MediaTek CEO Rick Tsai reiterated at a recent press event the company's gross margin target of 40% this year, and said the mobile SoC specialist is confident about the competitiveness of its chip solutions in the 5G era.

Despite challenges ahead for the chipmaking industry, MediaTek continues to strengthen its product competitiveness in 2019, said Tsai. Having its gross margin return to 40% will be an important indicator for the company's growth this year, when a series of new products will be rolled out, Tsai indicated.

MediaTek has been committed to developing chip solutions for applications built on AI and 5G technologies, and the efforts are expected to bear fruit starting this year, Tsai noted. The mobile SoC specialist is more confident it will generate revenue growth in 2019 - generally seen as a tough year for the chipmaking industry.

MediaTek disclosed it is on track to enter volume shipments of its new-generation mobile chips later in 2019, including the Helio P90 series incorporating the company's second-generation NPU (neural processing unit) architecture, and the M70 5G modem chip. MediaTek also plans to introduce its single-chip 5G solutions at the end of 2019 and early 2020.

MediaTek estimated previously revenues would register flat or slight growth this year. The company's revenues slipped 0.1% on year to NT$238.06 billion (US$7.73 billion) in 2018, when gross margin climbed 2.9pp on year to 38.5%.