Inevitable shortcomings
As an analyst of TF Securities, Guo Ming _, whose remarks about Apple have always been valued by the market, predicted that the new iPhone released in 2023 would use Apple's self-developed chips, and Qualcomm's chips only supplied some products, accounting for about 20%. Now he thinks that Qualcomm's chips will still cover 65,438+000% of Apple's products.
Since Apple's first self-developed chip, the communication baseband has always been the biggest shortcoming of the iPhone, and there may be none. It is the most important component that has caused the iPhone to be criticized for a long time.
At present, Qualcomm, Huawei and MediaTek integrate communication baseband into processors, which is different. Because Apple designed the A-series chips independently, but didn't develop its own baseband, it can only use Qualcomm's 5G baseband through plug-ins. However, the disadvantages of external baseband are high power consumption, high heat generation and signal will be affected.
In addition, Apple is also very dissatisfied with Qualcomm. From 20 17, Qualcomm was sued for unfair way of collecting patent royalties and refused to pay the royalties.
Although Qualcomm signed a settlement agreement with Apple in 20 19, Apple also adopted Qualcomm's products as the baseband of iPhone. However, Apple still seeks to rely on more than one supplier, and even hopes to bypass Qualcomm through self-research and stop paying patent licensing fees.
Hong Shibin, an industry observer, believes that from the perspective of Apple, Huawei's 5GSOC technology level is still the best, which fully demonstrates the rarity of Huawei's Kirin chip.
Tug of war of discourse right
From the perspective of the industry, Apple and Qualcomm have a long-standing feud, and they don't give in to each other in the tug-of-war of leadership and discourse power. According to public information, as early as the development of the original iPhone, Apple wanted to purchase a batch of chips for comparison, including Qualcomm. However, Qualcomm asked Apple to sign a patent agreement on communication protocol with it first, and the terms of the agreement included allowing Apple to reverse license the patent to Qualcomm. Apple refused to accept this clause, so it turned to Infineon instead of Qualcomm.
At that time, because the original iPhone did not support 3G network, it had nothing to do with the contradiction in Qualcomm. However, as mobile communication enters the 3G era, Apple has to accept Qualcomm's patents and technologies in CDMA field. After all, CDMA technology can ensure clearer call effect and higher security. In 2008, Apple launched the iPhone3G, marking the beginning of in-depth cooperation with Qualcomm.
With the advent of the 4G era, more suppliers entered the market, which broke the monopoly of Qualcomm to some extent. At this time, Apple is also looking for a second supplier. Finally, as a substitute for Qualcomm, Intel introduced the iPhone7 with Intel chips on 20 16. However, this does not mean that Qualcomm has faded out. According to the financial report, in 20 16, Qualcomm provided baseband chips for Apple, accounting for about $2 1 billion, accounting for 13% of the total revenue.
In the view of Xu Yiqiang, a consumer electronics expert, whether it is the contradiction between self-developed chips or suppliers, the core is that Apple wants to gain stronger control in the industrial chain. He told Beijing Business Today that it is not surprising that Apple wants to develop its own 5G chip. As a leading enterprise in the industry, it is natural to seize the front end of the industrial chain. As an enterprise with coordinated development of software and hardware, Apple gives the market the impression that the impact of software is stronger and the hardware is dim. Once it has mastered its own hardware, it can not only be further strengthened.
What is the difficulty of baseband chip?
Experts believe that, in fact, Apple has made some progress in self-developed GPU processors, which also makes it want to further set foot in baseband chips.
In early June, Apple released a new M2 chip. Compared with the latest 12 core PC notebook chip, M2 chip can reach nearly 90% of its peak performance with only14 power consumption.
Unfortunately, baseband chips are different from processors after all, and involve more fields in research and development, so we should consider industry standards, operator adaptation and other issues. Liang, a senior industrial economic observer, believes that Apple's consistent strategy is to enter the market with its huge brand appeal after the technology matures, but this strategy does not apply to 5G technology. Because more production departments are involved, the first-movers in the 5G field will master more patents and build a "moat". The first-Mover advantage should not be underestimated.
According to China Industrial Economic Information Network, in 20021year, 5G baseband revenue increased by 7 1% year-on-year, accounting for 66% of the total baseband revenue in 20021year. The top five manufacturers are Qualcomm, MediaTek, Samsung LSI, Ziguang Zhanrui and Intel. Among them, Qualcomm leads the global baseband chip market with a revenue share of nearly 56%, followed by MediaTek with a share of nearly 28% and Samsung LSI with a share of over 7%. Even if the latecomers independently research and develop, they can't avoid the technology patents of the first-Mover enterprises. The cost of purchasing patents alone may be much higher than the expenditure of purchasing finished products directly.
Experts believe that Samsung and Huawei have their own mature products among enterprises that master 5G technology, and they will not be willing to be suppliers of Apple. Although MediaTek is a non-first-tier manufacturer, it may not be the direct partner of Apple. If Apple finally misses the independent research and development of 5G, it is the most realistic choice to cooperate with Qualcomm and Intel.
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