MediaTek, Taiwan’s top chip designer, is focusing more resources on automotive and artificial intelligence computing chips as its smartphone customers face oversupply, inflation and macroeconomic uncertainty that dent demand for consumer electronics.
“We will definitely shift resources very, very quickly towards automotive and computing because those are the areas that will bring us growth over the next three to five years,” MediaTek CEO Joe Tsai said on an earnings call.
“We’re not going to reduce staffing in this very demanding environment. We’re not going to increase staffing. The key is allocating these valuable resources,” he said.
Everyone, including MediaTek, is rushing to claim they can support generative AI, such as ChatGPT, Tsai said.
“We are confident that we can provide this capability to our customers,” Tsai said.
Tsai said MediaTek is investing heavily in artificial intelligence as the new areas the company is focusing on are all related to computing. For example, the development of self-driving cars requires artificial intelligence chips.
While smartphone demand remained sluggish in the first quarter, the company expects to show signs of recovery later this year.
“Demand for certain consumer electronics products such as smartphones is weaker than we expected,” Tsai said. “As customers remain cautious about future demand, we expect mobile revenue to be flat in the second quarter and improve in the second half.”
© Thomson Reuters 2023
