Driven by new energy vehicles, 5G, and AIOT, and in the face of the continuous disruption of the economy by the global epidemic, mobile phone manufacturers have actively seized the non-mobile phone market while actively attacking car business opportunities on the basis of the original business, and continue to increase investment in an attempt to achieve stable growth in the next few years.
A person who is deeply involved in the mobile phone industry chain and the author frankly said, "The mobile phone market competition pattern has been relatively stable, and the visible incremental space is limited, and the fierce market competition environment is further compressing the price of smart phone upstream products, in other words, smart phones have entered the era of stock competition, but the market for non-mobile phones is not so, it is a growth market." ”
"In the era of existing smart phones, in order to effectively avoid low-price competition under the stock market, expand new businesses, and find new growth points has become an important issue for mobile phone manufacturers to think about urgently, and before the next smart terminal explosion industry comes, the early card slot is crucial, however, from the current situation, the automobile, AIOT industry, smart home, AR/VR, and robots are incremental markets that need to be cultivated for a long time in the future." The person went on to add.
In the face of the "opportunity" of intelligent terminal upgrades, mobile phone manufacturers have already taken the initiative to attack and make strategic layouts in advance. When communicating with people in the mobile phone industry chain, the author found that from the mobile phone brand to the mobile phone upstream supply chain manufacturers have been actively deployed in the non-mobile phone market, and many people who have been deeply involved in the mobile phone industry chain have long shifted from the mobile phone industry to the non-mobile phone industry. The flow of talents reflects the trend of the future market to a certain extent, and on the road to the continuous upgrading of the intelligent industry, many tests are waiting for the upstream and downstream manufacturers of the terminal to break through one by one.
Cars are known as the hardest "cake" to nibble on
In the non-mobile phone market, the car is called the most difficult to bite the "cake", after the announcement of xiaomi car manufacturing news, an executive of Weilai wrote in the circle of friends: "a marathon on a muddy track."
The difficulty of this track is self-evident.
According to a person who is deeply involved in the upstream industry chain of the vehicle, if you want to enter the vehicle market, you need to consume a lot of money, so the high threshold of capital investment is an important reason that hinders manufacturers from entering the vehicle market.
At the same time, the "return" cycle of automotive products is longer. It is understood that it takes several years for general products to take several years from project establishment to real mass production, which means that the expenditure of the car manufacturing business will have a certain impact on the profits of manufacturers entering the automobile market, and they also need to break through important links such as product capability verification and hardware integration.
However, even so, mobile phone brand manufacturers still choose to take the initiative to attack the automotive market, but there are differences in their respective product positioning. According to public information, in March 2021, mobile phone brand manufacturer Xiaomi announced that it officially entered the smart electric vehicle market, and Lei Jun served as the CEO of the business.
At this moment, Xiaomi Lei Jun mentioned that he is willing to press the achievements and honors accumulated in his life to fight for Xiaomi cars. In order to better win the marathon battle on the muddy track, Xiaomi announced that it will provide an investment of 10 billion yuan for the first phase of smart electric vehicles and $10 billion in the next 10 years.
Unlike Xiaomi, Huawei has chosen to enter the automotive market as the "identity" of smart car solutions. According to the data, in May 2019, Huawei announced the establishment of Huawei's intelligent car solution BU to position itself as a supplier of automotive incremental parts.
On May 18, 2021, Huawei announced that Yu Chengdong, CEO of the consumer business, is also the CEO of the automotive business BU, and according to the news of Bozhong Securities Investment, Huawei's intelligent car BU department will invest more than 500 million US dollars in research and development in 2020, and 1 billion US dollars will be invested in product and technology research and development in the field of intelligent vehicles in 2021.
After careful inquiry, it was found that mobile phone brand manufacturers Apple, Samsung, OPPO, and Vivo have all laid out the automotive industry, but the positioning of OPPO and vivo in the automotive market is still unknown.
In contrast, Samsung and Apple, Jiwei Network learned that Samsung owns the Renault Samsung car brand, and at the same time, Samsung also has related products in the MLCC and cameras in the upstream of the car, but Apple plans to launch its automotive products.
Different from Samsung, in the case of no car-making experience accumulation, Apple, Huawei, Xiaomi, OPPO, vivo and other mobile phone brand manufacturers have laid out the automobile market through a large amount of R&D investment and investment in the early stage, in an attempt to seize the car business opportunities, but the competitive pressure they face cannot be underestimated.
For positioned car brand manufacturers, in the absence of the basic skills required for traditional car manufacturing, they need to PK out traditional car companies, but also need to defeat the new power of car brands, and for manufacturers positioned in upstream products, it is not easy to take orders at the original mature supply chain.
A person who is deeply involved in the upstream of automobiles revealed, "From the current situation, among the several mobile phone brands in China, Huawei should be a relatively leading manufacturer in the automobile market, because it not only has experience in mass production of automobile products, but also has opened new models to enter the sales mode of Huawei's flagship store." ”
At present, the automobile industry is gradually entering the era of intelligence, mobile phone brand manufacturers cross-border into the automobile market, trying to copy the successful experience in the field of smart phones to the field of smart cars, but for them, it is not easy to successfully obtain the cake of this market. This is evident from Tesla, the global leader in smart electric vehicles.
According to public information, Tesla, which was founded in 2003, did not achieve small batch production until 2012. It is understood that in general, mature car companies need 5 years to launch a brand new model, and for new entrants in the industry, it takes longer. An automotive product needs to go through multiple stages of research and development, design, manufacturing, testing, and mass production, among which in addition to large-scale capital consumption, it also requires a large number of personnel collaboration, as well as strong technical research and development capabilities in various links.
In addition, from a technical point of view, the most important thing for the car is the battery cell and engine, and the core patents of the automotive industry are still concentrated in the hands of traditional automobile companies. It can be seen that it is precisely the many obstacles in front of the new entrants.
However, in addition to mobile phone terminal brand manufacturers, the product line of mobile phone ODM manufacturers has also expanded to the field of automobiles. It is understood that Wingtech is the world's leading manufacturer of automotive power semiconductors, and its automotive products include small signal diodes, triodes, small signal diodes, triodes, ESD/TVS protection, automotive MOS, power diodes, triodes, and also include small signal MOS, power MOS products, as of the first half of 2021, it has established cooperative relations with a number of OEMs, tier1, chip suppliers and other upstream and downstream ecological chains.
Huaqin also included in-vehicle products in the main product line column.
According to public information, Huaqin established the Automotive Electronics Division in 2021, and on February 14, 2022, the "Automotive Electronics Lingang R&D Headquarters" and "Intelligent Manufacturing Base" projects with a total investment of 3.7 billion yuan were signed and landed in the Lingang New Area of the Shanghai Free Trade Zone.
In recent years, the automotive industry is in the process of transformation from traditional manufacturing to scientific and technological manufacturing, automobiles are not limited to the traditional product form and functional characteristics, is gradually to functional diversification, intelligence, integration and other directions of iterative development, on the other hand, the national level of industrial policy intensive landing to further promote the development of the automobile industry, which is also the reason why they enter this market.
From the perspective of output value, the intelligent car market space is significantly higher than that of wearable devices and smart home products, which is expected to become the second growth curve that drives mobile phone brands and ODM manufacturers; but it cannot be ignored that the automobile is a relatively closed market, the field up to the automotive supply chain, down to the car brand, have formed a solid supply relationship and brand trust, based on this, for new entrants, want to better cultivate this market, its difficulty will inevitably far exceed expectations.
In order to resist low-price competition mobile phone upstream suppliers lock in multiple application scenarios
After the rapid development of the 2G-5G era, today's smart phones have fallen into the embarrassing situation of weak growth, and the mobile phone supply chain is also unable to escape this fate.
Taking the camera industry as an example, in the early years, driven by multiple cameras, terminal demand once climbed, and affected by supply and demand, mobile phone camera manufacturers have expanded production, however, in 2021, mobile phone cameras have entered the era of overcapacity, and therefore, the downward trend of product unit price has extended from camera modules and motors all the way to the lens market with higher gross profit margins.
In fact, this phenomenon is not limited to the mobile phone camera market, but also in industries such as metal structural parts. The intensification of competition and the decline in product gross profit margins have become important reasons affecting the net profit performance of metal structural parts manufacturers in 2021.
In the downstream mobile phone manufacturers, ODM order fluctuations of varying degrees and fierce market competition environment, mobile phone upstream manufacturers quickly adjusted their sales strategies, through improving services, maintaining existing orders at the same time, and actively promote related businesses in the non-mobile phone field, increase the resource investment of customers in consumer electronics and other fields, achieve the diversity of customer structure, and then improve the operational stability of resisting single market risks.
(The above data is for reference only)
When combing the business expansion scope of mobile phone upstream supply chain manufacturers, the author found that ODM, OEM, lithium battery, acoustics, RF antenna, connector, panel, OLED equipment and optics and other manufacturers have expanded related businesses on the basis of their original business, from the perspective of application fields, most of which are concentrated in smart cars, industrial, VR/AR, game equipment, smart wearables, smart speakers, robots, smart homes, AIOT and other fields.
However, although the consumer electronics market is not performing well, the automobile has become a new growth driver for some manufacturers. According to statistics, in the first half of 2021, OFILM's intelligent vehicle business revenue was 413 million yuan, an increase of 78.22% year-on-year; Desay Battery's shared charging treasure, new energy vehicles, energy storage and other lithium batteries and other businesses in the first half of 2021 achieved sales revenue of 751 million yuan, an increase of 68.22% year-on-year; Luxun Precision's automotive interconnection products and precision assembly revenue in the first half of 2021 reached 1.774 billion yuan.
As the largest intelligent hardware in the personal consumer market, automotive products are gradually moving towards electrification, intelligence and networking, of which automotive electronics such as automatic driving systems, networked systems, in-vehicle information systems, and intelligent central control are in a period of penetration.
However, for supply chain manufacturers, it is not easy to successfully enter the automotive market. Earlier, when the author communicated with the relevant people of the on-board upstream lens, the other party said bluntly, "In the market of automotive lenses, it is also a process of long-term cultivation, and it takes several years from the establishment of the product to the successful mass production, which means that the early layout of automotive products requires a lot of capital investment, and the return cycle is quite long." ”
This is also the reason why some manufacturers of mobile phone manufacturers have not entered the automotive market, but for mobile phone suppliers that have not entered the automotive market, application scenarios such as robots, wearables, laptops, AIOT, and AR have become an important direction for their business expansion. From the current situation, the non-mobile phone market is still in the cultivation period, so for most mobile phone manufacturers, the pain period of industrial upgrading is difficult to eliminate in the short term. (Proofreader/Zhang Jin)