A few days ago, Qualcomm (Qualcomm) released its second-quarter results for fiscal 2022. The financial report shows that in the Q2 fiscal quarter ended March 27 this year, Qualcomm’s revenue increased by 41% year-on-year to $11.2 billion, a new high, and non-GAAP earnings per share were $3.21, a year-on-year increase of 69%.
This dazzling transcript benefits from the diversified development strategy that Qualcomm has vigorously promoted in recent years. “This reflects the successful execution of our business diversification growth strategy,” said Qualcomm President and CEO Anmon. From the data point of view, in the current very hot car track, Qualcomm has further taken a stand, with revenue reaching US$339 million, and the total order valuation has exceeded US$16 billion, an increase of more than US$3 billion month-on-month. The Internet of Things business segment also performed well, with revenue reaching US$1.7 billion, a year-on-year increase of 61%.
These fast-growing business segments paint an attractive prospect for Qualcomm. But for now, the smartphone business is still the most important locomotive driving Qualcomm’s performance growth. The revenue of $6.3 billion not only hit a new high, but also accounted for more than half of the total revenue.
The mobile phone market has set off a high-end wave, and Qualcomm Snapdragon has become the biggest winner
After years of rapid development, the growth rate of the domestic mobile phone market has slowed down in the past two years. According to data from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, in January 2022, mobile phone shipments in the domestic market were 33.022 million units, a year-on-year decrease of 17.7%. At the same time, industry research shows that the replacement cycle of Chinese mobile phone users is also continuously extending, and the average replacement cycle is close to 30 months. As one of the largest smartphone markets in the world, the performance of the Chinese market can be described as a microcosm of the global market. According to the latest research report of market research firm Strategy Analytics, the global smartphone shipments in Q1 2022 will be 314 million units, down 11% year-on-year.
In such a market environment, Qualcomm’s smartphone business can still grow significantly against the trend, mainly due to the absolute dominant position of Snapdragon chips in the high-end smartphone market.
The Wall Street Journal once estimated that Chinese mobile phone manufacturers already have nearly 40% of the global market share, and their power should not be underestimated. In recent years, Chinese mobile phone manufacturers have attacked the high-end market one after another, setting off a wave of high-end smartphones around the world. According to a report released by market research firm Canalys at the end of March this year, the average selling price (ASP) of smartphones last year increased by 10% year-on-year. Research data released by Counterpoint also shows that the high-end mobile phone market (defined as mobile phones with a price of more than 400 US dollars / 2,548 yuan) grew by 24% year-on-year last year, which greatly exceeded the overall growth of the smartphone market in the same period of 7%.
The impact on the high-end market is naturally inseparable from high-end chips, and in the Android camp, Snapdragon has always been synonymous with high-end SOC. Whether it is the period from Snapdragon S1 to S4, or the period of “Snapdragon 8XX”, Snapdragon has always been the royal mobile platform for the Android flagship. This position remains unshakable to this day. At present, leading mobile phone manufacturers such as Xiaomi, Honor, vivo and OPPO have confirmed that they will continue to use the Snapdragon mobile platform in their high-end mobile phones in the next two years. In addition, Snapdragon will provide flagship processors for about 75% of Samsung Galaxy S22 smartphones, an increase of about 40% compared to the supply of processors to Samsung Galaxy S21
If those impressions weren’t intuitive enough, the impact wasn’t strong enough. So let’s take a look at which flagship phones that have been launched recently are equipped with the Snapdragon platform.
Among them, the most concerned is the OPPO Find X5 Pro, which shouted the slogan “one frame of image, using two chips”. With the cooperation of OPPO’s self-developed Mariana MariSilicon X chip and Snapdragon 8 mobile platform, OPPO Find X5 Pro has super dynamic capture capabilities, clear and bright ultra-clear night scenes and excellent HDR backlight photo performance. Support chip-level 4K night scene video, HDR video, 4K extreme night video and third-party App camera to enhance the four chip-level image experience.
In addition, flagship phones such as Nubia Z40 Pro, Mi 12 Ultra, OnePlus 10 Pro, Motorola Frontier, Redmi K50 e-sports version, realme GT2 Pro, Black Shark 5 Pro, and Red Magic 7 Pro are also equipped with the Snapdragon 8 mobile platform .
It can be said that the high-end flagships of almost every well-known mobile phone brand in the market, from camera phones to gaming phones, are all “Snapdragon inside”. Snapdragon is a well-deserved “flagship harvester”.
Xiaolong, the real “hexagonal warrior”
The reason why Snapdragon has become the best choice for mobile phone manufacturers’ flagship models is because of its overall leading edge in performance. With the growth of the mobile phone industry, Qualcomm, which has deep technical accumulation, has built a solid technological city wall in the six performance dimensions of connection, AI, imaging, audio, security and games, and has cultivated into a true “hexagonal warrior”. “. The sense of security that this comprehensiveness brings is unparalleled.
How powerful is the Snapdragon mobile platform? Still taking the latest Snapdragon 8 as an example, it uses a 4nm process technology and is Qualcomm’s first chip using the latest Armv9 architecture.
In terms of connectivity, the Snapdragon 8 integrates the fourth-generation Snapdragon X65 5G modem and RF system, which is the world’s first 5G modem and RF solution that supports 10Gbps download speeds.
In terms of imaging, Snapdragon 8 supports Snapdragon Sight Snapdragon imaging technology, bringing the first commercial mobile terminal 18-bit triple ISP, with a data throughput speed of 3.2 billion pixels per second. It captures image data with a dynamic range more than 4,000 times higher than the previous generation platform, bringing the ultimate in dynamic range, color and clarity. At the same time, the Snapdragon 8 is also the first mobile platform to support 8K HDR video shooting, and can shoot in the top HDR10+ format with more than 1 billion colors.
In terms of AI capabilities, the Snapdragon 8 is equipped with the 7th generation Qualcomm AI engine. Compared with the previous generation, the speed of the Snapdragon 8 tensor accelerator and shared memory are both increased to 2 times that of the previous generation platform.
In terms of games, the Snapdragon 8 is equipped with the new Qualcomm Adreno GPU, which improves graphics rendering speed by 30% and reduces power consumption by 25% compared with the previous generation. The Snapdragon 8 also provides the Adreno Frame Motion Engine feature, which can achieve twice the number of frames at almost the same power consumption.
In terms of audio, the Snapdragon 8 is the first Snapdragon mobile platform to support the new LE Audio features, including broadcast audio, stereo audio recording and game voice synchronous return, as well as support for the Snapdragon Sound experience.
In addition to fighting for defeat in the high-end market, Snapdragon has also formed a complete product layout in the mid-to-low-end market. At the end of last year, Qualcomm once again made efforts on low-end chips and launched three ultra-high-speed 5G chips, Snapdragon 778G Plus, Snapdragon 695 and Snapdragon 480 Plus. These three chips all use the advanced 6nm process technology, and also fully support 5G Sub-6 and millimeter wave frequency band connections, which are still very competitive.
The effect of diversified layout is beginning to show, and Qualcomm adds a new growth engine
Judging from the latest financial report data, Snapdragon is far from reaching its peak in the smartphone market. Not only that, as a company with innovative genes in its bones, Qualcomm is always surpassing itself and opening up new fields. At present, Qualcomm is transferring and replicating the technologies it has accumulated in the field of mobile phones to the fields of automobiles and the Internet of Things, thereby promoting the development of diversification strategies and opening up the company’s medium and long-term growth space. Qualcomm’s latest financial report data shows that this strategy has begun to pay off.
Among Qualcomm’s diversified business layouts, the most notable one is the automotive market. Thanks to the technical advantages of the RF front-end, Qualcomm has now come out on top in the field of in-vehicle networking and automotive wireless connectivity, and its strength cannot be ignored. At the same time, Qualcomm’s performance in automotive chips is also quite outstanding. Not only has it officially released the world’s first 5nm automotive chip, the Qualcomm SA8295P chip, but also announced at CES 2022 that it has reached agreements with car manufacturers such as Volvo Group, Honda and Renault. A chip supply agreement further expands its automotive footprint.
In April, Qualcomm completed the acquisition of Arriver from SSW Partners 
The (Angel) transaction enhances Qualcomm Technologies’ ability to deliver competitive, open, fully integrated advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) solutions at scale to automakers and Tier 1 suppliers.
Earlier, Qualcomm also reached a long-term cooperation with BMW Group to jointly develop BMW’s autonomous driving software stack and extend it to the Snapdragon Ride platform. In the future, Qualcomm can provide the Snapdragon Ride platform to all levels of car manufacturers.
In addition to the automotive industry, Qualcomm’s layout in the metaverse field is also optimistic. At CES 2022, Qualcomm confirmed that it will cooperate with Microsoft in the AR field to expand and accelerate the application of AR in consumer and enterprise markets. It is reported that Qualcomm and Microsoft will develop customized AR chips to create a new generation of high-efficiency, lightweight AR glasses, and plan to integrate Microsoft Mesh applications and software such as the Snapdragon Spaces XR developer platform, which is expected to accelerate the imaging of the metaverse.
Although the public has long been accustomed to Qualcomm’s leading position in the smartphone market, it has to be said that the transcripts handed over by Qualcomm’s financial report still make many people’s eyes shine, which makes everyone wonder where its limits are. In the future, with the gradual deepening of the diversified layout, I believe that Qualcomm will bring us more surprises in the future.
Leifeng Network
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