This article is from the WeChat public account: 智 物 (ID: zhidxcom) , author: Wei Shiwei, from FIG title: IC photo
Soon after the beginning of 2020, “investment company” Xiaomi started to take action again.
Buffett said: “I am afraid when others are greedy, and I am greedy when others are horrified.” At the moment when the global economy was on the verge of crisis, Lei Jun ’s Xiaomi Industry Fund had already started the greedy model.
From January 16, Xiaomi Group has adopted the Hubei Xiaomi Yangtze River Industry Fund Partnership (Limited Partnership) , referred to as Xiaomi Yangtze River Industry In just over two months, the fund has invested in eight semiconductor companies including Dior Microelectronics, Smart Microelectronics, and Jiejie Technology.
This wave of operations is less than half a year from November 19, 2019, when Xiaomi first invested in Sutong Semiconductor. At this point, Xiaomi’s supply chain investment landscape has collapsed, and the semiconductor layout has expanded to 19, covering Wi-Fi chips, radio frequency (RF) chips, MCU sensors And FPGA.
Xiaomi’s dream of making cores does not stop.
In October of last year, Zhidongxi carried out a survey and report on Xiaomi’s supply chain investment. It focused on Xiaomi’s ecological chain and supply chain investment strategy, especially in the semiconductor field. ( ” Millet breakthrough battle: two-year investment 12 Supply Chain enterprises’ layout and killing, how many cards does Lei Jun have? )
Xiaomi revealed in the second quarter of 2019 financial report that as of June 30, 2019, it had invested in more than 270 companies with a total book value of 28.7 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 20.8%. At the same time, as of August 20, it has invested in 12 supply chain companies, ranging from semiconductors to smart manufacturing.
Among them, the 8 semiconductor companies it invests in not only provide endurance power for their “AI + AIoT” dual-engine strategy in the short term, but also impact the chip R & D market for a long time and open up the “meridian” of the industrial chain The technical foreshadowed.
And these are the “self-help” and new strategies for the industrial chain that Xiaomi has carried out after the surging S2 chip abortion.
With Xiaomi ’s series of investment actions since 2020, Smart Things decided to focus on Xiaomi ’s semiconductor investment planning again. While exploring Xiaomi ’s layout and progress in the semiconductor field, it also figured out the strategy behind it. Ideas and changes.
At the same time, can Xiaomi’s investment strategy in the industry chain really create a new technology layout? The long road is long. What are the ambitions and expectations of Lei Jun reflected in Xiaomi’s core-building road?
I. “Eight Shots” in 2020 to Accelerate Investment in the Semiconductor Supply Chain
In February this year, at the first product launch of Xiaomi, Xiaomi Mi 10, the flagship machine that had been taken away from the Space Brigade, once again caused the industry’s enthusiasm. Among them, the protagonist who supported the product performance was also upgraded from Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 To the Snapdragon 865.
The back of the Snapdragon 865 “Halo” blessing is the third year of Xiaomi’s surging S2 “dim”.
The term “self-developed chip” has gradually become another weakness of Xiaomi since the advent of Xiaomi 5C mobile phone and its surging S1 in 2017, and this is also a story that has been “rotten” by the industry.
In 2018, since the reorganization of Xiaogou ’s semiconductor company Songguo Electronics and the establishment of Nanjing Big Fish Semiconductor, Xiaomi ’s self-developed core road seems to have stopped the pace from the outside world.
Although one year later, Big Fish Semiconductor jointly released the NB-IoT SoC chip named U1, which is aimed at the Internet of Things field, with built-in GPS and PA (Power Amplifier Chip) , which supports Beidou NB-IoT R13, but has not set off too much in the market. Looking back, I don’t know since when, the official website of Songguo Electronics has long been covered with gray, showing that it cannot be accessed.
But contrary to the slow progress of Xiaomi ’s self-developed chip, Xiaomi ’s semiconductor investment moves are gradually accelerating.
On January 23, 2018, Shunwei Capital, a partnership between Xiaomi’s Zimi Technology and Lei Jun, established an integrated circuit (IC) Semiconductor company researched and designed by Nanxin SemiconductorThe amount was tens of millions of yuan, which fired Xiaomi’s first shot on the semiconductor investment battlefield.
In the next two years, Xiaomi ’s investment in “engines” continued to accelerate, and it successively invested in 19 semiconductor companies including Yunying Valley Technology, Espressif Technology, and VeriSilicon Microelectronics, covering display driver chips, MCU sensors, and Wi-Fi chips. And RF chips. Among them, Juchen Semiconductor, Espressif Technology and Jingchen Semiconductor have successfully listed on the science and technology board.
The momentum of Xiaomi also lasts until 2020, and it shows a stronger momentum in the market.
Since January 16, the Hubei Xiaomi Changjiang Industry Fund Partnership under Xiaomi’s (Limited Partnership) , referred to as the Changjiang Xiaomi Industry Fund, In two months, a total of 8 semiconductor companies were invested, with 7 new investments, far exceeding the previous frequency.
According to public information statistics, the eight semiconductor companies are Diao Microelectronics, Sutong Semiconductor, Chipster Microelectronics, Fortior ) , Angrui Microelectronics, JJ Technology, Smart Microelectronics and Hanxin Microelectronics.
1. Diao Microelectronics
Dio Micro, founded in February 2010, is a hybrid analog semiconductor IC design and manufacturing company. Its founder and chairman, Ju Jianhong, graduated from the State University of New York with a degree in electrical engineering. He has nearly ten years of working experience in Fairchild Semiconductor in the United States, responsible for chip design, technology, applications and marketing.
At present, Dior Micro provides corresponding chip solutions for consumer electronics, smart home, LED lighting, medical electronics and industrial electronics. The main products include LED lighting components, ultra-low power consumption and low noise amplifiers, High-efficiency power management electronics and applications in various analog audio / videoThe third year of the rice core dream.
At the current stage, Xiaomi’s semiconductor investment layout has laid out areas such as MCU, FPGA, RF, GaN, and IP, and gradually realized the entire industrial chain coverage from semiconductor materials, electronic components to IC design.
But it is not difficult to find that Xiaomi’s core-building dream is turning, from the mobile terminal chip market initially targeted by Lei Jun, it is slowly developing towards the Internet of Things market.
The most direct manifestation is that Xiaomi’s smartphone product hardware still mainly uses Qualcomm chips, while its own semiconductor investment focus is laid out in the more widely applied AIoT field.
For example, Xiaomi has invested in more than 8 semiconductor companies involved in the smart home field, including Wuxi Haoda, Jingchen Semiconductor, VeriSilicon Microelectronics, Ankai Microelectronics and Onray Microelectronics.
This is undoubtedly an important step for Xiaomi under the AIoT development trend set off by the market in 2018.
According to the market research institute Ai Media Consulting’s (iiMedia Research) report data, the size of China’s AIoT hardware market has reached 500 billion yuan in 2018. And this data is expected to exceed one trillion by 2020.
With the beginning of 2019, Lei Jun announced that he would invest 10 billion yuan in the AIoT field in the next five years, and Xiaomi ’s R & D investment costs have also increased year by year.
On February 13, this year, Xiaomi released a voluntary announcement to disclose the latest revenue and research and development expenses. For the year ended December 31, 2019, Xiaomi’s R & D expenses are expected to be about 7 billion yuan, and it plans to increase its key investments in the 5G + AIoT field to further expand the company’s advantages in IoT.
Meanwhile, for the year ended December 31, 2020, Xiaomi’s R & DExpenses are expected to exceed 10 billion yuan, 4 years ahead of Lei Jun’s commitment to reach 10 billion R & D investment in 5 years in 2019. In comparison, the research and development expenses invested by Xiaomi in 2017 were only 3.151 billion, accounting for 2.75% of total revenue.
From another perspective, Xiaomi is more inclined to take the “win-win investment” core. Simply put, Xiaomi is one of the “golden masters” of those semiconductor companies, and also an important customer of them.
Take the morning crystal semiconductor invested by Xiaomi in November 2018 as an example. The company mainly develops multimedia smart terminal application processor chips. Companies including Amazon, Google, Alibaba, Baidu, and Xiaomi are its client. Among them, the sales amount of Jingchen Semiconductor to Xiaomi in 2018 was about 262 million yuan, accounting for 11.06% of the revenue in the same period.
It is based on this strategic relationship that Xiaomi’s AIoT business also achieved good results in fiscal 2019.
According to Xiaomi’s 2019 Q3 financial report data, as of September 30, 2019, Xiaomi’s IoT platform has connected IoT devices (excluding smartphones and laptops) ) number reached 213.2 million units, a year-on-year increase of 62.0%.
In addition, Xiaomi’s IoT and consumer products revenue was 15.6 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 44.4%. Among them, according to Ovie Cloud Network statistics, Xiaomi TV ranked first in domestic shipments with a market share of 16.9% in the third quarter of 2019.
From this point of view, Xiaomi is accelerating its ambitions under the wave of AIoT and core building with the accelerating layout of semiconductor investment.
But Xiaomi’s ambitions are not enough. Behind the semiconductor investment landscape, Xiaomi is still suffering from the sting of “lack of core” and “lack of technology”. For the moment, Xiaomi must truly stand on the commanding heights of the industry and become a “great company” as Lei Jun said, it still lacks a “core”.
Conclusion: the success and failure of Xiaomi’s core building
Looking back at the public opinion field of Xiaomi’s core building, the industry is ridiculing and questioning Xiaomi’s self-developed chips, and the capital market is curious and looking forward to Xiaomi’s strategic investment.
At this stage, in terms of Xiaomi’s investment in the semiconductor industry chain and specific developments, its core breakthrough is still a long and protracted battle. On the one hand, Xiaomi is still waiting for Songguo Electronics to make a comeback, and hopes that the “rookie” Big Fish Semiconductor will come later; on the other hand, although Xiaomi is continuously expanding the semiconductor investment landscape, it has not really shaken the market position of domestic top players. .
It is undeniable that although Xiaomi’s investment in semiconductor companies helps to enrich and expand its AIoT business, in the final analysis, how strong are these investments in Xiaomi’s own chip research and development technology? Can it really bring technological innovation to Xiaomi? We don’t know yet.
Xiaomi’s gradually accelerating the layout of semiconductor investment can provide development momentum for its “AI + AIoT” dual-engine strategy in the short term, and enrich and expand its AIoT business. But in the long run, Xiaomi Lei Jun’s dream of making cores is still resisting and long.
This article is from the WeChat public account: 智 物 (ID: zhidxcom) , author: Wei Shiwei