Airlabi vows to be the OTA escort for the intelligentization of IoT and IoV

In 2019, the automotive market was mixed. What worried manufacturers was that the increase in the number of vehicles was declining. What pleased electronic component manufacturers was that with the increasing degree of automotive electrification, the number of electronic components used in automobiles was increasing exponentially, which brought hope to the component market, which was in a downturn. As cars move towards intelligence, users have added another focus, that is, automotive system OTA. Some people even regard the OTA capability of cars as an opportunity for unlimited growth in the life cycle of cars.
 
So, in 2019, what is the development trend of the automotive OTA market? What are the expectations of OTA manufacturers for 2020? As 2019 draws to a close, Yifei.com has specially planned a year-end special topic: "Review of 2019, Prospect of 2020". For this topic, we specially invited Wan Xuejing, vice president of marketing at Airlabi, to participate in the discussion.
 

Wan Xuejing, Vice President of Marketing at Ellaby

 
Overall revenue doubled, with nearly 100 million OTA upgrades

Although the whole vehicle market is not optimistic, Airlab's OTA business closely revolves around the transformation of automobile companies and new development opportunities, and joins hands with many partners to meet challenges. Under the general trend of intelligence, Airlab's OTA business has doubled year-on-year, and its Internet of Vehicles business has been steadily advancing, covering 15 automobile brands and 25+ models, providing services to 30+ parts manufacturers, and connecting to 1 million various Internet of Vehicles terminals; more than 10 new strategic cooperation platform companies, 200 new customers, and 20 million new Internet of Things terminals have been added in the field of Internet of Things. As of now, Airlab's OTA platform has served more than 700 customers, connected more than 70 million devices, and accumulated more than 100 million OTA upgrades.
 
Looking back on 2019, in terms of technology and services, Airlab has devoted itself to polishing the Internet of Things OTA self-service platform. It is expected that the fragmentation problem of OTA will be solved to a large extent, providing customers with a more standardized end-to-cloud complete OTA solution; further lowering the entry threshold to ensure that customers can access quickly, simply, and at a low cost. The differential OTA upgrade technology is compatible with more than 350 chip platforms, and the accumulation of experience on the terminal has accelerated the pace of standardization and large-scale application of differential OTA.
 
In addition to 2G, 3G, and 4G, the entry into the low-power wide area network NB-IOT/LORA has reached strategic cooperation with many chip manufacturers and served dozens of projects; OTA upgrades under communication technologies such as wifi/BLE MESH/power line carrier PLC have entered the large-scale commercial period. In addition, the overseas OTA product system that meets the GDPR regulations further strengthens the service strength and global OTA service capabilities of overseas customers.
 
Join hands with many domestic chip manufacturers to promote the popularization of the OTA market

Under the influence of the Sino-US trade war, 2019 has become a year of rapid rise of domestic chips. Taking the customers served by Airlab as sample data, among the 700+ customers and 20 million OTA incremental devices, domestic chips account for nearly half, which is more than 5 times higher than in 2018; NB-IOT projects have spread from operator-related projects to more IOT fields, and the demand has increased significantly.
 
Airlab has reached strategic cooperation with many domestic and foreign chip manufacturers at the end of 2018 and the beginning of 2019. From MCU to communication SoC, the coverage is wide and the differential effect is obvious. At the same time, Airlab has worked with chip manufacturers to polish the OTA technology advantages under industry applications. For example, under the typical low rate and insufficient coverage of NB-IOT, the OTA upgrade solution is optimized, and the rapid growth of OTA in the NB-IOT field in 2019 has been achieved from the technical adaptation of the chip source, the download scheduling engine of NB devices, and the product capabilities of large-scale applications.
 
Regarding the development stage of the OTA market, Wan Xuejing said that at present, there are still many problems in the popularization of the OTA market. Ellaby needs to assist more customers to complete the evolution path of OTA, and at the same time strengthen the value recognition of OTA in the entire life cycle of smart terminal software. Through the SaaS and standardization of the OTA platform, customers can access OTA services with one click in a more stable, safer and simpler low-cost way, further reducing customer access costs and technical barriers. At the same time, focusing on high-value-added industrial products such as smart connected vehicles, we will launch automotive cloud diagnostic solutions, cooperate with automotive OTA upgrade solutions, and open up the full link of automotive digital services and full life cycle management.
 
2020: OTA will accelerate technological integration and promote technological iteration in various industries

AI, automobiles, and industry have been at the top of the technology headlines in recent years, attracting the attention of many users. In Wan Xuejing's view, in 2020, AI will be deeply integrated with fields such as automobiles, industrial edge computing, and intelligent manufacturing, such as ADAS, smart cockpits, and autonomous driving in the automotive field; the competition among AI chips will accelerate the integration of AI with various industries. The integrated application of traditional general-purpose chips + AI chips + communication chips will lead to a rapid increase in the integration and complexity of terminal-side software, and the rapid iteration and scenario-based application of AI algorithms will accelerate the transformation; blockchain and the Internet of Things will be rapidly integrated under the dual drive of policies and markets to solve the problem of trusted devices and data in the Internet of Things... These technical integrations will bring new opportunities and challenges to OTA. Airlabi has already accumulated and prepared sufficient experience in these application solutions to meet the new opportunities in 2020.
 
In 2020, Airlabi will continue to increase the research and development of OTA technology, and integrate it with security, AI, blockchain and other technologies to continue to provide customers with professional, stable, safe and reliable OTA services. The platform is open and self-service, providing escort for more IOT devices and manufacturers. As a professional OTA service provider, Airlaby uses the application scenarios of core industries such as automobiles, industry, and consumer electronics to deeply integrate OTA into these industrial chains, build a more complete OTA digital operation system, and help customers realize the application value of software upgrades.
 
Finally, Wan Xuejing emphasized that in the IOT and IOV markets in 2020, the more the economic environment and global politics affect them, the greater the quality of terminal products and the value of software derivatives will be. High-quality equipment with sustainable iterations and maintainable life cycles will be more recognized by the market, and the rigid demand and high-value demand for OTA will become more and more vigorous. We are full of confidence to welcome the opportunities in 2020.