Friday, October 2, 2015

Lenovo s rumored acquisition of Marvell looks like a good marriage

Recently, the sources said, Lenovo or buy chips for $ 19 a share company Marvell. At the time of the market close on February 2, Marvell shares were at $ 15.40, in other words, Lenovo 23.4% premium bid.

In this regard, the global Vice President Ding b Marvell declined to comment on rumors. On a conference call after the earnings release, Yang yuanqing, Lenovo's Chairman and CEO, denied this news.

It is interesting from Lenovo's latest earnings, Lenovo has been actively looking for investments and acquisitions have made sufficient preparations. Reported associations at present, bank deposits, cash and cash equivalents totaled $ 3.991 billion. Lenovo said, the Group has maintained a reorganization of liquidity, and arrange the credit line for a rainy day.

Lenovo will hand, acquisitions Marvell meaning where? We do the analysis.

Veteran vendor Marvell KENZO iPad Mini Case

Marvell (makway technology group, now renamed happy), was founded in 1995 and headquartered in Silicon Valley, has a research and Development Center in Shanghai, China, is a high speed, high density, digital information storage and broadband digital data network market, mixed-signal, and digital signal processing integrated circuits design, development and supply vendors.

Marvell by Indonesian overseas Chinese Zhou Xiuwen Dr and his wife Madam Dai Weili, brother Zhou Xiuwu, co-founder of the. Zhou Xiuwen is Indonesian Chinese, Dai Weili simply was born in Shanghai, and read a few years in the High School Affiliated to Fudan University, and China has deep origins.

Marvell area where a lot of PC hard drives, motherboards which often see Marvell chip.

In the smart-phone, the more famous events in 2006 Marvell acquired Intel's Mobile Division, the best mobile performance PXA series processor back door (2007, Apple released the iPhone, sparked a revolution in consumer electronics, Intel it's too late).

At the beginning of 3G development in China, Marvell was the first to launch TD-chip company, when the outspoken ZTE U880 is Marvell's chips. KENZO iPad Mini Case

However, in recent years, with the rise of China's domestic chip-design industry, Marvell has begun to lag behind in December 2014, Marvell PXA1936 also released eight-core 64-bit processor cannot support LTE CAT6, Hass and Qualcomm is already supporting LTE CAT6.

In Smartphone chip, Marvell technology is not too far behind and still remain profitable, but the customer has become more and more difficult to find. Vertical integration to all mobile phone manufacturers, Marvell also needs a downstream vendors.

Face competition in association

Lenovo in 2014 to win IBM x86 Server Department, won the Motorola to become the world's top three smartphone makers, is complacency.

Motorola brand recently returned to China market, dual-brand strategy is very clear.

However, as competition intensifies, Lenovo also exposed two problems, one is in addition to Association of the world's top five Smartphone manufacturers are vertically integrated, chips independently, ensure supply and competitiveness, while Lenovo does not.

World Qian five of phone manufacturers is Apple, and Samsung, and Lenovo, and Huawei, and millet, Apple since Institute phone processor, schema completely himself design, performance world first, keep Apple in high-end of competitiveness; Samsung of chip also performance excellent, from 2010 began has use years, and Samsung also has Flash, and memory, and screen, and camera package of upstream industry, competitiveness powerful; Huawei Hass after years honed, in 2014 Chase near Qualcomm, reached world advanced level, Kirin 930 this years frequently let, Ready; the relatively weak millet is also working with core, to take advantage of cheap products in core competitive super low end of the market.

But Lenovo does not have its own powerful chips, you need to purchase controlled by others, this is Lenovo's first weakness.

There is a soft spot is patent, Lenovo itself in terms of mobile phone based patents are weak, later bought Motorola gets some patents, but Motorola was from Google's mouth vomit, Google's acquisition process, the most valuable patents have been stripped out, Lenovo's patent capital hard to get strong, in the battle of the future international patent may not be able to get cheaper.

Not easy to marriage

Marvell need downstream manufacturers, Lenovo just smartphone industry for the first three, and PC industry giants, Marvell, directly or indirectly, are working closely with the Association.

Company needs to chip technology, complete industrial chain integration, Marvell chip technology, but also profitable company needs patents the basis of communication to deal with future patent war, Marvell has said, its invested a lot in research and development, has acquired nearly 5000 United States patents.

Both sides need each other, are strongly complementary, acquisitions were right for both sides, is in heaven.

However, this looks beautiful also has its difficulties.

First of all, Marvell has a market value of about $ 8 billion, this volume is a giant company, Lenovo got $ 4 billion in cash, Marvell also needs considerable courage to eat. If financing acquisition, the financial burden will have a big impact. Eating such a big company is not an easy thing.

Secondly, Marvell, a United States upstream companies, Chinese takeover of United States national security will inevitably be speculation, the approval will be in trouble.

In addition, Marvell and the IBM computer, Motorola mobile phone is different, it is a technology company in the upper reaches, large differences in style and consumer electronics companies, Lenovo to digest good IBM computers may not be able to digest good Marvell, if, after the acquisition of a large number of technical staff turnover, developed to order, subsequent chip support cannot be provided, the acquisition does not make sense.

Finally, the merger of upstream and downstream industry chain will cause psychological disorders to the customer. Lenovo's own chip, MTK and Qualcomm will leave a hand of cooperation with Lenovo, Marvell has associations, other mobile phone plant commercial Marvell chip is a question mark.

So the rumor about Lenovo's purchase of Marvell, the industry is considered reliable, because the two are indeed needed. Lenovo Marvell neither admitted, suggesting that two fully took into account the difficulties of merging and intentions into action also needs consideration.

However, from the perspective of trends in the industry, vertical integration is inevitable, Lenovo does not purchase Marvell, Spreadtrum, rockchip these enterprises may also cooperate, Marvell is indeed a very nice object at the current stage. Just seemingly perfect marriage is not easy.

582 people voted

Phone 4

KENZO iPad Mini Case

Over the previous "no design is good design" phone 4 the emphasis on design and process is clear, we can see millet's breakthrough. Thankfully the screen, colors appear very pleasing eyes, MIUI V5 playability comparable to the system. Catch is, the hardware configuration is not more "enthusiast", some lovely, heating controls need to be strengthened.

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