The flagship and mid-range smartphones from Huawei are powered home-baked HiSilicon Kirin chipsets. However, the company has also launched smartphones powered by MediaTek and Qualcomm chipsets in the past. Fresh information reveals that the Chinese manufacturer will be launching more smartphones with Kirin chipsets this year.
In 2017, Huawei had shipped 153 million smartphones. However, only 70 million units of its flagship phones were fueled by Kirin chipsets. In other words, less than 50 percent of the 153 million shipped phones were powered by Kirin SoCs.
The remaining number of Huawei devices that includes entry-level and mid-range phones featured chipsets from other manufacturers like MediaTek or Qualcomm. Last year, Huawei had launched MediaTek powered devices like Honor 6C Pro, Honor 6 Play, Honor V9 Play, Huawei Y5 Lite (2017), Huawei Y6 (2017), Huawei Y5 (2017), Huawei Y3 (2017) and MediaPad T3.
The Chinese manufacturer will be reportedly placing more orders of its Kirin chipsets with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) in a bid to take on the likes of Qualcomm and MediaTek. The ratio of Huawei phones driven by HiSilicon chipsets is expected to cross 50 percent mark this year. Last year, Huawei had launched AI driven Kirin 970 for powering flagship phones whereas the Kirin 658 and 659 chipsets had fueled mid-range phones. There is a possibility that it may launch multiple chipsets this year.
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According to IC Insights, Qualcomm is the world’s leading chipset maker for smartphones. Last year, it had generated a revenue growth of 11 percent compared to 2016. MediaTek that is sitting on the fourth spot encountered a revenue decline of 11 percent on year in 2017. In comparison to 2016, HiSilicon had gained a revenue of 21 percent last year.
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