With Tesla's rapid development in China, many believe that the Tesla supply chain is the next Apple chain, which will create a rapid take-off of suppliers. But an opinion piece in the official media Securities Times today says that in reality, this idea is too simplistic.
Here are the main points of the article.
First, the smartphone industry is relatively concentrated, with the top five having very high market share.
Apple has by far the largest share of the world's high-end smartphones, and along with Samsung and China's Huawei, Xiaomi, OPPO, and Vivo, together they have more than 70 percent of the world's smartphone market share.
Most companies in the Apple industrial chain can monopolize most of the orders in the smartphone market after straddling the two camps of Apple and Chinese smartphones, which is lucrative.
The auto industry is relatively fragmented, and even Toyota, which ranks first in market share, has only about 11%, and has not formed an absolute monopoly situation.
When the iPhone was released, it created a new era and opened up a whole new market.
At present, Tesla's new energy vehicles have not formed a new demand. Legacy cars and new energy vehicles and suppliers of the industry chain are still playing in the original market and did not open up a new broader market like Apple did.
In addition, the cycle for new product launches is shorter, and the six leading mobile phone companies have new products on the market every year, which creates a huge market and high demand for supply chain stability.
In contrast, the automotive industry is characterized by long cycles, basically three to five years for car maker to launch new models.
After all, mobile phones are relatively cheap, and the average consumer can replace them once a year, while most consumers will replace them once every three years.
However, for most consumers, cars don't get replaced quickly, with replacement cycles typically around ten years.
For Apple, it has more than 200 million mobile phone sales per year, so that it is more willing to give suppliers relatively higher profits in order to ensure the stability of the supply chain.
Currently, the stability of the industrial chain is not the most important aspect for electric car companies.
Especially for Tesla, which has just started to make profits, cost reduction is the most important thing.
When a more cost-efficient supplier emerges, Tesla will not hesitate to change it. Typical examples are Tesla's supplier adjustments in autopilot and power batteries.
In the area of autopilot, Tesla initially partnered with Mobileye, but later changed to NVIDIA to provide chips and Tesla developed autopilot.
Now, Tesla has dumped NVIDIA and switched to developing its own automated driving chips entirely.
In the field of power batteries, Tesla used to produce mainly through a joint venture with Panasonic, but after business disagreements regarding cost and production volume, Tesla immediately looked for a new supplier.
In addition to claiming autonomous development, in 2020, Tesla signed a power battery supply agreement with Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL), China's largest automotive lithium-ion battery maker.
Therefore, for companies in Tesla's supply chain, it is not a one-and-done deal with Tesla.
For companies with relatively low product attributes and technology content, the more appropriate strategy at the moment is to take advantage of the impact of the cooperation with Tesla to actively explore new customers.
