When you think of MediaTek you likely think of smartphones.

The Taiwanese company specialises in the silicon that goes into the devices of many major Android phone makers, but to say it is only focused on smartphones would be a disservice.

This, we learned at Africa Tech Festival earlier this month after sitting down with Rami Osman, director of Business Development for MediaTek in Middle East and Africa (MEA).

During our discussion, Osman unpacked the different industry verticals that MediaTek is involved in, as well as where we can encounter technological experiences powered by its creations, along with the partners it is working with locally and across the African continent.

Before he touched on how the company is helping others achieve their objectives, Osman would have been remiss for not talking about MediaTek’s latest mobile chipset – the Dimensity 9400. It was announced globally in October this year, and South Africans will not have to wait long to experience the capabilities of the new AI-focused silicon, with it set to land in the coming months via the vivo X200 Pro smartphone.

While vivo will be one of the first, Osman is careful to point out that MediaTek works with all, and you’d have to look quite far and wide to identify an Android phone maker that does not leverage its technology.

“Whether’s vivo, Xiaomi, OPPO, Samsung, HONOR, TECNO, Infinix, Itel, you name it, they are all our partners and customers,” he shared.

“With the (Dimensity) 9400, it’s a major milestone in the smartphone flagship category. MediaTek did flagship with the Helio X series in 2015/16. Then we opted to stop focusing on flagship and focus on premium. We cannot focus on one launch, or one brand, that’s their (vendor) decision. What we focus on is chipset, so now we have the majority of the premium share globally, and actually in Middle East and Arica we are dominating. We are 55 percent market share of smartphones in the region. Recently, however, we increased focus on the flagship without losing an eye on the premium,” he explained regarding the company’s more recent chipset strategy.

That said, its work with vivo will prove critical, especially to showcase a successful project powered in part by technology provided by MediaTek.

“At this price, it (the smartphone) is expensive, and it must be the best in everything. In camera, in network connection, in speed, in GPS accuracy, in Android performance, everything,” he stated emphatically.

“We have done really well with vivo recently in China. They had some of the highest selling devices in the world’s largest smartphone market, and that gave them more confidence in the Dimensity 9400. So vivo put a lot of ficus on the Dimensity 9400, and they are the first to bring it to market,” said Osman.

Shifting to the company’s focus more locally, during this month’s Africa Tech Festival, Osman pointed out that there is a big push from network operators to bring more wireless broadband to the fore.

This specifically around the 5G and Fixed Wireless access (FWA) space, which has been spoken about at length, but has not quite delivered on the promise that was initially eulogised by many in the industry.

“This year at AfricaCom the most important thing for us is to leverage the 5G technology from the operator side, which is the core and radio network, and from the MediaTek side, which is the terminal. Particularly to leverage it for more use cases and a higher number of customers,” the regional director said.

“Fixed wireless access has started to become a reality. So I think the leader here is still rain. We announced together with them the launch of a new technology under rainx, which will take the success of rain hardware and software in partnership with MediaTek to take it abroad. I think rain will be a global success story. We are very happy of our progress together,” continued Osman.

While rain appears to be ahead of competitors when it comes to FWA, it will not stay that way for along, according to Osman, who predicted that the landscape will evolve rapidly as soon as next year.

“The other operators are more traditional, focusing on 3G, 4G, and 5G, while rain focuses on 5G mostly, so they are catching up at a relatively good speed and we expect from next year to have the FWA service become a mainstream service, not niche for the other operators in South Africa,” he enthused.

Looking at the future, and taking a view of the next two to three years, Osman said that he hoped to see a drive towards more IoT use cases both in SA and across the African continent. Here he is not talking about the consumer side of things, but rather key industry verticals that stand to be rewarded should they embrace digital transformation more widely.

“Manufacturing, agriculture, education. For example we had a meeting with some of the smaller companies and startups that MediaTek is working with, such as RIOT Network, which is a South African technology company that is building community WiFi for townships. This should not stop at the township, it should go everywhere,” he noted.

“We are working with them to go further. For example with security, to add a camera that is powered by AI, so you can really enhance the safety and security factor in these communities once you connect people and supply them with the right hardware. The development of communities we expect to be much faster, driven by technology,” posited Osman.

With MediaTek looking to strengthen its relationship with local technology companies, it appears as if the next two to three years will be an exciting one, especially when it comes to expanding South African-made solutions to the world.