By Stephen Nellis
SAN FRANCISCO/MUNICH (Reuters) – U.S. semiconductor company Qualcomm said on Tuesday it will supply chips for in-car infotainment systems to luxury automakers Mercedes and BMW.
Qualcomm is the leading supplier of chips used in smartphones, and the market has been in decline since last year.
But the company is working with automakers to power a variety of functions in vehicles, from infotainment systems to advanced driver assistance systems, and its automotive revenue grew 13 percent in the latest quarter, despite smartphone outlook falling short of analysts’ estimates.
In a statement, Qualcomm said BMW will supply chips to help with voice commands in the car. It also says it will supply the chips for the next Mercedes E-Class models, which will be available in the US in 2024.
The company It expects to earn $4 billion from the automotive sector by 2026, rising to $9 billion by the end of the decade, CEO Cristiano Amon said in an interview at the Munich Auto Show.
US chip designer He announced that by the end of 2022, the “pipeline” in the automotive business was 30 billion dollars, thanks to car makers and their suppliers for assistant and autonomous driving technology, as well as in-car information and cloud communication.
“One of the things we focus on as a company is to find new areas of growth … automotive is one of those areas,” Amon said.
Asked about the upcoming IPO of UK-based ARM Holdings Ltd., a chip designer owned by SoftBank Group Corp., he said: “We’re not necessarily participating in an IPO, but we believe that ARM will play a big role in the ecosystem. We’d like to see an independent Arm.”
(Reporting by Stephen Nellis in San Francisco, Victoria Waldersee and Christina Amann in Munich; Editing by Rashmi Eich and Kim Coghill)
