MediaTek Releases Innovative Smartphone Platforms to Power Mexico's Market for Mid-to-Entry Level Smartphones

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• Latin America - español
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MEXICO CITY, May 8, 2012 /PRNewswire-Asia/ -- MediaTek Inc., a leading fabless semiconductor company for wireless communications and digital multimedia solutions, today announced plans to deepen strategic partnerships with Alcatel One Touch to help bring high quality, multimedia rich smartphones to users in Mexico. MediaTek is recognized as a technology enabler for delivering solutions and efficient service to customers, shipping over 550 million chipsets for mobile phones in 2011. This year it plans to leverage the deep expertise as Asia's top semi-conductor company further in Latin America, expanding existing relationships with world-renowned handset partners to produce affordable, high-quality smartphones for users across the region.

"Increasingly, Mexico's mobile phone users are demanding feature-rich, multimedia-enabled devices that can not only connect them to the things and people they love via social networks and rich browsing experiences on the go, but also offer technical benefits like large displays with lower power consumption and long battery life. Being able to provide them at affordable prices so that these once-inaccessible devices are available to the masses is now possible thanks to the cutting-edge solutions by MediaTek," said Jose Javier Gomez Gascon, Regional Director Mexico, Alcatel One Touch.

The two companies are already planning to release a complete line of five new smartphone models to be available to Mexican consumers in Q2 and Q3 of 2012. The upcoming ONE TOUCH 918, 985, 991, 916 and 903 will all run on MediaTek platforms, with the range offering consumers the unique style, affordable price, and a wealth of pre-installed web-connected applications.

MediaTek's smartphone platforms deliver a unique total hardware and software solution for mobile devices that has revolutionized industry standards in mobile handset manufacturing worldwide. With MediaTek's highly integrated, customized chipset solutions, handset manufacturers are able to provide superior performance and competitive prices on a full range of handsets to consumers worldwide. These solutions have helped handset manufacturers change the game in bringing new products to market - delivering significant reductions in developmental costs, and overall time to market for each new device launched. This shift in the speed and cost associated with handset manufacturing means that consumers will be able to benefit from affordable high-performance devices that enable and enrich their "mobile life", keeping them connected to their entertainment, work and social networks.

MediaTek has a proven record in delivering best-in-class solutions and enabling customers and partners in emerging markets. Through partnering with some of the world's top handset manufacturers, and offering high performance, affordable smartphone solutions for the wider consumer base, MediaTek seeks to enable and grow the local mobile communications market. Telecom operators, network service providers and consumers stand to benefit from increased smartphone demand and penetration. This combined with Alcatel One Touch's strong presence in Latin America, particularly in Mexico, Colombia, and Cono Sur countries, has paved the way for opportunities in a market that has seen handset manufacturers enjoy 335% growth from 2009 to 2010. MediaTek's chipsets continue to support the handset manufacturer's growth in the region with the launch of new innovations including the ONE TOUCH 800 series - the first QWERTY feature-phone range enabled with Internet capabilities, and the ONE TOUCH 890 launched last November as the most affordable Android smartphone in the market. With these innovative offerings, Alcatel One Touch has sold over 20 million MediaTek chipset-based mobile devices in Latin America over the last three years, of which 8 million were sold in Mexico.

"Our strong relationships with partners such as Alcatel One Touch have been instrumental in allowing consumers in Latin America to enjoy the benefits of our innovative technology solutions. Mexico is a tremendously important market in Latin America, and we look forward to growing our strategic relationship with Alcatel One Touch, leveraging their broad reach and deep knowledge of customers' needs to produce more feature-rich, yet affordable, Android smartphones for consumers," said Dr. Finbarr Moynihan, Director of Business Development, MediaTek.

To date, MediaTek solutions have been put to work in devices enabled for rich 3D display, on-the-go browsing and easy access to social networking sites, and even dual-SIM capabilities for seamless transitions between voice and data on two networks with the added benefits of affordability. These additional capabilities will become accessible to handset manufacturers in Latin America during Q2 this year, when MediaTek's globally acclaimed smartphone solutions are due to be launched in the region for the first time.

About MediaTek Inc.

MediaTek Inc. is a leading fabless semiconductor company for wireless communications and digital multimedia solutions. The company is a market leader and pioneer in cutting-edge SOC system solutions for wireless communications, high-definition TV, optical storage, and DVD and Blu-ray products. Founded in 1997 and listed on Taiwan Stock Exchange under the code "2454", MediaTek is headquartered in Taiwan and has sales or research subsidiaries in Mainland China, Singapore, India, U.S., Japan, Korea, Denmark, England, Sweden and Dubai. For more information, please visit MediaTek's website at www.mediatek.com.

About Alcatel One Touch

ALCATEL ONE TOUCH designs, develops, and markets globally a growing range of mobile and internet products designed to be as individual as the people who use them. One of the fastest growing of the world's top ten mobile phone manufacturers, ALCATEL ONE TOUCH makes access to today's mobile lifestyle simple by offering colorful, easy-to-use devices equipped with the technology people need most at prices they can afford. ALCATEL ONE TOUCH is a brand of TCL Communication, a public company listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (2618.HK) and part of TCL Corporation one of the largest consumer electronics companies in the world. For more information, please visit www.alcatelonetouch.com.

SOURCE MediaTek Inc.