It was rumored in a report from Taiwan yesterday that MediaTek has entered the Beats supply chain of Apple's 100%-owned fashion brand headset factory. Shipments are expected to start in February and March. This is the first time that MediaTek has entered Apple's related supply chain.

The report added that "It is understood that MediaTek obtained a large order of Beats headphones through its subsidiary Airda. Airoda has been actively working on the true wireless Bluetooth headset (TWS) chip in recent years and has achieved some success. Its customer base includes internationally renowned brands such as Sony, Pioneer, and Philips. In 2019, Airoda had shipped more than 10 million TWS headset solutions in a single month." For more on this, read the full UDN report.

Beats currently uses Apple's W1 Audio Chip. The Apple W1 is a SoC used in the 2016 AirPods and select Beats headphones. It maintains a Bluetooth Class 1 connection with a computer device and decodes the audio stream that is sent to it.

 Whether the addition of MediaTek audio chips in Beats headsets is a short term deal due to chip shipment constraints is unknown at this time. MediaTek told the publication it couldn't comment on the story.