Canalys: Mediatek dominated the smartphone processor market. But only in the IV quarter 2023

Research firm Canalys has published a report on the state of the smartphone market in the fourth quarter of 2023, which shows the distribution of processor vendors. According to the analysis, in the last quarter of last year, Mediatek chips were used in more devices than processors from other vendors.

Compared to the same period last year, Mediatek demonstrated a 21% increase in supply volumes. Although Mediatek became the leader in the number of chips sold, the largest profit was made by Apple.

Smartphones with Apple chips (mainly iPhone) brought the American company $87 billion, which is 20% more than in the same period last year. Mediatek, Apple and Qualcomm emerged as the top three mobile chipset vendors in the market, while Huawei-owned HiSilicon earned $7 billion in revenue with 7 million units sold. This means that the Chinese company mostly sold the nova 12 and Mate 60 smartphones with Kirin 9000S chips at an average price of $1,000.

Another surprise from China was that phones with Unisoc chipsets showed 24% year-over-year growth in both revenue and volume. Half of the phones with SoCs from this vendor belonged to Transsion, which includes the emerging market brands Infinix, Tecno and iTel.

Meanwhile, Samsung Semiconductor saw shipments fall 48% and revenue down 44% to $5 billion. However, growth should be expected in the first half of 2024 as sales of the Exynos 2400-based Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24+ increased, and the Galaxy A55 with The Exynos 1480 will go on sale this month.