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How did this company achieve sales of one billion in China last year?

Latest update time:2017-05-30
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The sensors used in three-quarters of the world's smartphones come from a German company called Bosch. Today, as the Internet penetrates into various industries such as manufacturing, home appliances, and automobiles, Bosch is beginning to plan to use sensors in the entire Internet of Things world.


Bosch recently announced that its sales in China reached RMB 91.5 billion in 2016, a year-on-year increase of 19%, making it the fastest growing market in Bosch's global business, accounting for 28% of global sales. The strong performance of the Chinese market is due to the depth of application of interconnected technologies, including the wave of intelligent automobiles, the prosperity of mobile Internet, and the promotion of smart cities and Industry 4.0.



From the Bosch Conference in early May to the performance communication conference on May 18, Bosch's future strategic path has become increasingly clear, namely "sensors, software and services." Chen Yudong, President of Bosch China, said that Bosch is transforming from an asset-heavy hardware technology company to a software and data service company.


"Be hard where it needs to be hard, and be soft where it needs to be soft"


The Bosch Group has four major business sectors: automotive and transportation, consumer goods, energy and building technology, and industrial technology.


Although it has many businesses, Bosch's purpose is very clear, which is to grasp the part with the highest technological barriers. Bosch sold its starter and generator subsidiaries in early May because the competition in this market was fierce and Bosch had no core technology threshold.


However, in the future IoT market, Bosch's technical foundation and advantages have undoubtedly been laid, and this foundation is precisely Bosch's MEMS (micro-electromechanical) sensor technology.


MEMS sensors began to be used in the automotive field in 1990, but it was not until 2006 that various MEMS sensors gradually penetrated into consumer electronic products, such as accelerometers, gyroscopes, geomagnetic sensors, air pressure sensors, environmental sensors, etc.


The timing of Bosch's MEMS sensor development basically coincides with these two trends. Bosch first mass-produced MEMS sensors in 1995, and established Bosch Sensortec in 2005, focusing on consumer electronics such as smartphones. In terms of MEMS sensors, Bosch has more than 1,000 MEMS-related patents, and all of them are Bosch's own technologies from MEMS design to manufacturing.


In future IoT projects, whether it is smart cities, driverless cars, or smart homes, communication technology only solves the problem of IP address allocation and networking, but how to build usage scenarios for these products and hardware around users is exactly where sensors come in. According to official data, Bosch has shipped 8 billion MEMS sensors, and its application areas include not only the current popular smartphone market, but also wearable devices, smart driving, smart homes, and Industry 4.0.


This means that Bosch has already laid out its own data entry in advance for the entire IoT ecosystem of the future, and on top of this, Bosch's software and services are gradually gathering together.


It is understood that Bosch has launched a membership system for smart homes to unlock the data value of the home appliances it sells;


In addition, Bosch has also begun preparing its own IoT cloud computing network at its computing center in Germany;


Not long ago, Bosch also announced that it will invest 300 million euros in the next five years to establish an artificial intelligence research center to empower the computing needs of industries such as security and intelligent driving.


Chen Yudong, President of Bosch China, told the media that Bosch set a goal many years ago to realize the interconnection of all hardware in the future. At the Hannover Industrial Fair not long ago, Bosch has connected a machine tool that is more than 100 years old to IOT. Currently, the interconnection level of Bosch's hardware has reached 50%, and the goal for 2020 is 75%.


"Bosch needs to transform itself from a traditional high-tech hardware company into a software and service company, which means it needs to be hard where it should be hard, and soft where it should be soft," said Chen Yudong.


Last year, 4.9 billion yuan was invested in China to develop the “three transformations”


To promote the development of the interconnection strategy, Bosch has also made all-round preparations. In the past year alone, Bosch's total investment in China reached 4.9 billion yuan.


For example, last July, Bosch Automotive Multimedia Division broke ground on a new factory in Wuhu.


Last November, BSH Home Appliances laid the foundation stone for its new Greater China R&D center in Nanjing. The R&D center will focus on core areas such as connectivity, smart home appliances, and Industry 4.0 smart manufacturing.


In order to expand the brand influence of home appliances, Bosch also cooperated with Tmall and officially launched the Tmall brand official flagship store. Taking this as an opportunity, Bosch and Alibaba will also cooperate in the fields of Internet of Things, big data, cloud computing and artificial intelligence in the future.


In addition to focusing on the consumer business of home appliances, Bosch also strengthened its investment in the automotive electronics business in April this year. It announced that its new factory in Wujin, China, officially opened, and will provide electronic products and services in the field of autonomous driving and connectivity for the Chinese market.


In May this year, the joint venture factory between Bosch Thermotechnology and Vanward Group will officially open in Foshan, dedicated to promoting the interconnection and intelligent development of water heaters.


Autonomous driving is the vanguard, but it also faces difficulties in implementation


In Bosch's 2016 performance report, the automotive business unsurprisingly accounted for the largest proportion and became one of the main drivers of Bosch's performance growth. The assisted driving business alone brought Bosch sales of 1 billion euros.


However, autonomous driving and new power sources are also driving Bosch's automotive and transportation businesses to upgrade.


In Silicon Valley, Bosch acquired the solid-state battery company SEEO in the hope of gaining an advantage in future power technology. At the same time, Bosch has also made plans in the field of shared cars, hoping to apply its own sensors to the emerging travel market.


However, the most comprehensive application of Bosch's "sensors, software and services" strategy is undoubtedly intelligent driving technology.


In this regard, Bosch has traditional power and control technology accumulation, and has also made clear deployments in sensors and computing. For example, in terms of sensors, Bosch has central pre-controllers, single and binocular cameras, millimeter-wave radars, etc.


In terms of connectivity, Bosch has also cooperated with Huawei, a domestic communications giant, to promote the development of LTE vehicle networking communication standards;


In terms of autonomous driving brain, Bosch has formed an alliance with Nvidia, using Nvidia's Driver PX AI platform to increase the computing power of autonomous driving. At the same time, Bosch is also deploying its own chip research and development;


In terms of autonomous driving positioning, Bosch has also launched the "Bosch Road Signature" cloud platform to connect with China's three major high-precision map manufacturers, Baidu, AutoNavi and NavInfo. With the help of Bosch cameras and millimeter-wave radars installed in millions of vehicles, high-precision maps can be crowdsourced.


However, when it comes to the implementation schedule for intelligent driving, Bosch has clearly shown a more conservative attitude than OEMs and other friendly companies.


Bosch's responsible person for autonomous driving told the media that Bosch plans to commercialize SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) Level 2 in 2018, SAE Level 3 in 2020, and a higher level of autonomous driving in 2025.


The person in charge said that the outside world is somewhat optimistic about the commercial application of autonomous driving in 2020 or even 2019. The safety and stability of autonomous driving have strict requirements for the redundant design of layers from sensors to processing to decision-making.


In terms of execution, Bosch has created a redundant design through ESP (body stability program), EPS (electronic steering system) and iBooster (electronic brake booster pump).


However, in terms of sensor redundancy, in addition to cameras and millimeter-wave radars, lidar is also one of the redundant solution designs. As for the mass-produced lidars currently on the market, the person in charge of Bosch's autonomous driving products said that both those that are about to be mass-produced and those that have not been mass-produced do not meet the automotive grade and Bosch's application requirements.


LiDAR must not only meet certain standards in terms of temperature and vibration, but also achieve a balance between the emitted energy and power consumption. It must not harm the human eye, but it must also meet the corresponding detection needs. In view of this, Bosch has invested most of its energy in its own research and development. Currently, its R&D center in Germany is already working on the development of LiDAR, hoping to catch up with L3 and above autonomous driving level solutions by 2020.


In addition to system design, the research and development rhythm is out of sync due to different policy environments. It is understood that Bosch is conducting L3 research and development in Germany, and is cooperating with Daimler on L4-L5 autonomous driving research and development, which is expected to be launched in 2022. In China, the main focus is on the research and development and application of L2 and below. Currently, we are working with Baidu to modify the Jeep Renegade to develop L2.5 autonomous driving technology, and have accumulated more than 10,000 kilometers of testing. The challenge in the future is likely to be the localization and implementation of foreign technologies.


As a Tier 1 supplier, Bosch holds a technological stronghold in the industrial chain, and still has many issues to overcome in its transformation. This may be a powerful inspiration for China, which is eager to seek cross-border innovation and model subversion, to dispel false enthusiasm and keep its feet on the ground.


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