Che Lingfang, a spokesperson of CMMB chip maker Innofidei, said chips for mobile phones account for approximately 50% of the company's shipments, those for netbooks and USB dongles account for 30%, and PMPs 20%.
Innofidei believes there is a larger demand for the CMMB functionality on feature phones than on smartphones, because the company has found mobile TV not very popular with business people. The company provides the least expensive CMMB solution in the industry for feature phones priced below 1,000 yuan ($146.36) each to companies including Beijing Tianyu and SIMCom Wireless Solutions, Che said.
Innofidei, which launched the first CMMB demodulator chip in 2007, holds approximately 60% market share in China although it is shrinking as more competitors have come into the scene, she said.
In addition to Siano and Innofidei, Telepath and Spreadtrum also provide CMMB chips.
CMMB was first combined with TD-SCDMA when China Mobile procured 40,000 CMMB-capable TD-SCDMA phones last year for the Beijing Olympics. The handsets were supplied by New Postcom, ZTE, Yulong and Lenovo.