Take a stake in the chip industry chain company OPPO's investment map to expand not only the core but also the car?

Recently, a new chip industry chain has been added to OPPO's investment map. Heavenly eye survey shows that Shenzhen Lingming Photon Technology Co., Ltd. has undergone industrial and commercial changes, a new shareholder OPPO Guangdong Mobile Communications Co., Ltd.

According to IT Orange, the pace of OPPO investment has accelerated significantly since 2021. So far, there have been 13 investment projects this year, accounting for 65% of the total investment since 2017.

From the perspective of industry distribution, the chip is the key investment field of OPPO, and it has invested in nine chip-related companies, such as Lingming Photon, Jiekai Technology, Ruishi Chuangxin, Weijiechuangxin, Nansi Semiconductor and so on.

It is worth mentioning that the investment map of OPPO is highly coincident with Xiaomi. There are 11 invested enterprises, which are also favored by Xiaomi. Among them, Weijie Chuangxin and Chengrui Optics are expected to be listed in Science and Technology Innovation Board. According to previous disclosure, Weijie Chuangxin has submitted Science and Technology Innovation Board's listing application. While Chengrui Optics is in the guidance period of listing, it is proposed to land on the Kechuang board.

The focus of layout is to invest in the chips of our own industrial chain.

On the whole, OPPO's investment mainly revolves around its consumer electronics industry chain.

For example, Lingming Photon's photoelectric 3D sensor (dToF) chip can be used in smartphones, smart head displays and smart home devices, while Masters' main business, MEMS image sensors, plays a key role in improving smartphone imaging quality.

As a developer of radio frequency and high-end analog integrated circuits, and also a supplier of OPPO, Xiaomi, vivo and other mobile phone brands, Changjing Technology mainly produces diodes, transistors, MOSFET, LDO, DC-DC, frequency devices, power devices and other products, which are widely used in various consumer and industrial electronic fields, and have cooperative relations with OPPO, vivo and Xiaomi.

Liu Bo, vice president of OPPO and president of China, said in March that OPPO has been paying attention to the cutting-edge technology of the entire upstream industry, and the direction of investment is also focused on products and future technologies.

In recent years, UWB technology, which is hot in the field of consumer electronics, has also attracted the attention of OPPO. As a technology that can achieve high-precision positioning indoors, UWB has been applied in mobile phones, smartwatches, smart speakers and other devices of giants such as Apple and Samsung. Hanwei Microelectronics, invested by OPPO, focuses on the design and development of UWB chips and solutions, which can be used in mobile phones, wearable devices, intelligent IoT terminals, industry-specific terminals and other scenarios.

A chip investor told reporters that OPPO supports domestic suppliers and shares its growth by investing in its own supply chain. At the same time, it also helps to establish their own chip development capabilities and pave the way for the next stage of core-making.

Pan Helin, executive dean and professor of the Institute of Digital economy of Central South University of Economics and Law, said in an interview with Venture Daily that OPPO's investment ideas are focused on chips, sensors and other areas, with two motives.

One is for the upstream layout of smartphones. At present, among the 3C consumer electronics, smart phones have the largest demand for sensors and the most kinds of sensors. the combination of a large number of sensors and applications can make smart phones more functional. For OPPO, the industrial layout to the upper reaches of the supply chain can enhance the bargaining power of the supply chain, and it can also be transformed into a technology enterprise.

On the other hand, OPPO is also laying out the Internet of things. At present, with the rise of 3C consumer electronics and smart home appliances, a large number of new requirements are linked to sensors and AI, and the enterprise layout of the Internet of things is no longer a breakthrough of individual items, but gradually turns its own capabilities into a platform, such as bringing chip technology and sensor technology into the enterprise technology platform, when enterprises need to enter a new field of intelligent devices. These chip technologies and sensor technologies can be universal between products, such as AI voice used in floor-sweeping robots and smart TVs. And enterprises can also further through these technological capabilities to form technology output, and use these technology output to bring some emerging consumer electronics, smart home appliances enterprises into their own ecology. Therefore, OPPO's move is also prepared for the ecological development of the Internet of things in the future.

After inquiry, a reporter from the Venture Capital Daily found that these investment targets chosen by OPPO were also favored by Xiaomi. Among them, 11 enterprises, Xiaomi also participated in the investment, accounting for more than 50%. It can be said that the investment map of OPPO coincides with Xiaomi very high.

Particularly sought after is the RF chip manufacturers, Ruishi Chuangxin, Weijie Chuangxin won OPPO, Huawei, Xiaomi three smartphone brand manufacturers to buy shares.

A radio frequency chip expert told the reporter that the radio frequency chip is the core device of the mobile phone. With the advent of the 5G era, the amount of RF chips has increased greatly, which is as important as the main chips, and the future market potential is very great. According to the statistics and forecasts of Yole Development, the RF front-end market will be $15 billion in 2018 and will grow at an average annual compound growth rate of 8 per cent, and is expected to reach $25.8 billion by 2025.

In addition to these industrial chain-related companies, OPPO also invested in Wansheng music, programming cats, a little information and other content platforms. Some industry insiders commented: "the investment logic of OPPO is very clear, and it is the entrance to the key application scenarios around the intelligent hardware industry chain and intelligent terminals, such as education, travel, entertainment and so on."

Targeting IoE smart cars becomes an important part

In OPPO's investment map, there is also a company that focuses on the research and development of core smart chips for vehicles-Jiekai Technology. At present, Jie Kai Technology has a number of automotive electronic chip products in mass production, and has been used by a number of independent brand car factories and joint venture brand car factories. Its core product is the gauge-level MCU, which is suitable for automotive electronics and high reliability industrial applications.

In addition, Lingming Photon, the latest investment of OPPO, the dToF sensor chip developed by Lingming Photon can be used not only in the field of consumer electronics, but also in vehicle lidar. Some industry insiders speculate that OPPO's investment in Lingming Photon may be related to the expansion of the automotive field. It is understood that the main advantage of dToF technology lies in its long ranging distance and low power consumption, which is attracting more and more attention from the automobile industry. Xiaomi, which announced that it was building a car, also invested in Lingming Photon.

Since 2021, OPPO has frequently carried out the layout of the automobile industry. In April, there were media reports that OPPO was preparing to build a car. Founder Chen Mingyong found out and investigated the resources and talents of the industrial chain and met with Ningde era, China Automobile Research Institute and other enterprises and institutions.

A reporter from the Venture Capital Daily found on the official website of the Trademark Office that OPPO submitted an application for trademark registration of "OCAR" in May, and its applications include coded key cards, electronic key cards, GPS navigation devices, loudspeakers, operating system programs, and so on.

In August, OPPO and SAIC formally signed a strategic cooperation agreement, the two sides will jointly explore SOA application services, ecological domain integration, vehicle-machine interconnection and other areas of research and application. Prior to this, OPPO has jointly developed digital car keys with car companies such as Xilai Automobile, ideal Automobile and BYD to create an interconnected ecology of smart cars and machines.

In the smartphone brand self-driving patent application list published by Smart Bud, OPPO ranked second with 4363, and OPPO ranked third with 1527 in the number of self-driving inventions granted.

OPPO's recruitment website also offers positions such as autopilot perception fusion experts, lidar sensor engineers, and vehicle system integration experts.

But at present, it seems that OPPO regards smart cars as an important part of the ecological expansion of IoT rather than building cars. This can be seen from the introduction of digital car keys, leaving the car butler and other car-machine interconnection products. Liu Bo, president of OPPO China, also said in response to the car-building rumors: "OPPO is learning about many industries related to mobile phones, not just cars." Doing a good job in mobile phone ecology is the most important thing. " However, Liu Bo did not completely deny the possibility of building a car: "as to whether to do it in the future, it may take time to answer."