RE: Arch Enemy- Not sure about that3 May 2018 09:37
Another couple of interesting snippets if you can't be bothered to read it all.
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Losing business in Germany (again)
Speaking of Seeing Machines, Smart Eye, as mentioned, recently lost
another premium OEM deal in Germany to Seeing Machines. A popular
rumour has it that the car OEM is BMW. In total, this was the fifth design
win in Germany (3 for Smart Eye & 2 for Seeing Machines), meaning that
the two companies are sharing at least one customer. As we had expected
the German battle to be over this was clearly a negative surprise to us. One
important reason why car OEMs already have started to dual source is that
they do not want to rely on one dominant supplier, similar to Mobileye in
the past. This gives Seeing Machines a second chance to win business from
Smart Eye and vice versa, i.e. for better and worse. As Seeing Machines put
it (with reference to its two new German premium OEM customers): �two
down, one to go�, suggesting, we believe, that it is going after Volkswagen as
well. We would argue that dual sourcing in this early phase is mostly bad
news as it leads to openings for other players currently trying to work their
way into the market, such as e.g. Eyesight and Fotonation.
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Since then it has been reported in media that Fotonation has
won the Subaru Forest and that it works with five companies with multiple
platforms. We are suspicious if that is really the case given how many years
it takes to enter automotive and get a first design win. If it turns out that
Fotonation, and not e.g. Seeing Machines, has won the Subaru that would,
in our opinion, be a negative since it would imply that barriers could be a
bit lower or competition more fierce than we initially thought.