Lianxin Technology, which was once the star of hope in China's mobile phone chip industry, has officially and completely withdrawn from the mobile phone chip business.
Datang Telecom Technology Co., Ltd. announced this evening that it agreed to transfer some supporting assets related to LC1860 chips, LC1881 chip-related technologies and supporting assets to Chenxin Technology, a subsidiary of the company's controlling shareholder, involving a total transaction amount of 33.646 million yuan (excluding tax).
It is worth mentioning that as the controlling shareholder of Lianxin Technology, Datang Telecom is extremely difficult to operate. In 2018, 2019 and 2020, the net profit attributable to the shareholders of the listed company after deducting non-recurring gains and losses was negative, and the performance in 2021 was pre-loss of 40 million to 80 million yuan, and the net loss after deducting non-recurring was 340 million to 380 million yuan, which was on the verge of delisting.
Empty mobile phone chip assets
The industry has not heard of Lianxin Technology for a long time. The company's last self-developed product on the market should be the dual-core Cortex A9 1.2GHz smartphone chip LC1810 10 years ago, manufactured by a 40nm process, aimed at the thousand-yuan smartphone market.
Since 2018, Datang Telecom has adjusted its strategy and withdrawn from the field of mobile phone communication chip design. The subordinate Lianxin Technology has carried out business adjustment in an orderly manner, and has participated in the establishment of Wansheng Technology and Chenxin Technology with the self-developed intangible assets and other assets accumulated in consumer terminals for many years as the capital contribution. Lianxin Technology has completely withdrawn from the mobile phone communication chip business and become a platform company for the company to participate in the terminal chip design enterprise.
However, Lianxin Technology still holds a part of the chip assets. In 2018, Lianxin Technology and Chenxin Technology signed the "Technology Transfer Agreement" on "L1881 Related Technologies", and Lianxin Technology granted Chenxin Technology LC1881 chip technology a global, non-exclusive, non-exclusive and sub-licensing technology license. Lianxin Technology retains some assets and businesses such as intangible assets of consumer terminals, and this related party transaction is to completely "make a judgment".
According to reports, LC1881 chip related technology for Lianxin Technology through its own research and development, the main content of 8 core five-mode LTE intelligent terminal solutions, technical products are mainly for the industry private network, intelligent Internet of Things, industrial Internet and other markets. The technology was officially developed in December 2014 and was finalized internally in December 2017. At present, this chip has not formed product sales in Lianxin Technology. LC1860 chip-related technologies (part of Lianxin Technology's own part) and assets are a terminal solution technology invested by Lianxin Technology in the form of intangible asset capital increase in 2018 to Chenxin Technology's subsidiary Chenxin Technology.
A total of 53 patents to be transferred this time, except for one held separately by Lianxin Technology, one shared by Chenxin Technology and the company, and the rest are jointly held by Datang Semiconductor and Chenxin Technology, Datang Semiconductor and Lianxin Technology. Among the patents, 34 are mainly used in 1860 chip products and 1881 products, and 19 are mainly used in 1881 chip products. The common patents involved in LC1860 and LC1881 technologies, with research and development dates between 2015 and 2017, are invention patents
According to the announcement, Lianxin Technology collected a total of 31 million yuan (excluding tax) for the transfer of LC1881 platform technology and related intangible assets from Chenxin Technology, in addition to the fixed asset transfer fee of 1.921 million yuan (including tax). It has been calculated that this is expected to achieve an overall revenue of 11 million yuan for Datang Telecom in the current period. Compared with its loss in 2021, it is a drop in the bucket.
A "dark chess piece" is quietly sought after
At the same time that Lianxin Technology completely withdrew from the mobile phone chip business, a chess piece that it laid out many years ago, Wansheng Technology, after years of silence, has been sought after by the industry since last year.
On May 26, 2017, Beijing Jianguang Asset, Lianxin Technology, Qualcomm and Beijing Zhilu Asset jointly signed an agreement to establish a joint venture company, Wansheng Technology, which will focus on the design, packaging, testing, customer support and sales of mass-market smartphone chipsets designed and sold in China. In short, Wansheng Technology has undertaken Qualcomm's low-end mobile phone chip business for the Chinese market.
At that time, some media interpreted that the joint venture between Lianxin Technology and Qualcomm was to block Unigroup Zhanrui. Zhao Weiguo, then chairman of Tsinghua Unigroup Zhanrui, also expressed strong dissatisfaction with this. However, Wansheng Technology is quite "high open and low", with a golden key, but failed to set off any waves in the mobile phone chip market, and quickly disappeared from the industry's vision. Its rival Unigroup Zhanrui, after several years of painful integration and transformation, recovered strongly in 2021, with revenue reaching 11.7 billion yuan, becoming the largest mobile phone chip supplier in the Chinese mainland market.
Wansheng Technology switched a track - AIoT chip, and quietly rose. According to Theaman Technology, in 2021, the company's first low-power, high-performance intelligent vision application processor SoC JA310 has been applied in a wide range of AI intelligent hardware fields including AI smart cameras, sweeping robots, and smart access control. This chip also won the 2021 "China Core" excellent technological innovation products.
Source: Wansheng Technology
At the capital level, in September last year, Lianxin Technology publicly listed and transferred 6.701% of the equity of Wansheng Technology, and the consortium composed of Xiaomi Industry Fund and Yantai Zhilu Capital successfully bid. After the transaction, Lianxin Technology held 17.432% of the equity of Wansheng Technology, and Xiaomi Industry Fund and Yantai Zhilu held 3.3505% of the equity of Wansheng Technology. Just one month later, Geke Micro and Dianlian Technology cooperated with Beijing Jianguang Assets and Shanghai Wanxu to invest in the establishment of Jianguang Guanghui (Chengdu) Equity Investment Management Center (Limited Partnership), and jointly invested in Wansheng Technology, with a total investment of 227.4 million yuan and 7.042% equity.
The original investors do not abandon, and new industrial capital continues to enter the market, giving Wansheng Technology the potential for continuous development. It is understood that Wansheng Technology has not given up the mobile phone chip market. Its first 4G 11nm FinFET smartphone chip has been a tape-out success in 2021 and is expected to be launched in 2022. Globally, 4G mobile phone chips are still very useful. After 5 years of lurking, Wansheng Technology will once again challenge the mobile phone chip market. (C1 14 Liu Dingzhou)