The slowdown in smartphone sales, represented by the Apple iPhone, has caused smartphone chip suppliers to suffer a setback. In search of a new growth engine, they are eyeing the IoT market, including cars. However, some insiders believe that most IoT devices are inexpensive and offer less growth opportunities than smartphones.
According to related reports, Tesla CEO Elon Musk plans to produce 1 million electric vehicles by 2020, which may be a "welfare" for chip makers that suffered the first decline in Apple's iPhone sales. Since 2007, the iPhone has been the driving force behind the growth of many Apple suppliers.
Now, the desire for the next growth area has led many chip makers to target the automotive and IoT markets, although smartphones are still a major source of profit for some chip makers. Bill Kreher, an analyst at investment firm Edward Jones, said, “I think there is a huge business opportunity in the IoT market, and cars are part of it. Over time, this market will spread rapidly. The promise of increased productivity will drive The market is growing for a long time. The market will be reshuffled every few years, and the most innovative technology will win. We believe that the Internet of Things will be the next battlefield,"
Claire expects that the Internet of Things market, including automobiles, will increase by 10%-15% annually in the next three years. Sensors such as Analog Devices, NXP Semiconductors (hereinafter referred to as "NX") and Texas Instruments, analog chip manufacturers such as MaxLinear and Maxim Integrated Devices, and graphics chip manufacturers such as NVIDIA are considered to be ready to enter the IoT market. But not everyone is optimistic about the Internet of Things. Robert Maire, president of technology consultancy Semiconductor Advisers, called the current car "a PC on wheels," but he said other types of IoT devices typically use chips that are cheaper than smartphones.
Skyworks SoluTIons CEO David Aldrich said in April that the IoT market capacity "can reach tens of billions of devices," but Meyer said, this does not mean that chip makers' revenue will grow rapidly. "The Internet won't replace smartphones, because the Internet of Things typically uses relatively backward chip technology. In smart thermostats that cost $75-$100, semiconductor products typically cost about $5." Dismantling the website iFixit data shows that in each iPhone 6, Qualcomm chips cost $20-22. However, companies such as Qualcomm and Integrated Device Technology (hereinafter referred to as "IDT") are eyeing other areas than smart phones such as smart cities, smart devices and smart cars. Tesla, Apple and Google, as well as traditional car manufacturers, are developing smart cars.
Apple suppliers compete for the Internet of Things market
The IoT chip market is large, but it covers many areas. Last year, McKinsey predicted that the Internet of Things market would reach 3.9 trillion to 11.1 trillion US dollars by 2025, meaning that the Internet of Things will account for more than 10% of the global economy. In April, Business Intelligence, a research arm of Business Insider, estimated that the number of IoT devices will reach 24 billion in 2020, and the investment in IoT solutions will exceed $6 trillion in the next five years.
Not all Apple chip suppliers are interested in taking a slice of the IoT market. Broadcom sold the IoT business to Cypress Semiconductor for $550 million in April. In the past 12 months, Broadcom's IoT business unit revenue was only $189 million, accounting for 3% of the company's revenue. RF chip makers Qorvo and Skyworks entered the IoT market through acquisitions. Qorvo acquired IoT chip supplier GreenPeak in April. GreenPeak produces ultra-low-power, short-range wireless chips for smart homes. Aldrich estimates that by the end of 2020, the average annual growth rate of the Internet of Things market was 83%.
Wireless charging, car into focus
Apple Watch and Samsung Galaxy provider IDT acknowledged that smartphone sales are slowing, but said its future lies in wireless charging. IDT chips are used to provide wireless charging capabilities to mobile devices. There are media reports that the iPhone 8, which is scheduled to be released in 2017, will fully adopt wireless charging technology, and the importance of IDT chips will increase. Smartphones are saturated, but that doesn't mean there is no room for growth in all related technologies. RF chip makers Broadcom, Qorvo and Skyworks also said that sales growth may have stagnated, but sales will continue to grow. Broadcom CEO Hock Tan said RF chip sales have grown by more than 20% annually.
Qualcomm is also optimistic about the continued growth of its smartphone business. Qualcomm CEO Steven Mollenkopf told analysts in February that technology in smartphones will continue to grow. IDET Chief Technology Officer Sailesh ChitTIpeddi told the media, "The smartphone ecosystem will continue to grow as wireless charging becomes more popular in the smartphone market. The current annual sales of smartphones are still over 1.2 billion. Not all smartphones have wireless charging capabilities."
There are other uses for wireless charging technology. IDT held a technical challenge in March, requiring all participants to design new uses for wireless charging technology. "The furniture, cars, headphones, heaters, drones, etc. will provide growth opportunities for wireless charging technology," said Cheti Pete, but it acknowledges that these growth opportunities are not as great as smartphones.
Chip acquisition deals aiming at growth market
Chetty Petit said that IDT acquired ZMDI for $310 million last year and entered the sensor market. IDT plans to use the deal to enter the emerging automotive and infotainment market and compete with NXP.
NXP spent nearly $13 billion to acquire Freescale, with a market capitalization of $28.5 billion, much higher than IDT's $2.7 billion. NXP CEO Rick Clemmer estimates that the auto business accounts for 40% of the company's revenue. Kramer said that NXP had early signs of a smartphone landslide. Like Chetipetti, he still believes that special smartphone technology will continue to grow. NXP Semiconductors chips are used to provide encryption support for mobile payment systems such as Apple Pay, Samsung Wallet or Google Wallet. “The current 15%-20% of smartphones are equipped with mobile payment services,†Kramer said. “We think this number will grow to 60% in the future. Like the proportion of smartphones with mobile payment services, we think our encryption. Chip sales will also increase by a factor of two.
Kramer said NXP Semiconductors also has partnerships with Tesla, Google, Apple and Ford in the driverless car segment, which will be another growth engine for NXP. Danny Shapiro, head of NVIDIA's automotive business, said the car market has huge business opportunities. NVIDIA CEO Huang Renxun announced three driverless cars codenamed BB8, C3PO and R2D2.
Like NXP, NVIDIA has developed an unmanned technology platform for automotive manufacturers. However, Nvidia does not produce smartphone chips. Shapiro said, "I think that the car will become the most powerful computer that the user has. In the automotive field, we not only provide graphics technology, but also provide data processing technology. Driverless cars require the processing power of supercomputers."
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