SUPPLIERS of chips to smartphone makers are taking the unusual step of helping customers procure other phone components such as speakers and camera lenses in a bid to win more business in an increasingly competitive sector.

    Demand for smartphone chips, needed to support capabilities ranging from voice recognition to flash photography, is growing in part due to a spurt in the low-end but feature-packed phone segment.

    As phone makers rush to push out more budget handsets with features formerly reserved for premium models, they need to keep their costs in check as they incorporate more chips into their lower-tier models.

    The spotlight on costs has ramped up competition among chipmakers like Qualcomm Inc. and MediaTek Inc. Besides cutting prices, they are also saving phone makers the expense of finding and testing, for instance, the speakers and camera lenses that get the most out of their audio and photography chips.

    “In the past, Qualcomm would just offer the chips and the manufacturer would do the whole device,” David Tokunaga, a senior director in product management at Qualcomm, told Reuters. “Now we offer a whole hardware ecosystem that makes it very easy for customers to just plug and play what they want.”

    Offering chips, hardware and even the phone design helped Taiwan’s MediaTek capture half of the Chinese market for smartphone chips, according to one analyst. (SD-Agencies)