UNISOC grows and surpasses Samsung: China advances in chips

The more time passes, the more the market of chipmaker it proves essential to have a strong say in the technological world. This is demonstrated by MediaTek, which from a small low-cost Asian company has become a global leader against its direct rival Qualcomm. An overtaking happened a year ago and that during 2021 it worsened, underlining the excellent work done by the Taiwanese chipmaker. But that's not all: from the latest market data published on the net, not only Taiwan but also the China he is starting to have his say in a more marked way.

As discussed in this editorial, China is far behind the leading chip market countries, namely Taiwan, the US and South Korea. Also for this reason, one cannot fail to see in China's advance towards the island of Taiwan a way to stem this economic and technological limit.

The latest chipmaker ranking demonstrates how China is improving in chips

In the semiconductor landscape, the sector is divided into two worlds: the fab one, where it is SMIC the main company of the China, and that fabless, where it is instead UNISOC the reality that drives the nation's efforts forward. The chipmaker was created by Tsinghua Unigroup from the merger between RDA Microelectronics and Spreadtrum. The latter could tell you something and not surprisingly, given that in the past some of its chips have been used by companies such as Meizu, ZTE and Nokia.

Although not a chipmaker on the lips of many, in recent times UNISOC has shown that it knows how to expand in the telephone world. In the last 12 months alone, more than 70 smartphone models equipped with UNISOC chipsets have been marketed and not only in emerging markets.

This growth trend is confirmed by the Counterpoint Research research center, specifying that Q3 2021 saw a growth of + 6% in the sale of chips. A growth that mainly concerned MediaTek and its + 7 %, with the Taiwanese chipmaker coming close to having almost half of the sector in his hands. On the contrary, the rival Qualcomm accuses a slight decrease: if MediaTek has been able to do better it is for a more competitive portfolio, especially in terms of costs for telephone manufacturers in the medium / low 4G range. However, if we talk about the sale of 5G modems, it is always Qualcomm that dictates the law with 62% of the market shares, where MediaTek stops at 28% and Samsung at 6%.

In that regard, it is precisely Samsung to record the most unfortunate figure of Q3 2021, with a sound -5% which brings it down under UNISOC, which went from 4% to 10% with a growth of + 6 %. Among the customers who have mostly used the Chinese company's chips are Honor, Realme, Motorola and ZTE. But also Samsung itself, which just yesterday presented its new tablet with UNISOC chip and which is in the midst of a reorganization in its smartphone production strategy, increasingly outsourced to Chinese ODMs.