Before the above publicity, industry news showed Huawei Hisilicon's goal in reading pictures. It is understood that basically independent map merchants are "scanned" by Huawei. When the news of the merger was not confirmed, Huawei's application for Grade A map qualification has entered the publicity period, and it is only one step away from winning the bid.
When Huawei applies for Grade A map qualification, many people will think of Huawei's automobile business. If this is the only case, then Huawei's strategic deployment capability is underestimated. What the ICT giant Jianfeng refers to must be the digital world of the Internet of Everything.
Map ability is an essential basic ability for future giants. With the arrival of 5G, the world is about to enter the digital world of the Internet of Everything, and the link between the digital world and the real world happens to be a map. With the development of smart cars, intelligent transportation and smart cities, the importance of maps will become higher and higher.
Therefore, in the China market, the giants have fought fiercely for the map ability, and now the general pattern has been decided. With the strong entry of Huawei, the map rivers and lakes will set off another storm. In foreign countries, map disputes also occur from time to time. After the battle for Here in Europe, in Japan, the government took the lead in developing a high-precision map to adapt to the future, which is another way of playing.
Before the above information was published, there were 19 companies in China with Grade A map qualification. Therefore, map resources are scarce resources in society, but maps are the necessary basic abilities of future giants, and the competition for them is inevitable.
Mapping is a hard work. According to insiders, at present, there are only five companies with complete maps and capabilities in China: Siweituxin, Gaode Map, Baidu Map, Yitong and Kailide.
The above five companies with complete maps, except Baidu map, were all laid by the giants themselves, and three of them were related to the giants. NavInfo, Tencent and Gaode were acquired by Ali as a whole, and Khalid was once owned by Xiaomi and Ping An.
Map ability is a strategic ability that giants think must be possessed. When Ali acquired Gaode, Tencent immediately took a stake in NavInfo, and Baidu gradually improved its map ability by purchasing map data from other countries.
For Huawei, there are only two ways to have map capabilities: doing it yourself and mergers and acquisitions. If you do it yourself, you still need to accumulate data bit by bit, and this cycle may be very long. There are also views that this is only a matter of developing tools. In terms of Huawei's ability, it will not take long.
As for M&A, because graphic manufacturers are scarce resources in the industry, especially those with complete capabilities or accumulated considerable data, there are only a handful. For such a target, the buyer is at a disadvantage. It is reported that Huawei once wanted to acquire a graphic dealer, but in the end it fell through because the controlling party of this graphic dealer did not let go.
In this rumor of M&A, Huawei has contacted a number of graphics manufacturers, two of which are start-ups and one is an established graphics manufacturer. However, before waiting for M&A's information, the publicity work of Huawei's application for qualification has begun. Therefore, some insiders believe that the purpose of Huawei's contact with many graphic dealers may not be for mergers and acquisitions, but for the bottom of the industry.
In any case, Huawei must have the ability to map. This capability is one of the basic capabilities that Huawei must have. In the future, Huawei should have its own solutions in drawing, drawing and updating. As for data accumulation, it depends more on time.
Abroad, the famous "here" campaign has been staged in the field of maps. In 20 15, Nokia wanted to sell its maps here, which triggered fierce competition around the world.
Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, including American technology giants, Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Uber, car manufacturers, service providers, and even Baidu, Tencent and NavInfo in China hope to be included.
The end result is that the three major luxury car companies in Germany, Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Audi, took this place into their pockets, costing 3.2 billion US dollars. Of course, this price is much cheaper than Navteq, a car navigation software developer acquired by Nokia for $86,543.8 billion.
Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Audi won here, of course, not because of LBS service, but because of the demand for high-precision maps in the era of autonomous driving.
In Japan, a surveying and mapping company named Dynamic Map Planning supported by the Japanese government develops high-precision maps. The company was founded by mitsubishi electric, map developer Zenrin and nine car manufacturers.
Among them, mitsubishi electric provides surveying and mapping equipment, car companies provide cars, map developers are responsible for drawing, and special surveying and mapping equipment installed on cars digitizes survey data and converts them into maps. According to the plan, this map will cover major highway companies and other highways, with a total length of 127 km.
Judging from the above two examples, foreign companies tend to develop high-precision maps in groups, and even Japan is led by the government to develop high-precision maps, which has certain significance for reducing redundant construction. After all, maps are the infrastructure of the digital world.
What's more, it is the sensitivity of maps, especially the sensitivity of high-precision maps. The reason why Baidu and Tencent are excluded here is also due to this consideration. In China, applying for Grade A qualification cannot have a foreign investment background. Beijing Momenta's application for qualification has also encountered a storm in this regard.
The development map of foreign groups can inspire domestic companies. As a basic ability, several companies can develop maps together, which can reduce each other's costs on the one hand and avoid repeated construction on the other. There is such a tendency at present. For example, SAIC and Dongfeng both invested in Zhong Jing, a start-up company, while Zhong Jing also has business relations with FAW. Maybe there will be equity cooperation in the future.
As for whether Huawei needs to acquire graphics manufacturers, just like at the Shanghai Auto Show in April, at the media communication meeting of Huawei's rotating chairman Xu Zhijun, Che Zhijun once raised a question-"Will Huawei make up for its lack of capacity as an incremental component supplier through investment or mergers and acquisitions in the future?" Xu Zhijun's answer at that time was "It's hard to answer you now, anything is possible, nothing is impossible."
Subsequently, at the end of April, Huawei established Hubble Technology Investment Company. At the end of May, Huawei established BU, a smart car solution. In June, it issued a document to determine the specific organizational structure of BU, a smart car solution, and applied for map qualification in July. Huawei's speed has made the outside world have more expectations.