International. MediaTek announced a series of new partnerships designed to place state-of-the-art technology in the hands of all global consumers, through the growing offering of connected smartphones and home entertainment in conjunction with the expansion of the Internet of Things, IoT line of business.
At the Annual Executive Forum in London, leaders from across MediaTek's businesses, including Smartphones, Home Connectivity, IoT and the Developer Community, made the following announcements:
Alliance with Amazon for its newest devices. The Amazon Fire TV is powered by a MediaTek MT8173, a 64-bit quad-core processor and the world's first multimedia SoC with ARM Cortex-A72 cores. The Fire HD 8 and Fire HD 10 tablets are powered by an MT8135, a quad-core processor that runs up to 1.5Ghz, resulting in a fast and fluid user interface and optimal playback of HD videos and games at a high level of frames per second.
Public offering to acquire Richtek Technology, a global leader in power management solutions to expand its leadership in Energy Management Integrated Circuits (PMIC) to strengthen and complement its capabilities for the IoT business model. The deal is expected to close in the second quarter of 2016 (Q2).
Commercialization of Tinitell, a long-time partner for MediaTek Labs, which announced US$1m of new funding to bring its award-winning children's wrist phone to the European market.
Funding people Power, a user engagement company that provides apps, cloud and mobile services for IoT, to accelerate its penetration of the IoT market in the United States and China, and the development of new products based on the Fabrux and Influx software architecture.
Launch of two software development kits (SDKs) for Apple's HomeKit, the framework in iOS 8 to communicate with and control connected accessories in the user's home.
As part of MediaTek's leadership in IoT-enabled devices, the company supports startups participating in MediaTek's developer ecosystems. These include MediaTek Ventures, the company's $300,000 venture fund, and MediaTek Labs, a hub that connects third-party developers for MediaTek products, the business development team and partners.
MediaTek also confirmed plans for its existing smartphone partners to ship close to 40 million devices containing the company's SoCs to Western Europe this year, representing a regional market share of about 25 percent. These shipments will include smartphones from LG, Sony, Acer and HTC, as well as local smartphone makers such as Kazaam, Archos and BQ, which has just launched Europe's first smartphone through the Android One community.
