Reporter | Peng Xin
Edit |
1
On March 7, local time in the United States, Intel announced that it had submitted a listing application for its self-driving subsidiary Mobileye to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in a secret form.
This also means that the content of Mobileye's listing application documents remains confidential, and Intel has not yet decided on the shares and price of Mobileye to be issued. According to foreign media reports, Mobileye's valuation may exceed US$50 billion (about 315.7 billion yuan), which is expected to become the most high-profile IPO case this year.
Founded in 1999, Mobileye is an Israeli-based autonomous driving technology company that focused on intelligent driving vision solutions in the early days, providing services in a way that combines algorithms with hardware such as self-developed system-on-chips.
In 2014, Mobileye was listed on the New York Stock Exchange. In 2017, under the operation of Intel's then-CEO Cozich, Intel acquired Mobileye for a total price of $15.3 billion, which was subsequently privatized and delisted. At present, Mobileye's competitors mainly include chip manufacturers such as Nvidia and Qualcomm that have entered the field of automatic driving, as well as car manufacturers such as Tesla that use self-developed self-developed automatic driving chips.
In early December last year, Intel had already announced that it would promote the independent listing of Mobileye. According to the statement, after mobileye is independently listed, Intel will continue to cooperate with Mobileye in the field of automotive technology as a strategic partner. Among them, Moovit, an Israeli mobility solution company acquired by Intel for $900 million in 2020, and Intel's related team engaged in lidar development will be merged into mobileye after the independent listing.
Mobileye CEO Amanon Shashua said that Intel will continue to provide technical and resource support for Mobileye, and the partnership between the two sides will continue to bring strong financial support to Mobileye and support its research and development of autonomous driving technology.
Mobileye CEO Amnon Shashua.
Intel currently holds a 100% stake in Mobileye, but its emphasis on the IPO will not affect Intel's majority ownership of Mobileye or lead to changes to Mobileye's existing management team. In addition, Intel has no intention of spun off or otherwise divested its majority ownership interest in Mobileye. In the future, Intel will continue to provide technical and resource support to Mobileye, and the partnership will continue to bring strong revenue and free cash flow to Mobileye to support the research and development of its autonomous driving technology.
Driving Mobileye to market is the latest adjustment to the company by Intel's new CEO, Pat Gelsinger. Since taking office last February, Kissinger has made massive adjustments to Intel. Strategically, Kissinger has strengthened investment in advanced process nodes and chip production capacity, announced the IDM 2.0 strategy, opened up wafer foundry capacity to the outside world, and adjusted the naming method of chip process nodes.
Intel's latest financial report shows that Mobileye's revenue for the fourth quarter and full year of 2021 was $356 million and $1.4 billion, respectively, achieving year-on-year increases of 7% and 43%, respectively. Of Intel's total revenue of $79 billion, Mobileye was $1.386 billion, or 1.75 percent; operating profit for the year was $19.46 billion, while Mobileye accounted for 2.4 percent with $460 million.
Intel also disclosed during this year's CES that 13 of the world's top 15 automakers are Mobileye's customers, including BMW, Nissan, Ford and other vehicle brands, Mobileye also announced at the end of last year that its in-vehicle chip shipments have reached 100 million, which has laid a high starting point for Intel in the automotive market.
Recently, Mobileye also announced a number of self-driving chips and test plans, including the new EyeQ integrated chip EyeQ Ultra released at CES this year, which is expected to be put into production by the end of 2023. In December 2021, Mobileye also announced that it has obtained a test license for autonomous driving technology in Paris, France.
Mobileye's successful IPO depends on market conditions and remains uncertain. Intel said the deal is not expected to have an impact on the company's 2021 financial goals, adding that the move will help Mobileye expand the market and unlock more value for Intel shareholders. However, under the influence of the current geopolitical and turbulent financial market situation, Mobileye's valuation may not be as good as previously expected.