Recently, MediaTek officially released its new high-end chip Dimensity 1200. This chip will be adopted by Xiaomi first. However, Xiaomi’s Redmi K40 sporting this chip will be priced at only 1999 yuan ($308). And actually, it may damage Dimensity’s brand. It may be more difficult to use this chip in smartphones above 3,000 yuan ($450).
Xiaomi and MediaTek have been cooperating for many years. As early as 2013, when Xiaomi launched the Redmi brand, Xiaomi has been using MediaTek’s high-end chips for mid- and low-end smartphones since then. It is obviously not conducive to MediaTek to build a high-end chip brand.
However, at that time, MediaTek did not have a good solution. After all, other smartphone companies did not have the same shipment volume as Xiaomi. Therefore, the media laughed at that time and said that MediaTek was selling chips to Xiaomi while counting on the huge income that Xiaomi brought to it.
Xiaomi strengthened cooperation with Qualcomm
However, by 2016, the shipment volume of Xiaomi smartphones in the domestic market dropped sharply year-on-year. In addition, it was facing patent litigation in the Indian market at that time, and Qualcomm had patent advantages and technical advantages. Xiaomi turned to strengthen its cooperation with Qualcomm.
At that time, OPPO and VIVO cooperated more closely with MediaTek. The reason is that the shipments of these two smartphone companies were growing rapidly. They were also willing to use cheaper MediaTek chips in order to reduce costs. In the second quarter of 2016, with the support of OV, MediaTek won the first place in China’s smartphone chip market.
Perhaps it is a good cooperative relationship established in the 4G era. When MediaTek again launched the high-end chip Dimensity 1000 chip in 2019, OPPO first released this chip. In addition, the company also launched the Reno 3 smartphone with a price of 2,999 yuan ($449.85).
OPPO launched the mid-market Snapdragon 765 via the Reno 3 Pro. The price was more than 3,000 yuan ($450). Later, VIVO also adopted the Dimensity 1000 to launch the Z1 smartphone. And the price was reduced to 2,498 yuan ($374). And its smartphones above 3,000 yuan generally use Qualcomm chips.
The result
As a result, the sales of OPPO and VIVO smartphones using Dimensity 1000 chips were not satisfactory. So MediaTek found Xiaomi again. Industry rumors said that at that time, MediaTek was expecting Xiaomi to help clear the inventory of Dimensity 1000 chips, and Xiaomi immediately launched a product using Dimensity 1000 chip. Its price was only 1999 yuan ($308). And then, the MediaTek’s high-end dream has been shattered again.
Perhaps affected by the sales of Dimensity 1000, after MediaTek launched the high-end Dimensity 1200 again, it handed over the rights of the first launch to Xiaomi. And Xiaomi’s Redmi K40 with Dimensity 1200 chips may continue the pricing of the previous generation.
In this way, if OPPO and VIVO use MediaTek’s high-end chip Dimensity 1200 again, affected by the pricing of the Redmi K40, the smartphone models of the OV two may not exceed 2,000 yuan. After all, there is a benchmark price of Redmi K40 for comparison. This is obviously a big blow to MediaTek’s high-end strategy. But for sales, it seems that it doesn’t have many choices.