Via investment at a MediaTek subsidiary, Foxconn Electronics (Hon Hai Precision Industry) and MediaTek have secured new handset orders from LG Electronics (LGE), posing potential threats to LGE's existing OEM partners Arima Communications and Compal Communications, according to sources at handset makers in Taiwan.
Currently Arima is the major handset OEM for LGE, responsible for the production of 9-10 handsets with shipments already started in 2008. Compal, in the meantime, has also developed a new clamshell model for LGE, the sources said. They noted that all the handsets that Arima produces for LGE support MediaTek's platform. But they also remarked in saying that some new handsets from LGE support mobile platforms from Infineon Technologies and Texas Instruments (TI).
Terry Guo, chairman of Foxconn, placed investment at a MediaTek subsidiary earlier. The sources noted that this subsidiary has rich R&D experience as most its R&D engineers were sourced from DARTS Technologies. Foxconn originally planned to acquire the subsidiary but the deal failed because MediaTek still wanted to deploy into the smartphone market via the subsidiary, the sources detailed.
The MediaTek handset subsidiary was established in May 2007 on a capital size of NT$430 million (US$14.1 million). The majority of business focuses on handset design. The company currently has about 150 employees. Besides DARTS, some engineers came from BenQ and Quanta Computer. The sources added that shipments of the company's first smartphone to a Thailand-based distributor started recently.
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