text｜Zhou Wenbin
8155 Let Qualcomm win, driving the automotive business into a new stage.
On September 23, Qualcomm held its first auto investors conference. As Snapdragon digital chassis solution is very popular in the automotive industry, its total car order valuation has increased to US$30 billion.
You should know that when Qualcomm released its third-quarter financial report in July, the total valuation of its automobile business orders exceeded US$19 billion, which means that in just two months, the order valuation of Qualcomm's business increased by more than US$10 billion.
In addition to the rapid growth of the total value of automobile business orders, Qualcomm has also announced several important news.
For example, due to the strong growth momentum of QCT (semiconductor chip) automobile business revenue, Qualcomm expects this revenue to grow from US$975 million in fiscal year 2021 to US$1.3 billion in fiscal year 2022 (expected revenue); in addition, Qualcomm also raised the QCT automobile business revenue growth forecast released in November 2021 - revenue in fiscal year 2026 will exceed US$4 billion (expected revenue), and revenue in fiscal year 2031 will exceed US$9 billion (expected revenue).
Qualcomm expects that the potential market size of the company's automobile business is expected to grow to US$100 billion by 2030.
, while Qualcomm's revenue in fiscal year 2021 was US$33.566 billion, and its revenue in the first half of fiscal year 2022 was US$21.869 billion. In comparison, in the third quarter of this year, the proportion of automobile business in revenue was only 3.21%.
In other words, within ten years, Qualcomm hopes that the automotive business can support one-third of its territory.
The other side of Qualcomm is the decline in consumer electronics business. Judging from the third quarter financial report this year, Qualcomm's mobile phone business revenue fell by 4.09% month-on-month. Qualcomm itself also predicts that the growth of mobile phone business will slow down in the fourth quarter.
When demand for strong business is weak, Qualcomm is trying to diversify its business from automobiles to cloud server business, and automobiles are obviously the most promising of many new businesses. So, can the automotive business support Qualcomm's ambitions?
01 The rapid progressive cockpit chip
In 2002, Qualcomm provided 2G connections for the first time to officially enter the automotive industry. Although
has been in layout for nearly 20 years, Qualcomm's automotive business has never attracted much attention under the halo of "mobile phone chip". The change in
was in early January this year. Qualcomm officially displayed the "Snapdragon Digital Chassis" business system at the CES 2022 conference, and for the first time systematically showed the overall solution for automobiles to the industry.
This time, Qualcomm officially announced its determination to expand its automotive business to the market. But at this time, the automobile business accounted for less than 3% of Qualcomm's overall revenue.
In Qualcomm's planning, the automotive business is mainly divided into four directions: smart cockpit, on-board networking, C-V2X, ADAS, autonomous driving and cloud-side terminal management. and "Snapdragon Digital Chassis" actually integrate these four directions into a complete set of open and scalable cloud connection tool platforms. Automobile manufacturers can independently choose Qualcomm's products and technical capabilities as needed.
Therefore, the Snapdragon digital chassis also includes four major platforms, namely Snapdragon Ride platform, Snapdragon cockpit platform, Snapdragon Automobile Intelligent Platform and Snapdragon Car Cloud Service, which correspond to the four major directions of Qualcomm's automotive business.
The best development among the four major businesses is the Snapdragon Digital Cockpit Platform.
Currently, there are more than 20 models equipped with Snapdragon SA8155P in China, including Ideal L9, NIO ET5, ET7, Xiaopeng P5, WMW W6 and Zhiji L7, etc. Judging from the delivery volume of these models, the "Snapdragon 8155" is running on hundreds of thousands of domestic brands' mid-to-high-end model motherboards.
and the key to the popularity of Snapdragon 8155 is the good performance experience.
smart cockpit is the general term for a series of interactive functions in the car, such as the entertainment and video system in the car, instrument display, driver monitoring, gesture recognition, etc. Most of the body sensations of these functions will eventually be implemented on a screen.
In 2012, Tesla Model S took the lead in using a 17-inch car display screen. After that, the smart large screen began to become the target of major smart car brands.
For example, high-combination HiPhi 1 is equipped with three screens in the car, Roewe RX5 has a 27-inch 4K large screen, and Ideal L9 has added an additional 15.7-inch small TV in the car in addition to the screens on the main and co-pilot and steering wheel.
Figure: Roewe RX5's hairtail screen
Many times, whether the car's screen is large enough and large enough has become the standard for measuring whether a car "looks" smart. The problem of
is exactly here. With more and more cabin functions in the car, more and more screens, more and more refresh rates, the requirements for computing power of the smart cockpit are also getting higher and higher. More importantly, this kind of computing power is not a certain aspect of ability, but a comprehensive ability in multiple aspects such as CUP, GPU, , NPU, etc.
That is, the chip required by the smart cockpit is not a special student, but a hexagonal warrior.
Specifically, what the smart cockpit needs is a heterogeneous chip with high computing power. But on the other hand, since the complex demand for smart cockpits has risen in the past three or four years, the maturity and popularization of heterogeneous chip technology has also happened in the past three or four years, so there are actually not many products on the market that can meet the demand.
At present, Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8155, which is sought after by almost all car companies, was released in 2019. It adopts a 7-nanometer process, has 8 cores, 8TOPS computing power, and can support up to 6 cameras, 4 2K screens, or 3 4K screens.
, but compared with similar players, Nvidia's chip Tegra X1, which focuses on smart cockpits, was released in 2015. It still uses a 20nm process. The GPU computing power is 512GFLOPS, which is less than half of Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8155; , Exynos V9, a subsidiary of Samsung , has a computing power of more than Qualcomm on the GPU, reaching 1205GFLOPS, but the NPU computing power is only 1.9TOPS. Although the Dragon Eagle 1 developed by domestic Xinqing Technology is not much different from Qualcomm in various aspects, it has not yet been mass-produced.
The reason why Qualcomm has gained advantages in the field of smart cockpits is mainly due to its long-term accumulation in the field of smartphones. The scenarios and computing needs of the smart cockpit are essentially in line with the scenarios and computing needs of the smartphone.
For chip giants such as NXP and NVIDIA, they have either been engaged in the research and development of automotive mobile chips before, or are good at server and PC chip related products, so they lack NOW-HOW on smart cockpit chips. The more important problem is that since the annual shipment of automobiles is only about 6 million units, it is far from enough to thin the cost of chip research and development and production, this also makes the corresponding enterprises lack development momentum.
The difference between Qualcomm is that based on the advantages of smartphones, it is not only mature in technology, but also the huge shipment volume of smartphones can also maximize the dilution of costs. Taking Snapdragon 8155 as an example, its basic design comes from the Snapdragon 855 chip, which was previously equipped on flagship phones such as Xiaomi 9 Pro, Samsung Galaxy Note10, etc.
Why do car companies choose Qualcomm Snapdragon 8155?
Founder, Chairman and CEO of WM Motor , Shen Hui, believes that "the advantage of Qualcomm Snapdragon 8155 is that it has an ARM processor architecture and has mature adaptability with the Android system. At present, almost all car systems are also Android architectures. Qualcomm Snapdragon 8155 has rapidly risen with the adaptability of chips and systems, as well as the openness and richness of software."
For Qualcomm, there is currently no product that can be used on the market for smart cockpit chips. Qualcomm Snapdragon 8155 has become the target of scrambling from consumers to car companies.
In July, Zeikr announced the full upgrade of the Zeikr 001 cockpit, which will be upgraded to all users for free for free.
Before this, the Zekr 001 used the previous generation of smart cockpit chip 820A released by Qualcomm in 2016. Due to the lack of computing power, the Zekr 001 has been criticized by users, such as "the hardware is full and the software is stupid and incomplete", "It took 71 seconds from starting the vehicle to the system response", "It is comparable to the old Windows XP computer booting", etc.
After this upgrade, it only takes 2s to wake up the car machine, the cold start speed has been increased by 3 times, the frame rate of sliding has increased by 66.1%, and the average opening time of on-board applications is only 1.3s, and the smoothness of the car machine has been significantly improved. This upgrade of
naturally also received unanimous praise from users and became a hot search on Weibo. By early September this year, Ford followed the action of Zekr, saying that it would upgrade to Qualcomm Snapdragon SA8155P chip for existing or upcoming users who are buying Ford Electric Horse for free.
is the same as the smartphone market, today's Qualcomm smart cockpit chip has been equated with high-end and flagships.
It can be said that Qualcomm smart cockpit chips have already become the dominant player in the mobile phone field in the automotive market. With the help of smart cockpit chips, Qualcomm has also laid a solid nail in the automotive business.
02 Qualcomm launches a full-scale war?
Although Qualcomm has laid a solid foundation with chips in the field of smart cockpits, Qualcomm's challenges are still arduous from the perspective of the entire automotive business.
is different from consumer electronic products such as mobile phones, usually only needs a core high computing power CPU. Smart cars require thousands of chips of large and small size. These chips are mainly divided into three categories, including functional chips, power semiconductors and sensors. Now everyone is more concerned about the expensive autonomous driving chips and smart cockpit chips are all functional chips.
As mentioned earlier, Qualcomm's layout in automotive business has never been limited to the field of smart cockpit chips, but has started from the chip and expanded to the entire automotive networking and autonomous driving. But the problem is that there are mature competitors in the fields Qualcomm intends to enter, and Qualcomm is facing a full-scale war.
For example, in the fields of ADAS and autonomous driving, Qualcomm released the autonomous driving platform Snapdragon Ride in January 2020, which is planned to be mass-produced this year. This chip adopts a 5nm process and a modular heterogeneous multi-core CPU/GPU, with a computing power of 60TOPS, and its overall power consumption is about 10 to 20 times lower than similar solutions.
But in the field of autonomous driving chips, there are already giants such as Nvidia, Intel and Mobileye abroad; there are also star startups such as Horizon, Black Sesame, and Cambrian in China.
Among them, the main chip Orin that Nvidia is about to deliver uses a 7nm process and has a computing power of 254TOPS; Huawei 's 7nm chip Asent 610 also has a computing power of 200. In addition, among startups, Horizon has just recently announced a new round of financing delivery. As of the end of 2021, Horizon has signed pre-installation mass production target projects with more than 70 models with more than 20 automakers, and the cumulative shipment of the Journey Series chips exceeded 1 million.
In addition to being surrounded by strong enemies, what is more important for Qualcomm is that unlike the smart cockpit chip that is highly dependent on the smartphone chip for development, the smart driving chip is an exclusive product customized for automobiles.
Although Qualcomm spent 4.5 billion to acquire autonomous driving company Veoneer in April this year, it made up for its software algorithm capabilities in the field of autonomous driving, but due to its late layout, it also lags behind Nvidia's long-term accumulation in terms of ecology. Overall, Qualcomm does not have unique advantages in autonomous driving.
In addition, even in the field of smart cockpits that Qualcomm is good at, you can't rest assured.
Currently, there are many smart cockpit chips in China that may replace Qualcomm Snapdragon 8155, such as Xinchi Technology's "Cast Core" X9, Horizon's Journey 5, Xinqing Technology's Dragon Eagle One, etc.
So in terms of smart cockpits, the competition that Qualcomm needs to face is not in the present, but in the next few years. With the large number of domestic chips delivered, Qualcomm will face a more complex competitive environment in China under the background of comprehensive domestic substitution, and 60% of Qualcomm's revenue comes from China.
Of course, Qualcomm still has its own unique advantages in the automotive business. Due to long-term technical accumulation in communications, Qualcomm's in-vehicle networking and C-V2X are leading the world in terms of technology to market.
This part of the business includes Bluetooth covering the car, Wi-Fi connection technology, high-precision positioning, 4G/5G connection technology, vehicle-road collaboration and other scenarios. According to Strategy Analytics forecasts, nearly 75% of new cars will be embedded in cellular technology by 2024. Currently, Qualcomm ranks first in the global market share of in-vehicle networking, and more than 150 million cars around the world adopt Qualcomm's in-vehicle networking solution.
. In terms of cloud-side terminal management, Qualcomm provides an integrated secure connected car service suite for the cloud platform to the Snapdragon smart cockpit and the Snapdragon 4G/5G platform. This business also has the same systematic advantage when Qualcomm's smart cockpit and in-vehicle networking services have the advantages.
03 End
Qualcomm is indeed at a time when business transformation is needed.
In July, Qualcomm released its third-quarter financial report, with revenue of US$10.936 billion, a year-on-year increase of 36%; net profit of US$3.73 billion, a year-on-year increase of 84%. But more than 50% of this revenue comes from mobile phone chip-related business segments.
Figure: Phoenix.com Technology
Since the beginning of this year, the global smartphone market shipments have dropped rapidly. IDC data shows that in the second quarter of 2022, mobile phone shipments in the Chinese market fell by 14.7% year-on-year. Expanding to the world, Strategy Analytics expects global smartphone shipments to fall by 7.8% year-on-year in 2022.
As the core component of smartphones, the mobile phone chip business accounts for more than 50% of Qualcomm's revenue. So in the third quarter of this year, Qualcomm's mobile phone business revenue fell by 4.09% month-on-month. At the same time, Qualcomm itself predicts that due to the influence of mid- and low-end processors, the growth of mobile phone business will slow down in the fourth quarter. After the financial report was released, Qualcomm's stock price fell 4%.
From the current perspective, although Qualcomm's dominance in the mobile phone chip field is still there, with the sluggish consumption of smart terminals represented by mobile phones, Qualcomm's hidden worries have also begun to emerge. So Qualcomm itself is actually looking for new growth curves, such as the cloud server market.
In 2021, Qualcomm acquired chip startup Nuvia for about US$1.4 billion, trying to enter the cloud server market for the second time. Although the chip shipments in the
cloud server market are not as large as Qualcomm's mobile phone chips, the price of each high-end cloud server processing chip exceeds 10,000 US dollars, which is far higher than the price of Qualcomm's mobile phone chips that cost tens of US dollars. Therefore, after entering the server market, Qualcomm will also expand its coverage in the most popular areas in the semiconductor industry.
It can be said that from mobile phones to cars and then to the cloud service market, Qualcomm is trying to transform from a top manufacturer of smartphone chips to a diversified semiconductor supplier. And Qualcomm still has a long way to go on this road.
