Sources say Mediatek receives huge orders from Compal and Asustek

Local sources reported that MediaTek Inc. has recently received huge orders from local mobile phone makers including Asustek Computer and Compal Communication. MediaTek was unavailable to comment the news at the time of publication.

Turn of tide began when Mediatek started producing handset chips late last year for its clients in South Korean and China mobile-phone suppliers. Mediatek is the largest maker of chips for DVD players, which began working closely with National Taiwan University on SOC wireless chips for five years. Majority of Taiwanese mobile phone makers are using chipsets from Texas Instrument. The company is trying to look for other source than supplying chipsets for DVD players that faced outs aught in last two years that the company experienced setbacks.

Mediatek is also trying to break into LCDTV industry that is presently cooperating with US firm to chipset development. Mediatek's latest financial report, which had unaudited sales of NT$9.97 billion in the second quarter, up from NT$9.19 billion in the first quarter, and sources indicated that MediaTek's gross margin are expected to reach 50% for the quarter, up from 46.7% in the first quarter. Revenues form handset related chips accounted 15-20% of MediaTek's total revenues in the first quarter of this year, up from 10% in the fourth quarter of 2004.