MediaTek, the second-ranked smartphone chip supplier after Qualcomm, said it’s been losing market share after nearly four years of strong gains in the 4G segment.

MediaTek has slowed the pace in product upgrades for its flagship Helio product line, offering nothing better than an LTE Cateogry 6 modem, while rival Qualcomm early this year raised the bar with the world’s first 10nm processor, the 835 Snapdragon, including a Category 16 modem.

“We have been losing market share for the Helio X and P series products,” said MediaTek Senior Vice President David Ku on a conference call to announce the company’s first-quarter results. “Based on our design wins, we expect to gain back some market share by the second half.”

MediaTek and Qualcomm are squaring off in China, the world’s largest smartphone market, for handset deals with companies such as Oppo, Vivo, Xiaomi and Meizu -- which in the past year have had sales growth exceeding the two dominant players, Samsung and Apple. Qualcomm has been gaining share in China. Moreover, Chinese chip designers such as Spreadtrum and HiSilicon are ratcheting up the competition.

“We are going to reprioritize our product portfolio this year,” Ku said. “We will focus on the Helio P series.” The Helio X series is focused on extreme performance while the P series is optimized for super slim smartphone designs.

“The new P series will support Cat 7 later this year,” Ku said. The Helio P series is made with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC)'s 16nm and 28nm process technologies.

New products
This year, MediaTek will have two more products with the new modem platform, which is obviously “not enough," Ku added. The company will migrate all of its future products to the new lower cost platform by next year, he said. MediaTek also plans to introduce Cat 10 or Cat 12 products by 2018, he said.

In addition to its strong customer base in China, MediaTek is selling its chips to every smartphone maker but Apple. MediaTek said business with Samsung is working out smoothly, and it expects to increase shipments to the world’s largest handset maker in the second half of this year.

MediaTek provided little detail on the Helio X30, which the company three months ago said it would introduce this year with a Cat 10 modem. MediaTek also appears to have missed a target to announce a new product meeting Cat 12 specifications by the second quarter of this year.

Management changes
While the company reprioritizes its product line and aims to gain back market share, it’s also going through some management changes.

In July this year, former TSMC CEO Rick Tsai will join the company as what Ku describes as a Co-CEO. Tsai, who is no relation to MediaTek Chairman M.K. Tsai, is a semiconductor industry veteran who worked for Hewlett-Packard in the U.S. prior to joining TSMC.

Tsai will have a unique opportunity to use his experience with TSMC, which is MediaTek’s primary chip foundry.