Newsletter
With MWC 2018 officially starting today Qualcomm has announced some of the automotive-related products and services it will be showcasing at the event including a “concept car featuring 5G and Gigabit LTE use cases.” Along with the demonstrations, Qualcomm also took the opportunity to highlight how the company has firmly established itself as one of the leading forces in the industry so far, as well as how it will continue to lead going forward.
In addition to the headline 5G car, Qualcomm will also be demonstrating its latest Cellular-V2X developments. V2X, or Vehicle-to-Everything, is Qualcomm’s take on how connected cars should connect to the world around them with a view to making the roads a safer and more efficient place for all. This includes utilizing V2X so cars are able to communicate with each other – one of the building blocks of the self-driving car vision. While this is something Qualcomm has been demonstrating on a regular basis over the last year or two, within the last few days Qualcomm announced it is now partnering with an “ecosystem of leading carmakers and automotive suppliers” to bring the technology closer to consumer-market readiness. That announcement also detailed plans for richer additional trials which are due to take place next year and in a multiple countries
As part of today’s announcement, and in addition to showcasing these next-generation technologies, Qualcomm also explained some of the milestones the company has reached within the automotive industry up until now. For example, how it has spent the last fifteen years providing technology-based solutions to the automotive market, and more recently, the last four years catering to the automotive infotainment sector. Two examples which Qualcomm states has led to it becoming the number one supplier in terms of telematics and Bluetooth car connectivity, as well as securing design-wins for fourteen (of the top twenty-five) automaker brands for its Snapdragon-based automotive platforms. Furthermore, the company says it has secured twenty-five new telematics and infotainment-based design-wins in FY17 alone. Aspects which the company suggests not only highlights how it boasts “one of the broadest portfolios of automotive technologies” but also how it is ideally positioned to lead the automotive market through the transition to 5G. A market, Qualcomm argues, is likely to account for nearly a fifth of the total 5G market.