CES 2018 Qualcomm unveils new products, in bid to expand outside smartphones
0CES 2018 Qualcomm unveils new products, in bid to expand outside smartphones.
Qualcomm Inc, the biggest maker of chips that run smartphones, unveiled a raft of products and customer wins beyond its mobile stronghold, trying to show it can continue as an independent company.
The company, target of a $105 billion hostile takeover bid by Broadcom Ltd, touted dominance in automotive chips, new processors for voice-controlled speakers and components for wireless headphones. It’s taking market share from Broadcom in home Wi-Fi routers and will soon challenge that company’s position in antenna parts for smartphones, Qualcomm said Monday at a presentation at the CES consumer electronics conference in Las Vegas.
“Most people think of us as mobile-only,” Qualcomm President Cristiano Amon said, while noting the company generated $3 billion in sales outside of its main business in 2017. “We’re going to markets that mobile technology is disrupting. The new designs that redefine some of those markets are using Qualcomm. ” The company has $3 billion worth of orders for automotive parts, Amon also said. As carmakers try to upgrade their center console and infotainment displays for smartphone-addicted consumers, Qualcomm is being asked to provide the technology, he said. Jaguar Land Rover Automotive Plc, Honda Motor Co and China’s BYD Auto Co are all new customers, he added.
Proving that Qualcomm’s technology reach is expanding outside its traditional area of strength in modems may be crucial to persuading investors to side with management in rejecting the Broadcom bid. Broadcom argues chipmakers need to combine and concentrate on core strengths while cutting efforts to expand into new areas that typically don’t pay off. Qualcomm is directly taking on Broadcom in Wi-Fi chips for home routers, said Amon. Until now internet service providers such as Comcast Corp. have used cheaper, less-capable chips to build the modems they give to consumers, he said. As that market has been challenged by startups providing products with better Wi-Fi capabilities, Comcast and others are responding by upgrading their offerings – and are increasingly using Qualcomm chips, he said.
CES,2018,Qualcomm,unveils,new,products,,in,bid,to,expand,outside,smartphones,CES 2018 Qualcomm unveils new products, in bid to expand outside smartphones