Chipmaker Mediatek to tie up with Yahoo in mobile

TAIPEI: Mediatek, a designer for chips used in mobile phones, will tie up with Yahoo to embed Yahoo's services into its chips as the Taiwanese firm seeks to keep up in the fast-evolving smartphone market.

The agreement will allow Yahoo Messenger, news, finance, weather, mail and other services to run on MediaTek's MRE technology, which is designed for mobile developers to deploy content on smartphones, the two said in a statement.

Mediatek's main growth driver has been handset chips, accounting for 70 per cent of total sales. However, analysts have worried that Mediatek might lose market share if it failed to evolve its business fast enough to accommodate the fast-growing smart phone market.

Mediatek's stock rose as much as 2.5 per cent, outpacing the broader market's 0.75 per cent rise.

"The mobile Internet presents a wealth of opportunity for Yahoo and our partnership with MediaTek will further connect us with our audiences in growing markets such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Vietnam and India," said Rose Tsou, senior vice president of Yahoo Asia Pacific, in the statement.

Mediatek is already working on MRE technology with mobile providers in the Philippines, India, Indonesia and Malaysia.

Mediatek said in March it will merge with networking chip developer Ralink Technology Corp through a share swap, helping Mediatek expand its Wi-Fi business.