China's bicycle-sharing market has been expanding, which will boost demand for IoT chips, according to MediaTek corporate VP JC Hsu. The bike-sharing market in China has already far exceeded MediaTek's original expectations, he added.
Industry sources have said that China-based bike-sharing companies including Ofo, Mobike and Bluegogo have all used MediaTek's chip solutions in their IoT tracking devices for bicycles.
Specializing in smartphone SoC chips, MediaTek has been aggressively developing its highly-integrated SoC offerings to include those for IoT applications including smart home and automotive, Hsu indicated. Chip demand for IoT applications is promising, which will offset the global slowdown in smartphone demand, Hsu said.
In the car-use segment, MediaTek already has several hundred engineers dedicated to developing chips with mass production scheduled for the second half of 2017, Hsu noted. Car-use chips will be among the company's future growth drivers, Hsu added.
MediaTek's car-use solutions target three major fields - telematics, infotainment and ADAS, Hsu said. Based on the target segments, the company will offer solutions in four key areas including vision-based ADAS, precision millimeter wave (mmWave) radar, in-vehicle infotainment, and enhanced telematics.
MediaTek expects sales generated from the automotive sector to start making a positive contribution to company profitability in 2018, according to Hsu. The company also has a goal of expanding its presence substantially in the car-use sector by 2025 with sales generated from the sector to account for 10% of the group's total revenues, said Hsu.
