MediaTek, a Taiwanese fabless semiconductor company, became the biggest smartphone chipset vendor with 31 per cent market share in Q3 2020 for the first time, as smartphone sales rebounded in the September quarter. Thanks to its stellar performance in China and India. Qualcomm, American public multinational corporation that creates intellectual property, semiconductors, software, and services related to wireless technology, was the biggest 5G chipset vendor globally in the third quarter, according to Counterpoint Research.

"MediaTek's strong market share gain in Q3 2020 happened due to three reasons — strong performance in the mid-end smartphone price segment ($100-$250) and emerging markets like LATAM and MEA, the US ban on Huawei and finally wins in leading OEMs like Samsung, Xiaomi and Honor," said Research Director Dale Gai in a statement.

The shares of MediaTek chipsets in Xiaomi has increased by more than three times since the same period last year.

"MediaTek was also able to leverage the gap created due to the US ban on Huawei. Affordable MediaTek chips fabricated by TSMC became the first option for many OEMs to quickly fill the gap left by Huawei's absence," Dei said in a statement.

The demand for 5G smartphones doubled in Q3 2020 – 17 per cent of all smartphones sold in Q3 2020 were 5G. Qualcomm powered 39 per cent of the 5G phones sold worldwide. This impressive growth trajectory is going to continue, more so with Apple launching its 5G line-up. One-third of all smartphones shipped in Q4 2020 are expected to be 5G enabled. Last year, MediaTek launched a new gaming-based G-series, while Dimensity chipsets have helped in bringing 5G to affordable categories. The world's cheapest 5G device, the realme V3, is powered by MediaTek.

Research Analyst Ankit Malhotra said: "Qualcomm and MediaTek have both reshuffled their portfolios, and consumer focus has played a key role here". She added, "The immediate focus of chipset vendors will be to bring 5G to the masses, which will then unlock the potential of consumer 5G use cases like cloud gaming, which in turn will lead to higher demand for higher clocked GPUs and more powerful processors," Malhotra elaborated.