Last year, Lenovo, which triggered a heated discussion in the market due to its “flash back” of the scientific innovation board, recently “quietly” established a semiconductor company – Dingdao Zhixin (Shanghai) Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
For chip investment, Yang Yuanqing, chairman and CEO of Lenovo, previously said publicly that he did not rule out the possibility of self-developed chips or cooperation.
300 million to establish semiconductor company
According to tianyancha, Dingdao Zhixin (Shanghai) Semiconductor Co., Ltd. was officially established on January 26. The company is located in Shanghai Free Trade Zone, with a registered capital of 300 million yuan and a legal representative of Jia Zhaohui. Its business scope includes: technical services, technical development, technical consultation, technical exchange, technology transfer and technology promotion in the field of semiconductor technology; Integrated circuit design; Integrated circuit sales; Software development; Software sales; Hardware development, etc.
The equity penetration chart shows that Dingdao Zhixin is 100% controlled by Lenovo (Shanghai) Co., Ltd., and Hong Kong Lenovo Group Co., Ltd. has become the suspected actual controller of the company through indirect wholly-owned shareholding.
It is worth noting that in addition to serving as the legal person and executive director of the semiconductor company, Jia Zhaohui is also the senior vice president of Lenovo Group. He has accumulated rich experience in the field of competition in the personal computer market. He once led the team to launch the world’s first 5g computer, yoga 5g, and the world’s first folding screen computer, ThinkPad x1.
According to Lenovo’s official disclosure, since its establishment, Lenovo has invested in a number of chip companies with core competitiveness, involving AI, mobile phone, automatic driving, IOT, 5g and other fields. For example, Lenovo venture capital under Lenovo Group has invested in Cambricon Technologies Corporation Limited(688256) , Stevie smartsens, Xinchi, Huaxing semiconductor, Zhongke Wuqi, Ruisi smart core, Suzhou Huiwen, Angrui microelectronics, Byd Company Limited(002594) semiconductor, Yuguang technology and other companies.
In addition, Lenovo Holdings has also carried out chip layout through its Junlian capital and Lenovo star. For example, Junlian capital has invested in Spreadtrum communications, spectrum technology, Shanghai Fullhan Microelectronics Co.Ltd(300613) , aiparker and other companies, and Lenovo star has invested in Lingming photonics, Yuguang technology, Bosheng optoelectronics and other companies.
the “flash back” science and innovation board has attracted heated discussion and increased R & D investment
Last October, Lenovo triggered a heated discussion in the market due to the “flash back” of the scientific innovation board.
Some insiders believe that for the science and innovation board with obvious attribute of “hard technology”, Lenovo, which mainly depends on “buying technology”, lacks key technology and cannot match it 100%. For example, nearly 90% of Lenovo’s current business income comes from the smart device business, and they are all businesses with low scientific and technological content such as computer assembly and mobile devices (mobile phones). In addition, the warm water liquid cooling and heat recovery technology and touch panel keyboard input technology mastered by Lenovo Group are almost non critical technologies, while core components such as chips and processors need to be purchased externally.
According to the prospectus, the revenue of Lenovo Group in 2018 / 19, 2019 / 20 and 2020 / 21 was 342.383 billion yuan, 352.676 billion yuan and 411.62 billion yuan respectively; The net profit was 4.247 billion yuan, 5.594 billion yuan and 8.685 billion yuan respectively, with an average annual compound growth rate of 43%. In the past three fiscal years, the R & D investment was 10.203 billion yuan, 11.517 billion yuan and 12.038 billion yuan respectively. It seems that the R & D investment is high, but the proportion of R & D expenses is only 2.48%, 2.63% and 2.39%. According to the 2020 annual report data, the median ratio of R & D investment to revenue of Kechuang board company is 9%.
Therefore, for Lenovo, in order to successfully land on the science and innovation board, it may need to increase R & D investment and increase the proportion of self-research at the same time.
Lenovo is indeed working in this direction. Last August, at the Lenovo financial report communication meeting, Lenovo chairman and CEO Yang Yuanqing said that Lenovo’s R & D investment would double in the next three years, and it was very firm to focus on the new IT field, that is, end management cloud intelligence. For chip investment, Yang Yuanqing said that he did not rule out the possibility of self-developed chips or cooperation.
In terms of self-developed chips, in addition to the recent investment of 300 million yuan to establish a semiconductor company, at the Lenovo innovation and technology conference last September, Lenovo launched a product independently designed and jointly developed called La2 intelligent embedded controller. Although it is named intelligent controller, many people in the industry believe that the product is a “chip”. It is reported that this is a special hardware for PC. for the purpose of running intelligent algorithms and realizing intelligent functions, it adopts the original heterogeneous multi-core hybrid architecture and based on sensor fusion technology, which can realize efficient and fast intelligent control.
In addition, after EDG won the championship last year, E-sports began to come out of the circle in an all-round way, and Lenovo is also accelerating the layout of the e-sports market. Recently, a lenovo mobile phone called halo was exposed. It is understood that as an E-sports mobile phone, the most special part of the mobile phone is that the thickness of the body is less than 8mm. It is reported that the mobile phone is equipped with Qualcomm snapdragon 8 Gen 1 plus mobile platform and is expected to be released in the third quarter of this year.
On the other hand, driven by the concept of meta universe, the VR / AR market is also accelerating. It is reported that Lenovo and Disney jointly released the augmented reality mirage ar helmet as early as 2017, becoming one of the first brands to enter the field of virtual games.
Recently, IPR daily, a global intellectual property comprehensive information service provider, released the top 100 of VR / AR global invention patents ranking since 2020. Among them, Lenovo Group, as a high-tech representative, was selected into the list, ranking 35th.
In terms of share price, as of the closing on January 27, Lenovo Group reported HK $8.42 per share, with the latest market value of HK $101.4 billion.
