MediaTek is going from strength to strength and it seems poised to end the year on a high note. According to Digitimes, the outfit has already delivered its first LTE samples to potential clients for verification.

As we reported on multiple occasions, MediaTek is planning to ship its first LTE application processors in early 2014 and if this latest report is true, we could be looking at a Q1 launch. MediaTek is expected to formally announce its first chip by the end of the year, but this is more of a PR gesture, a way of telling investors that the first LTE chip was ready in Q4 2013.

However, it remains unclear what sort of samples were shipped. Earlier this week it was reported that MediaTek’s first LTE-enabled SoC will be a version of the MT6592 octa-core, based on ARM’s Cortex A7 processor cores and Mali-450 graphics.

Digitimes is referring to the chip as the MT6590, while other sources have mentioned yet another version, the MT6595. One explanation is that it is the exact same chip and that someone simply got it wrong, but it is also possible that there are two or more different variants in the works.

The MT6590 is said to support five modes and ten frequency bands. This is not on par with LTE solutions from Qualcomm and Broadcom though, but MediaTek is going after different markets, namely Asia.