60 million reasons why the IT giants want to enter the car industry
The IT giants are searching with lights and lanterns for new areas that can drive growth in the future – and they have all stuck to the automotive industry. Intel has made its 130 billion purchase of Mobileye, Microsoft and IBM have a strategic agreement with vehicle manufacturers, and although Google and Apple have both abandoned plans to build their own car, they are investing all the more in technology for autonomous vehicles.
It is no wonder that the largest IT providers are switching on this track. The car starts more and more to create a product. Productions of connected cars are expected to increase by almost 800 percent between the years 2015 and 2020, according to the analysis company Gartner.
What then is a connected car? Gartner’s definition reads as follows: “A vehicle that has bidirectional wireless communication with an external network to deliver digital content and services, transmit measurement data from the vehicle, enable remote monitoring and control, or manage systems within the vehicle.”
In 2015, 6.9 million cars were produced that meet the requirements – in 2020, 60.9 million expect to do so. James Hines, an analyst at Gartner, says that the connected cars may contain changes for the entire automotive industry.
– Connected cars will continue to generate new products and services, create new companies and business models. It may also be that the focus of the automotive industry is shifting from individual car ownership to a more service-oriented view of personal mobility.
The major changes also mean that it can identify the automotive industry as a key area for the future – and virtually all players have announced major investments in a short time. However, they offer different paths, and some develop the underlying technology themselves, others have made major acquisitions.
Below are some of the most important news that the IT suppliers presented in the automotive industry during the year:
Intel opened up the big wallet in March when they acquires the Israeli company Mobileye which develops systems (machine learning, data analysis, location and map functions) for driver assistance and self-driving cars for approximately SEK 130 billion. A fairly logical step for Intel then, future revenue opportunities can go beyond the traditional processor industry that does not contain much growth.
According to the analysis company BCG, it will sell 12 million fully self-driving cars per year around 2035. Partly autonomous cars will be released on the streets on a large scale already this year – with great growth expected over the next two decades. The market for partially and fully autonomous cars is expected to grow from $ 42 billion in 2025 to $ 77 billion in 2035.
Read more: When will those self-driving cars arrive? The car industry agrees on the schedule
Also Google, which put its vehicle business in the company Waymo, has announced news in the area in the past week.
In a bloggpost this week, the company says it is withdrawing its Firefly fleet (the name of the small passenger car prototype the company has developed). Instead, they will focus on mass-produced vehicles such as minibuses Chrysler Pacifica and in that way bring out self-driving technology to more people.
IBM is forging even closer ties with BMW to develop cloud-based data management for the German vehicle manufacturer’s recently unveiled investments in connected cars. It writes the Wall Street Journal. This is a way for the IT giant to deepen its operations towards the automotive industry. With the help of all data, you can create tailored services for different profiles. The project will start in Europe this autumn.
Apples CEO Tim Cook has for first commented on what the company has plans for the automotive industry. It has long been said that the company builds its own car – but now Cook tells Bloomberg that they focus on the underlying technology and system for self-driving cars.
Microsoft has its cloud-based platform for connecting cars which they launched at the beginning of the year. It is a set of services based on Microsoft’s Azure clouds and designed for vehicle manufacturers to make cars more intelligent and build their own solutions for “new driving experiences”. In January, they got their first customer when Renault-Nissan joined the platform.