The Scope of Support of Toolkits in the Smartphone Industry

Abstract

Companies that develop products with IC (Integrated Circuit) chipsets use toolkits provided by semiconductor suppliers to implement their own series of trial-and-error experiments ranging from concept creation to problem-solving in product developments. According to von Hippel (2001), toolkits have the following elements: (a) learning by doing via trial-and-error, (b) module libraries, (c) solution space, (d) user-friendly, and (e) translating user designs for production. This study defines (b) and (c) as the scope of support for toolkits and compares this scope for Android smartphone manufacturers (Samsung, Huawei, Vivo, and OPPO), which were provided by semiconductor suppliers (Qualcomm and Mediatek) in the 2010s. As a result, this study found that the scope of support of Mediatek’s toolkit is broader than Qualcomm’s. Compared to Samsung, Huawei, Vivo, and OPPO tended to adopt Mediatek’s toolkit to benefit from the broader scope of support in their Android smartphone developments.