Taipei, Feb 8, 2026, 08:36 (GMT+8) — The market is shut.
- MediaTek shares ended Friday in the red, shaping expectations for the coming week.
- The chip designer is pushing further into data-center chips, shifting its sights past smartphones.
- The January sales update lands right next to the Lunar New Year break on the calendar.
MediaTek Inc slid 3.4% to finish at NT$1,710 on Friday. Shares ranged from NT$1,690 up to NT$1,755 during the session, while volume hit roughly 11.8 million. Taiwan’s market will not open over the weekend.
Investors are staring at two narratives as next week approaches: on one hand, the data-center boom is still powering ahead; on the other, tech stocks are looking less steady. This month’s extended Lunar New Year break is squeezing the window for new developments even tighter.
Here’s the thing: MediaTek relies a lot on chips for phones and other consumer electronics. If demand slips, it tends to hit monthly sales and margins right away.
MediaTek told reporters in Taipei on Friday it’s set to double down on data-center tech, targeting areas like advanced packaging—techniques that combine several chips into a single unit—and fast interconnects. President Joe Chen pointed to a clear pivot toward high-performance computing, noting the company is now producing ASICs, or application-specific chips, for cloud operators. Chen added that MediaTek is teaming up with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co on co-packaged optics, which uses optical links within chip packages. The company is also lining up a 400-gigabit-per-second SerDes data interface for release later this year.
Earlier this week, chief executive Rick Tsai flagged that AI-fueled demand is driving up costs through the semiconductor supply chain. MediaTek, Tsai said, plans to tweak pricing and manage supply with profitability in mind. “We will also adjust our pricings to reflect the rising supply chain costs,” Tsai said. Reuters
MediaTek’s fourth-quarter numbers are in: net sales reached NT$150.2 billion, according to its latest report. Net income landed at NT$23.1 billion, earnings per share at NT$14.39. Compared with the same quarter last year, sales were up 8.8%, while net income slipped 3.6%.
The stock lost ground as investors pulled back from Asian tech following a solid rally. “What we’re seeing now feels more like investors de-risking and locking in gains,” eToro market analyst Zavier Wong said. Reuters
The smartphone supply chain is facing another headache: higher memory prices are causing fresh bottlenecks. Counterpoint Research forecasts a 7% drop in global shipments of advanced smartphone chips for 2026, citing these rising costs. Multiple major brokerages now see the supply squeeze dragging on into 2027.
The data-center shift isn’t without headaches. Cloud giants tend to order in unpredictable bursts, and advanced packaging is still a bottleneck—delays or tighter margins could hit right as outlays climb.
The next key event looms: MediaTek’s investor calendar points to a January sales update landing on Feb. 10, just ahead of the Lunar New Year break. According to TAIFEX, Feb. 11 marks the last session before the Chinese New Year holiday hits, with trading set to resume Feb. 23—raising the stakes for any numbers out before the market pause.
