Qualcomm has regained its competitive edge in China's smartphone solution market as it has managed to renew licensing agreements with a number of China-based handset vendors, according to sources from Taiwan's handset industry.

China's smartphone vendors including Xiaomi Technology, Huawei, ZTE, Qiku, Haier, K-Touch and TCL have all recently signed new licensing agreements with Qualcomm as they seek to reduce royalty payments with cheaper chip prices, said the sources.

After paying a large amount of fines in 2015, Qualcomm has reduced pricing for its handset solutions, but it is still allowed to collect royalty payments based on the production cost of entire handsets rather than on unit prices of single chips as it did before, the sources noted.

Winning the new license contracts and collecting royalty payments as it used to is a victory for Qualcomm, paving the way for the firm to enjoy strong sales in China in 2016, commented the sources.

More China-based handset makers are likely to adopt Qualcomm's solutions for their mid-range and high-end smartphones in 2016, undermining the growth potential of MediaTek, Spreadtrum Communications and other chipset vendors, added the sources.