Wired
Apple’s branches are busy in autumn. The early autumn season is the peak time of the warm-up period for the release of new iPhone mobile phones, especially this year. Apple will hold multiple events this fall, including the release of iPhone 13, Apple Watch, AirPods 3, iPad mini 6 and the new MacBook Pro. There has been news in the market that the initial stock of the new iPhone will exceed 100 million units. With Apple’s loyal foundry partner TSMC’s price increase triggering a series of chain reactions, it is in line with the content of the new product launch conference on September 14 local time. , The price of the new iPhone has also become the focus of hot discussion among fruit fans.
After the release of each new generation of Apple mobile phones, the industry will ask such a question at the same time: Who is the main supplier of this session? Whether or not it can enter Apple’s supply chain has become a touchstone of whether a supplier’s products are strong. The iterative evolution of suppliers has already possessed a certain indicator of technological evolution in the industry. This article mainly focuses on Apple’s “non-mainstream” clustered suppliers— — European semiconductor company.
For more than a decade, Europe seems to be gradually marginalized by consumer mobile terminals. Not only have local mobile phone brands been occupied by East Asia and the United States, but from the perspective of the supply chain, the lack of the cultivation of the cutting-edge consumer electronics market makes it impossible to incubate advanced logic The application scenarios of the process technology chip have also turned the 2nm process evolution plan of the “digital compass” throughout Europe into a moon in the water and a flower in the fog, which is extremely unfavorable by the outside world.
Since feature phones entered the era of smart phones, Europe has basically bid farewell to mobile phone assembly and brand marketing and sales, lacking a Fabless niche, and gradually bid farewell to the development and supply of CPUs for smart phones and PCs. But even so, the presence of major European suppliers in a non-mainstream is not a “leftover” role at all.
After the flagship phones of every major mobile phone manufacturer at home and abroad are launched, they can promote a wave of dismantling industry and BOM (bill of materials) analysis market rise, giving birth to top dismantling organizations such as Techinsights and Ifixit. Both parties dismantling technology, In terms of material details, there is positive competition in supplier judgment, and teardown’s detailed list has been constructed as an information barrier to be “commercially”. For example, a ZTE Axon 10 Pro 5G mobile phone disassembly report can be sold for more than 700 US dollars.
Combining the dismantling status of iPhoneX and iPhoneXS by Techinsights and Ifixit at the beginning of 2018, you can basically find the main suppliers and parts from Europe as follows:
iPhone X:
Techinsights also estimated the cost of iPhoneX, the total cost is about 357 US dollars, European suppliers calculate it to be about 43.35 US dollars, accounting for about 12%.
▲ Cost comparison of iPhone XSX (Techinsights)
If the model is replaced with an upgraded version of the iPhone X, the cost will rise to 453 US dollars. Apart from the labor cost and the cost of Mechanical Housings, which are the materials for the functional operation and packaging of the whole machine, the fastest growing, the upgraded version is nearly 60 US dollars. The increase mainly comes from the display (screen) and Memory (storage), both of which are expected. After all, compared to the iPhoneX, the main upgrade point of the iPhoneXS is the screen and storage capacity, but it is obvious that the cost increase is basically the same as that of European suppliers. It doesn’t matter much. After all, mobile phone screens and storage are often “forbidden” by Korean suppliers, rather than European manufacturers.
Even so, we can still outline the outline of the iPhoneX and iPhoneXS, as well as the major European suppliers of iPhone11 and iPhone12.
Dialog acquired by Renesas and its iPhone tangled
Dialog is responsible for the power management chip of the iPhone motherboard, the model is 338S00 serial. Dialog is a very stable supplier of iPhone PMIC. Since Jobs developed the first generation of iPhone, Dialog has been the power management manager of Apple mobile phones. The long-awaited Apple once shot in 2018. Dialog reached an agreement with Apple. Dialog will authorize some power management technology to Apple and transfer some of its assets and 300 R&D engineers to Apple to support Apple’s chip research and development. Apple will pay Dialog US$300 million in cash for this transaction and prepay US$300 million for Dialog products purchased in the next three years. Dialog said that the 300 employees transferred to Apple this time accounted for about 16% of Dialog’s total employees.
After that, the binding and cooperation relationship between Dialog and iPhone has been further deepened, especially after the repeated introduction of the Huawei ban in the United States. Dialog, which has lost the customer of Huawei, has become more dependent on Apple and only supplies Apple to the highest moment (about the fourth quarter of each year) ) Accounted for 70% of Dialog’s annual revenue.
ST, the number one supplier of iPhone in Europe
In addition, another important European supplier of iPhone is STMicroelectronics, which supplies ToF (time of flight) and lidar (LIDAR) for the new iPhone machine. In addition, starting with iPhone6, STMicroelectronics It supplies inertial sensors, especially acceleration motion sensors, to it. However, the company and Dialog encountered a similar situation, that is, after losing the customer of Huawei, Apple’s share of its revenue has increased, and it is now close to a quarter. In other words, STMicroelectronics has approximately $2.5 billion in revenue from Apple (mobile phones, PCs and various wearable products).
ST’s PMIC power management chip is likely to be suitable for Face ID
The above-mentioned two suppliers have triggered to varying degrees the capital market’s worries about “eggs cannot be put in the same basket”, especially Dialog. They have the same superiority to the iPhone as Cirrus Logic, which originally supplied audio equipment for Apple’s mobile phones. Dependence (more than 70%), but the former has been acquired by Renesas, and the product line continues to expand towards the direction of automotive MCUs, which is very reasonable from the perspective of business expansion or technological evolution; and for STMicroelectronics Said that it is currently rumored that they will lose their position as a supplier of wireless charging IC (wireless charging IC) in the new series of iPhone 13, but they may replace ams as the new supplier of iPhone 3D sensing business. On the earnings call , The CEO of STMicroelectronics has made a three-year blueprint for the 3D sensing business on the mobile side, and is expected to become Apple’s new fixed supplier in this field.
NXP, rely on NFC to make a big difference
In addition, we see that another European supplier of Apple mobile phones is NXP. Since iPhone5S, NXP has been the supplier of Apple’s Near Field Communication (NFC) chip, which makes it possible to expand Apple Pay technology.
Diagram of NFC module of NXP PN80V in iPhoneX
As mentioned earlier, successfully entering the iPhone supply chain is a sign of a brand manufacturer’s product quality and regional compliance. Starting from the iPhone 5S, NXP has made an auxiliary dynamic co-processor for Apple’s self-developed mobile phone CPU, the Apple M7, which is responsible for collecting data from integrated accelerometer, gyroscope and compass sensors and offloading sensor data from the CPU. deal with. M7 has considerable energy consumption efficiency, running in the background, it hardly consumes any battery power, and it continues to track even when the phone battery is exhausted.
From the M7 in the iPhone 5S, to the M8 in the iPhone 6, the M9 in the iPhone 6s, and the M10 in the iPhone 7, the dynamic co-processor designed by NXP for Apple mobile phones is becoming more integrated and monitoring the barometer. , Microphone, displacement sensor and ambient light sensor, etc. The iPhone equipped with an embedded M series chip realizes the Siri wake-up function, which cannot be realized by the main A series CPU because it consumes too much power.
Whether it is the NFC controllers of various Apple mobile phones and Apple smart watches, or the auxiliary M series chips for the iPhone, they are all highly customized, so you need to disassemble the device from the product release list on the NXP official website instead of the iPhone. Find the relevant parts in. And after NXP’s NFC controller got Apple’s endorsement, it also entered Google’s supply chain to supply the Pixel series.
AMS, I eat a lot of iPhone, but I can’t eat too much
Among the many European suppliers of iPhone, Austria-based AMS is also a force to be reckoned with. They are still focusing on optical component sensing on Apple mobile phones, which are mainly MEMS sensors, especially Face ID recognition, which symbolizes Apple’s 10th anniversary celebration. IPhoneX is widely praised on the iPhoneX, but it has received mixed reviews from AMS large and small investors. This may be one of the reasons why AMS does not regard Apple as an official major customer. Behind the phenomenon, the situation is still very similar to that of Dialog, that is, the proportion of iPhone is too high. In the case of normal shipments, profit can only rely on ASP (unit price). The ASP of iPhoneX series is 18% higher than the previous generation. %, which also contributed to the year-on-year and quarter-on-quarter growth of AMS revenue in the fourth quarter of 2017 (iPhone X’s average ASP in North America was US$1,074, iPhone 7 was US$809, an increase of 33%, and iPhone 8’s average ASP was US$824 , 2% higher than iPhone 7).
From the beginning of this wave of iPhone12 to iPhone13, it is obvious that it is unsustainable for the ASP of Apple mobile phones to maintain a double-digit growth rate. AMS follows the iPhone production cycle, and even Apple’s earnings report every quarter will affect the company’s stock price. Sudden volatility, Apple accounted for about 40% of AMS’s revenue, which means that the launch and sales of every iPhone is closely related to corporate revenue. In the downturn, AMS gave up more than US$2.7 billion in 2019. AMS is currently investing a lot of money in research and development and production expansion, and is now seeking to solve underutilized facilities, increasing competition and its dependence on Apple.
The price of iPhoneX worldwide (@statista)
Small but strong Bosch MEMS sensor
In addition, we also see that Bosch, a well-known European automotive semiconductor and component supplier, is also a very stable partner of the iPhone. Various MEMS sensors, including gyroscopes, are their specialties. However, it seems that major analysis institutions rarely pay attention to the proportion and importance of iPhone to Bosch’s revenue. In the field of MEMS sensors, Bosch has secured the first position in the world. The special status of iPhone suppliers has given them a lot of goodwill bonuses. At their peak, they can account for one-third of the growth rate of all MEMS sensors in the world. .
We might as well make such a calculation. According to the data provided by Statista, add up the shipments of Apple mobile phones in the four quarters of 2020, which is about 200 million units. The cost of each MEMS sensor supplied by Bosch is US$1.5. According to the cost price (take the average of major institutions) and the sales price, on average, Bosch can get about US$3.2 for each iPhone, so the annual sales can get about US$640 million, and the total revenue of Bosch in 2020 is about 840. At around US$100 million, it can be calculated that the revenue from Apple mobile phones accounted for 0.7%, which is less than 1%.
At first glance, this number is quite small, but we can infer that Bosch’s MEMS for electronic consumer products is another world compared to the automotive supply department that has suffered heavy losses due to the epidemic.
Concluding remarks
Several major European suppliers of Apple mobile phones may also include Infineon. The baseband chips of previous generations of iPhones were used in this one. However, the greedy Intel acquired this division of Infineon. Qualcomm was defeated in the competition.
Among these five categories, Dialog and AMS should probably be in the same category. iPhone’s revenue accounts for a high proportion of 65% and 40% respectively, and the product line is relatively single, facing pressure to share market risks; Bosch and NXP rely on The high-precision in a certain segment field has made steady progress. Although the proportion of revenue is moderate or very low, the industry chain has a strong driving force, especially the goodwill bonus. Qualcomm once tried to conspire Part of the reason for the acquisition of NXP is that it also values NXP’s technology development prospects on the wireless side of mobile phones; ST alone is counted as a category. Although the revenue share of Apple mobile phones is similar to Bosch, it is increasingly dependent on the entire Apple product sequence. sex.
It is also worth mentioning that from the development status of the iPhone 11, 12, and 13 generations of mobile phones, the increase in cost mainly comes from three major areas, one is the mobile phone screen, the other is the storage capacity, and the other is the RF front-end and baseband chip ( Mainly because of the development of 5G technology), other components have also changed but are relatively weak. We can find that most European suppliers find it difficult to take advantage of the iPhone’s cost growth dividend. This part has been taken away by many Korean suppliers and Qualcomm. This is an inevitable result of the survival rules of many European suppliers.