The Qualcomm Snapdragon Digital Chassis concept at the CES 2024 event in Las Vegas, Nevada
Qualcomm beat consensus estimates in its latest results release, generating a turnover of almost 10 billion dollars. While the majority of Qualcomm’s revenue came from its mobile and IoT businesses, its most significant growth came from the automotive sector; Qualcomm reported automotive revenue of $598 million, up 31% year over year.
During his earnings call, Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon noted that 75 new vehicle models launching in 2023 would feature Qualcomm’s Snapdragon digital chassis. The new design wins add to Qualcomm’s substantial traction in the automotive space, with more than 350 million vehicles on the road already equipped with its Snapdragon Digital Chassis solutions.
This widespread adoption underscores Qualcomm’s position as a major partner to the automotive industry, an asset it is leveraging for future growth. At the recent Consumer Electronics show, the company made a series of new announcements highlighting its work with partners to take this area further.
New Bosch partnership for ADAS and infotainment
Qualcomm and Bosch jointly introduced a new vehicle central computer at CES, the first in the industry to run both infotainment and ADAS functionality on a single system-on-a-chip.
The new system uses Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Ride Flex SoC, designed to support mixed-criticality workloads. This SoC enables the integration of digital cockpit, ADAS and automated driving functionalities on a single chip. The platform enables automakers to implement a unified, central computing architecture and software-defined vehicle architecture across different vehicle tiers.
With the Flex SoC, Bosch’s vehicle computer can provide features such as infotainment, vehicle lifecycle management, digital cluster and ADAS features including object detection, automated parking, intelligent navigation, voice assistance and multi-sensor processing.
Bosch’s platform, supported by Qualcomm technology, firmly positions both companies in the automotive sector. It provides a cost-effective solution for automakers to include more ADAS functions in vehicles, especially in the entry-level and mid-range segments.
Qualcomm and Salesforce collaborate on connected car experiences
Just before CES, Qualcomm and Salesforce announced a collaboration to transform automotive experiences by combining Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Digital Chassis solutions with Salesforce Automotive Cloud.
This collaboration provides automotive manufacturers, fleet providers, automotive financial groups and suppliers with cutting-edge technology to create and deliver cutting-edge personalized customer experiences. These experiences can be continually updated throughout the lifecycle of a vehicle, in line with the digital transformation underway in the automotive sector.
By combining vehicle data with first-party data such as website interactions, app usage and purchase history, the collaboration aims to deliver tailored experiences that strengthen the relationship between automakers and their customers.
This collaboration between Qualcomm and Salesforce is expected to enable automakers to provide immersive and personalized services using comprehensive vehicle and driver data. These services include real-time alerts, personalized offers, predictive maintenance alerts and on-demand feature upgrades.
The platform aims to equip automakers with the tools to personalize service offerings for individual users and deploy them across their vehicle fleets, establishing a range of software-defined and dynamically configurable vehicles.
The analyst’s point of view
Automobiles are rapidly becoming fully connected smart devices, increasingly equipped with new AI inference capabilities. The technologies used by smart cars are similar to those that drive the rest of the mobile sector – a market dominated by Qualcomm.
Entering the automotive electronics market requires understanding how to provide computing and communication capabilities to an AI-enabled mobile edge. Qualcomm’s heritage in mobile communications devices gives it a strong technological foundation to build on.
This segment also requires strong partnership skills, as collaboration across a large enabling technology ecosystem is how platforms are built in the automotive industry. This is another area where Qualcomm’s long history in the partner-centric mobile market is paying off; its recent announcements with Bosch and Salesforce show that Qualcomm is doing exceptionally well in this regard.
NVIDIA is Qualcomm’s most comparable competitor in the ADAS and digital cockpit market, which is also aggressively pursuing growth in the sector with its NVIDIA DRIVE platform. Nvidia disclosed In its latest earnings release, its automotive revenue was $261 million, less than half of Qualcomm’s revenue, and up just 4% year-over-year.
While NVIDIA has unquestionable strength in AI, a critical capability in next-generation automotive ADAS and infotainment systems, it lacks critical capabilities in communications and mobility – things that Qualcomm has spent decades developing. develop.
At the same time, Qualcomm has demonstrated significant strength in its AI inference technologies, rivaling what NVIDIA offers with its DRIVE platform. The company simply has a more comprehensive solution.
Qualcomm’s growing momentum in the automotive sector demonstrates that the company is effectively leveraging its deep roots in mobile technology to shape the future of automotive innovation. It’s a story that partners and automotive OEMs are responding to, resulting in Qualcomm’s 31% year-over-year growth in this segment.
As automobiles evolve toward intelligent, fully connected platforms, Qualcomm’s expertise allows it to leapfrog competitors like NVIDIA, guiding the company toward a future where it promises to redefine the automotive technology landscape. It’s a fascinating story, promising significant growth and diversification.
Disclosure: Steve McDowell is an industry analyst and NAND Research is an industry analyst firm that performs or has engaged in research, analysis and consulting services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. Mr. McDowell has no stock ownership in any of the companies mentioned in this article.