MediaTek is in the high-end chip of mobile phones, and the advantages of low-end chips are all gone. With the heat of the Internet of Things, MediaTek began to turn its attention to the field of IoT chips, and laid out multiple product lines to seize the market.
After MediaTek turned to the Internet and the mobile Internet, the Internet of Things (Internet of Everything) is becoming the next area that technology companies have seized. Taiwan Lianfa Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "MediaTek") is no exception.
“With the maturity of AI technology, smart speakers have been developed. I don’t know what new products are coming out in the IoT era, so we have to lay out a complete product line. When a product comes up, we can seize the opportunity.†Yu Renjie, deputy general manager of MediaTek and general manager of the family entertainment products business group, said.
At the 2017 China Mobile Partner Conference held on November 24th, MediaTek released its first dual-mode Internet of Things (SoC) MT2621 supporting NB-IoT (narrowband Internet of Things) R14 specification, which will be available from 2018 Delivery began in the first quarter.
According to the official statement, the chip supports NB-IoT and GSM/GPRS network modes, low cost and low power consumption. It is the world's most energy-efficient NB-IoT dual-mode single-chip. Can be applied to wearable devices, IoT security devices, smart meters and various industrial applications.
After the failure of high-end chips in the mobile phone market, the Internet of Things chip has become a new direction for MediaTek. However, industry analysts believe that the Internet of Things field emphasizes the layout of the entire industry chain. Compared with Huawei and other companies, MediaTek may have advantages in the single chip field, but it is weak in the layout of the ecological chain.
Layout multiple product lines to seize the marketAt present, MediaTek is mainly oriented to the C-end in terms of IoT chips. Its chip-based applications include smart home products such as wearable devices, shared bicycles, and home gateways, as well as GPS location tracking related applications. According to public information, MediaTek launched the low-power chip MT2503 for the Internet of Things market in 2015, and the chip once occupied a market share of over 90% in the shared bicycle market that emerged last year. It is reported that MediaTek is also deploying the Internet of Vehicles and large industrial sectors.
According to Traveler Jie, MediaTek currently has two major business groups, the wireless product business group (mainly mobile phones) and the family entertainment business group. The family entertainment business group includes the Internet of Things business unit, which accounts for 25% of MediaTek's total business volume. In 2016, the development of IoT services, including smart speakers and WiFi, brought a 20% year-on-year growth to the business group.
According to reports, MediaTek currently has a market share of more than 70% in the field of smart speakers. At home, MediaTek supports two voice platforms - Alibaba's voice back-end and Baidu's DuerOS platform; overseas, it supports Amazon and Google's voice platform. Visitors estimate that the company will increase its smart speakers by 10 times in 2017.
Driven by the rapid development of smart homes, smart hardware, smart cities and other related applications, a number of technology companies are rushing to the Internet of Things. According to Gartner data, the number of connected devices worldwide is expected to reach 26 billion by 2020, and the Internet of Things market will reach $1.9 trillion. In 2022, the IoT chip market will exceed $10 billion. The low-power semiconductor chips used in the Internet of Things are similar in other application fields, and are mainly dominated by foreign manufacturers including ARM, Qualcomm, Intel, NVIDIA, ST, and Broadcom. Domestic companies include Haisi, Spreadtrum, MediaTek, Beijing Junzheng (37.000, -0.59, -1.57%), and Datang's Lianxin Technology.
At the same time, NB-IoT (narrowband Internet of Things) is becoming a new hot word. Traditional mobile cellular networks such as 2G, 3G, and 4G are mainly used to meet the connection between people. The carrying capacity is not enough to support the future connection of objects and objects. Therefore, low-power wide-area networks have emerged. According to public information, NB-IoT is a low-power wide-area IoT technology that can achieve the following goals: enhanced coverage, support for large-scale device connections, reduced device complexity, and reduced power consumption. Standby.
At the China Mobile Global Partner Conference, which just ended recently, China Mobile launched the “139†program, announcing that it will build a technology-leading, wide-ranging mobile Internet of Things and achieve continuous coverage of NB-IoT in 346 cities. According to the national plan, at the end of 2017, the NB-IoT network will be covered by major cities such as municipalities and capital cities, and the base station will reach 400,000. By 2020, the NB-IoT network will achieve universal coverage nationwide. In addition, China's three major operators have begun to transform their respective mobile communication networks to support NB-IoT.
In June of this year, MediaTek launched the NB-IoT system single-chip (SoC) MT2625. The MT2621 chip introduced this time is not completely redesigned, but a 2G module is added on the basis of MT2625, and single card dual standby is realized. Supports both NB-IoT and GSM/GPRS network modes, which can serve as a transitional product before the NB-LOT network achieves full coverage.
Although a number of manufacturers are betting on the NB-loT field, the market is thunderous and rainy. In the case that the NB-IoT network has not been fully covered, there is still a two- or three-year transition period. MediaTek MT2621 was announced on November 24th and will be available in the first quarter of 2018. The ecological chain of the NB-loT business model is still converging, and it will take some time to increase the formation and maturity of the ecological chain.
In the view of Yurenjie, MediaTek has a large share of smart speakers, and the future will drive voice to different platforms to become new human-machine interfaces. For example, the smart speaker is placed in the car, and many scenes in the car can realize voice communication. In addition, after the intelligent speaker becomes the entrance of the smart home, it will connect to other devices in the home and become the center of the control command, which will accelerate the advent of the smart family era. MediaTek continues to invest in this field, hoping to cut into the smart home market from smart speakers, and take the lead in the NB-lOT market through R14-scale chips.
Eco-chain layout is weak or weakAccording to foreign media reports, MediaTek has temporarily suspended the research and development investment in mobile phone flagship chips, focusing on the mid-end level. According to Liu Wei, deputy general manager of CCID Consulting & IC Industry Research Center, due to technology and past low-end positioning, MediaTek is difficult to compete with Qualcomm in the high-end chip field, while gross margins are falling in low-end chips. Therefore, MediaTek takes the Internet of Things chip as a new direction.
After launching three IoT chips in succession this year and announced that it will further rob the smart home entrance, MediaTek's transformation issues are attracting attention.
Yu Renjie stressed that the Internet of Things-related product line accounts for more than 25% of MediaTek's revenue, but the mobile phone business still accounts for a high proportion of MediaTek's revenue. "We will actively regain the market in terms of mobile phones, but now the front line is very wide from the lowest order to the highest level. We must focus on it. It is hard to say whether to attack again, but to hold the market of p series chips first. The market acceptance and product competitiveness of new products are improving, and next year is a very important year for MediaTek mobile phones." You Jiejie said.
In fact, it is not only the MediaTek that wants to split from the Internet of Things market. Spreadtrum's low-power chips for the Internet of Things, such as smart homes, smart homes, and intelligent voice interactions, have also been adopted by Baidu's DuerOS platform. It can be seen that Baidu is not only working with MediaTek. Spreadtrum will also launch the NB-IoT chip for the IoT market, which is R13 compliant and allows users to upgrade to the latest R14 standard through software upgrades. Huawei HiSilicon has launched the NB-IoT chip Boudica120, and has its own Internet of Things operating system LiteOS. It wants to rely on its own communication equipment business and good cooperation with the three major operators to help it quickly seize the Internet of Things market.
Huawei's Edge Computing Alliance for the Internet of Things has been established for two years. It has joined forces with Intel, ARM, and iSoftStone Information Technology (Group) to launch Edge Computing Reference Architecture 2.0 at the November 30th Summit.
In Liu Wei's view, MediaTek's advantage in mobile phone chips is low cost and can provide a complete solution. Based on the huge application scenario of the Internet of Things, MediaTek, which is low-cost and winning by quantity, fits right. And MediaTek technology can also play a certain advantage in terms of the small size required by IoT terminal equipment.
But at the same time, Liu Wei believes that the Internet of Things from the sensing layer, the transport layer to the application layer, emphasizes the development trend of the entire industry chain and alliance integration. These include chip providers, sensor vendors, wireless module vendors, network operators, platform service providers, system and software developers, and intelligent terminal vendors. MediaTek may have advantages in the field of single chips, but in the layout of the ecological chain, MediaTek is not dominant compared to Huawei. Huawei not only has an independent ecosystem of hardware products, but also has close relationships with operators. "MediaTek has a very good promotion in the field of Internet of Things, and cooperation with terminal companies and downstream application companies is a key point."
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