm chips, while MediaTek chips are more commonly found in mid-to-low-end mobile phones.

At the Dimensity 9000 press conference, MediaTek Vice Chairman and CEO Cai Lixing said that today's Dimensity 9000 is a flagship 5G chip, which is the company's active and sustainable development in communications, artificial intelligence, multimedia and other fields for many years. Results of technology investment.

This means that MediaTek has begun to accelerate its impact on the high-end chip market. So, can Dimensity 9000 allow MediaTek to achieve a high-end breakthrough?

Dimensity 9000 won 12 world championships

According to MediaTek, the Dimensity 9000 processor uses TSMC’s 4nm process and is equipped with MediaTek’s 5th generation AI processor. The AI ​​performance is 4 times that of the previous generation.

At the same time, the Dimensity 9000 processor not only supports a screen refresh rate of 144Hz, but also supports up to 320 million pixel cameras and 3 cameras to shoot HDR video at the same time. This means that mobile phone manufacturers equipped with the Dimensity 9000 processor have been able to once again set off a hot sales storm in the current fiercely competitive smartphone market.

It is worth mentioning that the Dimensity 9000 processor is the world's first mobile phone chip product equipped with a 4nm process, which brings a certain confidence and confidence to MediaTek's impact on the high-end chip market.

After the release of the Dimensity 9000 processor, many consumers were surprised. On the one hand, it is because many people think that the first right of TSMC's 4nm process will be handed over to Qualcomm, and few people can think that MediaTek will be the first to launch 4nm process chips; on the other hand, the performance of the Dimensity 9000 processor is really too high. It is powerful, and it has brought enough surprises to people inside and outside the industry after its release.

Since the release of the MediaTek Dimensity 9000 chip, it has won 12 world championships. Among them, the running score on AnTuTu exceeded 1 million, setting a historical record.

It is understood that the running score of the Dimensity 9000 processor is about 100,000 points higher than that of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 processor, the strongest processor in the Android camp. With the continuous optimization of the Dimensity 9000 chip in the future, this running score is expected to be further improved.

It is worth mentioning that the overall power consumption performance of the Dimensity 9000 is also remarkable.

According to the relevant data given by MediaTek, the Dimensity 9000 processor has been further optimized in terms of power consumption. In the standby state, the power consumption of the Dimensity 9000 processor is about 40% lower than that of the current Android flagship CPU. ; And in the game state, the power consumption of the Dimensity 9000 processor can be reduced by 25%.

Can MediaTek achieve a high-end breakthrough?

MediaTek's high-end road has been difficult.

In the 4G era, MediaTek wanted to get rid of the low-end hat, hoping to seek breakthroughs through the "X" series. The Helio X10 did live up to expectations when it was first launched. The HTC M9Plus, which launched the X10, was priced at more than 4,000 yuan at the time.

But soon, Meizu and Xiaomi, also equipped with Helio X10, started a price war. The price of Meizu MX5 was 1799 yuan, and the price of Redmi Note 2 was only 799 yuan. Xie Qingjiang, then the vice chairman of MediaTek, said helplessly: "I only have two choices, one is to count the banknotes with tears, and the other is to count the banknotes with tears."

Unwilling, MediaTek began to increase investment in R&D technology. In 2018, MediaTek invested 20% of its revenue in research and development, reaching NT$57.5 billion (approximately RMB 13.1 billion). In 2020, this figure has risen to NT$77 billion.

After entering the 5G era, MediaTek has risen strongly with the Dimensity series 5G chips. Among them, the performance of the Dimensity 1200 chip is comparable to that of the Snapdragon 870, and the AnTuTu running score exceeds 700,000. The Dimensity 820 is the strongest in the mid-range at the beginning, and its performance far exceeds that of the Snapdragon 765G and Kirin 820.

Whether the Dimensity 9000 can become a hit in the high-end market ultimately depends on how many mobile phone manufacturers cooperate with it. What's good for MediaTek is that OPPO, vivo, Honor, Xiaomi, etc. are all actively deploying in the high-end market. The competition in the high-end mobile phone market is extremely fierce. In order to ensure sufficient production capacity, mobile phone manufacturers no longer "bet" a chip like in the past. Instead, the "dual-core" strategy is chosen, and the adoption of MediaTek chips will increase.

According to industry sources, OPPO, vivo, Honor, Xiaomi and other leading mobile phone manufacturers have all been verified through internal tests, and expressed their approval and support for the performance and power consumption of the new Dimensity flagship processor, which means We'll see the Dimensity 9000 on more flagship phones next year. Of course, the launch of the world's first 4-nanometer chip just puts MediaTek on the starting line of the high-end track, and whether it can break through in the high-end market remains to be further tested by the market after the flagship machine is launched.

MediaTek's revenue is expected to reach $17 billion this year

A report released by research firm Counterpoint Research shows that in the second quarter of 2021, global smartphone AP/SoC chip shipments increased by 31% year-on-year, and 5G mobile phone shipments increased by nearly four times year-on-year. Among them, MediaTek ranked first with a market share of 43%, Qualcomm ranked second with a market share of 24%, and Apple was stable at 14%.

MediaTek Vice Chairman and CEO Cai Lixing told reporters in an interview that MediaTek's revenue in 2021 will reach US$17 billion, about twice the US$8 billion in 2019, and its net profit is expected to reach 5 times that of 2019. .

Qualcomm predicted at a previous investor meeting that in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2021, the number of devices that have been released or shipped with the Snapdragon flagship platform will increase by 21% year-on-year.

In the latest financial reports of Samsung and Zhanrui, the former hit the highest level of revenue in recent quarters, of which the chip business accounted for more than half of the total revenue, and the latter's 5G mobile phone business sales revenue increased by 1458% year-on-year. Business sales revenue increased by 364% year-on-year. comprehensive