Judging from orders received so far in January, IC design house MediaTek is likely to see first-quarter 2011 sales decrease sequentially falling short of market watcher estimates of flat to slight growth, according to industry sources.
In order to avoid stocking high-priced inventory, China's white-box handset makers as well as brand-name vendors are actually slowing down their pace of orders as they anticipate MediaTek will again cut its prices between the end of the first quarter and early second quarter, the sources said.
MediaTek's consolidated revenues for the first quarter may drop by 5% to 10% sequentially, affected by slow sales in January and February, the sources estimated.
MediaTek saw consolidated revenues decrease 19.3% sequentially in the fourth quarter of 2010, but the results came within the company's projection for a 15-20% decline. Consolidated sales for 2010 slid 1.6% to NT$113.46 billion.