The company said that its gross margin was an improvement compared with 35.2 percent during the same period in 2016. This was possible thank to a favourable product mix led to the gross margin growth, the outfit said.
MediaTek’s third quarter revenues were up 9.6 percent on the quarter but down 18.8 percent from a year ago. This was due to a seasonal pick-up in demand for certain consumer electronics products. It added the on-year decrease mainly to lower chip shipments for smartphones.
Operating profits were up 110.3 percent sequentially but down 34.9 percent on the year. Operating margin for the quarter was 7.8 percent, up from 4.1 percent in the prior quarter but down from 9.7 percent in the year-ago quarter.
Net profits for the third quarter of 2017 were a 35.4 percent on-year decline.
MediaTek predicted it will post revenues of between $1.96 billion in the fourth quarter of 2017, with gross margin ranging from 34.5 percent to 37.5 percent.
Sales of MediaTek's smartphone and tablet chips accounted for 35-40 percent of the company's total revenues in the third quarter.
MediaTek co-CEO Rick Tsai said that shipments of MediaTek's Helio P23 series that comes with new LTE Cat 7 modem already kicked off in small volume in the third quarter, adding that the shipments will expand in the fourth quarter.
MediaTek has started shipping its entry-level MT6739 chips in the fourth quarter, Tsai indicated. Shipments of MediaTek's mobile chips will reach a combined 110-120 million units in the fourth quarter.
The outfit is preparing the launch of new Helio P-series mobile chips that will support AI, facial recognition, AR and VR capabilities in the first quarter of 2018, Tsai noted. The new products will help the company continue to improve its gross margin and regain market share, Tsai said.
Non-mobile SoC chips sales including solutions for IoT applications, power management ICs and ASIC chips will see impressive growth in the fourth quarter, Tsai claimed. The segment is expected grow by a third in 2017, he said.