High-pass re-casting four-core mobile phone chips compete for the Smart machine market

Despite its "nasdaq:qcom" fans, such as Apple and Samsung, Qualcomm is also winking at the thousand-dollar smart machine.

"The future Qualcomm all popular smartphone chips, will only be provided to customers in a qrd way." January 23, Qualcomm Wireless Semiconductor Technology Co., Ltd., vice president of product marketing Yeng Chen in Shenzhen, revealed that Qualcomm will continue to increase investment in the QRD.

QRD, intended as a reference design, is a major model for Qualcomm Chips to challenge the MediaTek turnkey scheme in the low-end market. In Yeng Chen's words, many Chinese manufacturers have been unfamiliar with Qualcomm chips in the past, and if they do not have qrd, they will be able to invest a lot in smartphones on Qualcomm platforms.

Yeng Chen said that the current mobile phone manufacturers through the QRD platform, has been able to product from the project to the listing time shortened in 2 months or so. According to the data released by Qualcomm's partner summit in Shenzhen on the same day, since the launch of the QRD project in November 2011, mobile phone manufacturers have more than 170 based on their terminals, and more than 100 are in the design and development.

Smart Machine Four nuclear war

The January 23 Qualcomm Partners ' summit was crowded, the third time Qualcomm has courted handset makers in Shenzhen, known as the capital of mobile phones. Qualcomm-related sources told reporters that since the start of the qrd in late 2011, the three summits held more than one time, "This time the registration of more than 1000 participants, greatly exceeded our expectations."

For Qualcomm Platform, in addition to the cool, OPPO, Tianyu Lanton such as mobile phone manufacturers, as well as program Shanghuaqin, and Tencent, Baidu, such as mobile applications providers, as well as China Mobile.

Yeng Chen told reporters that up to now, Qualcomm in China's 90 authorized manufacturers, already 40 have begun to research and manufacture products on QRD platform.

At the same time, the chip on the Qualcomm QRD platform from the first generation to the fourth generation, including the market is seen as the focus of four nuclear chips.

Yeng Chen said that the first half of this year, Qualcomm QRD platform flagship of the two chipsets are msm8x30, msm8x25q. Among them, msm8x25q market positioning is the quad-core intelligent Machine market, with Yeng Chen words is, "the four core to achieve the price of thousand Yuan machine."

In fact, Qualcomm has a variety of four nuclear chips, such as the APQ8064 in the high-end market, including Oppo's latest Find5, Millet 2, using this chip. At present, Qualcomm will be positioned in the mass market msm8x25q four nuclear chips into the QRD platform, apparently the bull's eye aimed at MediaTek last December released four nuclear chip MT6589.

"Most manufacturers need a four-core concept for product positioning." Yeng Chen told reporters that many manufacturers believe that if there is no quad-core, its marketing will have resistance, although Qualcomm dual-core MSM8X30 chip in the performance of more than the four-core msm8x25q, but in terms of quantity, the choice of four-core chip manufacturers to more.

Controversial "high-pass tax"

Rongxiuli, the Tianyu chairman, said in a speech at the Qualcomm Partners summit that Qualcomm "also needs to give more power to the price." This has also been a lot of mobile phone industry response. Mobile phone scheme design company, Shenzhen Hui Ye chairman Hong Wei-min also echoed said, Rongxiuli speak out the hearts of everyone.

IC Components online distributor of the core city of the executive vice President Zhu Jizhi to reporters, the use of Qualcomm chip costs include two parts: chip hardware and royalties. Among them, Qualcomm's chip in the hardware price and other chip manufacturers in the market is not too much, the handset manufacturers want to lower the more patent fees.

The results of Qualcomm's earnings show that the revenue comes mainly from two major parts: Chip sales and royalties. In fiscal year 2012, for example, Qualcomm sold a total of 590 million chips, which earned $12.5 billion trillion and accounted for about 63% of its 19.1 billion dollar total revenue. The other one-third per cent of Qualcomm's total revenue is the patent revenue that the communications industry calls "high-pass taxes". This also includes two parts: first, as long as your product involves CDMA or OFDMA technology, must seek Qualcomm's patent license, this is a fixed royalty; Secondly, in addition to this fixed patent fee, the manufacturer produces or sells each of the CDMA or OFDMA products, The licensing fee is also payable to Qualcomm on the basis of sales revenue. The former is called licence, the latter is called royalty.

In the Royalty section, each quarter, Qualcomm's authorized vendors have to report their own sales and sales to the period. According to Qualcomm's 2012 annual report, Qualcomm royalty coverage of the total hardware sales of up to 187.3 billion U.S. dollars, a year-on-year increase of 25%.

In fiscal year 2012, Qualcomm royalty covered 3g/4g equipment shipments of 840 million-860 million, with an average price of $216-222 per unit.

If you divide the royalty income of Qualcomm by 187.3 billion dollars, you can approximate a digital--3.577% that is proportional to the licensing fee for Qualcomm. Theoretically it can be understood that: equipment manufacturers to sell 100 yuan per product, to Qualcomm to pay 3.577 yuan "high income tax."

Qualcomm has never disclosed the percentage of its licensing fee for each manufacturer, but from all indications, it is a differentiated figure, that is, it charges a different percentage of licensing fees to different vendors.

There is no positive response to the price problem. High-pass Wireless Semiconductor Technology Co., Ltd. Senior vice president of product management Jeff Lorbeck only said Qualcomm will adopt a positive pricing strategy.

"Td+ overseas" two cards

In Yeng Chen's view, in addition to the four-core market in the force, overseas markets and TD is the Qualcomm QRD this year's two major priorities.

In the TD market, the MSM8X30 chipset, currently incorporated into the Qualcomm QRD platform, also supports WCDMA, CDMA2000, TD-SCDMA, and LTE. This means that mobile phone manufacturers can not only use the same time to face the market of China's three major operators, but also cut China Mobile in 2013 to vigorously promote the 4G market.

Wang Henjiang, deputy general manager of China Mobile Terminals Ltd., said that in 2012 TD terminals sold more than 60 million units, higher than the 55 million targets set by China Mobile earlier this year, and the goal of TD Terminal sales of 120 million has been set, with the ratio of intelligent machines exceeding 80%.

As for overseas markets, Yeng Chen said, this is mainly the Chinese handset manufacturers themselves have to open up international market demand, whether in emerging markets or developed countries, Qualcomm QRD can be in the network testing and application testing for Chinese handset manufacturers to provide support.