标签归档 爱上海龙凤

Full set of video processing and image recognition IP for advanced sensing and recognition.

R-Car V4H, the central processor for ADAS and AD solutions released by Renesas in 2022, adopts 7-nanometer technology, with a deep learning performance of 34TOPS, and can recognize and process the surrounding objects at high speed through cameras, radars and lidar. The device is scheduled to start mass production in the second quarter of 2024. With the careful combination of first-class IP and professional hardware optimization, R-Car V4H has achieved an industry-leading performance-to-power ratio, which is suitable for mass production of L2+ and L3 autopilot applications.

Thanks to its high degree of integration, R-Car V4H helps customers to develop a cost-competitive single-chip ADAS electronic control unit (ECU) to support L2+ and L3 driving systems, including complete NCAP 2025 functions. R-Car V4H also supports the function of looking around and automatic parking, and has excellent 3D visual rendering effect.

Concluding remarks

The development of automobile intelligence is expected to bring trillions of market opportunities. From the current situation, L3 and above autopilot is accelerating penetration, and the demand for high-power autopilot chips is also increasing. In addition to the major enterprises mentioned above, many domestic enterprises such as CAMBRIAN, Zero Run, and Naineng have actively invested in the field of chips.

However, the research and development of autonomous driving chips is a process with huge initial investment and long payback period. Therefore, if there is no loading capacity of 1 million vehicles, it is impossible to make a profit by developing an autopilot chip with the power of a main engine factory and using it by itself.

On the whole, the smart driving chip market is still in a rapid iteration period, and China manufacturers are expected to break through, but they also have to face many uncertainties. Only by firmly grasping the certainty and market rhythm, accelerating the iteration of technology, products and tool chains, and taking the lead in forming a closed-loop business, can we further compete with the global automotive chip giants after squeezing into the table.

There are two identical NPUs in each FSD chip, which have strong computing power and are physically integrated adjacent to each other. In each calculation cycle, NPU will read 256 bytes of activation data from the built-in 32MB SRAM and combine them with another 128 bytes of weight data to enter the multiply-accumulate (MAC), and each NPU has a 96×96MAC array. After completing the MAC multiplication and accumulation operation, the data will be transferred to the Activations and Pooling parts, waiting to write the summary results in the buffer.

Tesla has also made great efforts to optimize the power consumption and cost of NNA (Neural Network Acceleration Unit) in order to make the data flow in the chip as much as possible without frequently reading and writing with memory or other modules. In the design of NNA, software is used to simplify the hardware to reduce the chip cost.

Tesla chips cover everything from autonomous driving, intelligent cockpit, domain control architecture, three electric systems, and even vehicle manufacturing and assembly. From the point of view of autonomous driving, Tesla is the only company that has realized the full-stack self-research of software and hardware at present, taking a technical route that is difficult to replicate. Tesla’s FSD chips are basically for personal use and are not for sale.

Qualcomm

Qualcomm is a mobile phone chip giant, and its entry point in the automotive field is communication and cockpit chips, with its 820A, 8155 and 8295 occupying a major share in the mid-to-high-end smart cockpit market. Previous Snapdragon Ride autopilot computing platforms, including the 5-nanometer Snapdragon 8540 and the 7-nanometer Snapdragon 9000, with a single-chip computing power of 360TOPS, have been put on the bus one after another.

At the beginning of 2023, Qualcomm introduced Snapdragon Ride Flex SoC supporting central computing architecture, which supports digital cockpit, ADAS and autopilot functions at the same time with a single SoC, providing more than 700TOPS of computing power. The first Ride Flex SoC has been sampled and is expected to be mass-produced in 2024.

At present, Qualcomm has reached cooperation with Great Wall, General Motors, BMW, Volkswagen and other manufacturers in the field of autonomous driving. In the future, the Snapdragon Ride platform will be applied to some models of the above-mentioned car factories.

In April this year, Qualcomm also completed the acquisition of Weininger, which supplemented the algorithm capability of autopilot software. Its application fields include radar, perception system, autopilot algorithm, functional safety/expected functional safety, etc.

NVIDIA

NVIDIA is a representative of the big computing chip, and has entered the field of smart cars with the evolution of GPU architecture. In NVIDIA’s NVIDIADrive series, DRIVECX faces the cockpit, and DRIVEPX faces autonomous driving; Since then, the automatic driving platforms of DRIVEPX, DRIVEPX2, DrivePXXavier, DRIVEPXPegasus and DRIVEAGX Orin have been introduced iteratively.

DRIVE Orin is a system on a chip released by NVIDIA, and it is the central computer of intelligent vehicles, which can provide 254TOPS per second, meeting the safety standards such as ISO 26262 ASIL-D. In March 2022, NVIDIA’s DRIVEAGX Orin platform began mass production and sales. The platform consists of two Orin SoC and two Ampere-based GPUs, with a maximum computing power of 2000TOPS and a power consumption of 800W W.

Orin SoC adopts 7 nm technology, which is composed of Ampere-based GPU, ARMHerculesCPU, second-generation deep learning accelerator DLA, second-generation vision accelerator PVA, video codec, and ISP with wide dynamic range. At the same time, it introduces the design of SafetyIsland. The hardware of the chip can be connected with 14 cameras, 1 laser radar, 5 millimeter-wave radars and 12 ultrasonic radars, and the sensor data is calculated 254 trillion times per second by Orin to realize high-level automatic driving function.

NVIDIA’s automobile business has formed a strong open ecology including Tier1, sensors and software manufacturers. At present, NVIDIA has dominated the high-end passenger car market of over 300,000. In the next six years, NVIDIA’s orders in hand will exceed $11 billion. According to incomplete statistics, more than 25 OEMs around the world have reached Orin cooperation with NVIDIA, including Weilai, Tucki, Ideality, Weimar, SAIC Zhiji, R Auto, Faraday Future, Lucid Group, Human Horizons Vinfast, Chinese Express and other new car-making forces; And BYD, Mercedes-Benz, Jaguar Land Rover, Volvo, Hyundai, Audi, Lotus and other traditional OEMs. In addition, Desai Siwei, Baidu Apollo, General Cruise and Google Waymo will also develop ADAS solutions based on Orin.

Mobileye

Mobileye is the earliest self-driving overlord. The "visual algorithm+chip" solution occupies about 70% market share in the L0-L2 market and was acquired by Intel in 2017.

EyeQ series chips are the core of Mobileye. Three years after mass production of EyeQ4, Mobileye launched the 7 nm FinFET process EyeQ5 in 2021. It includes multi-threaded 8-core CPU and 18-core vision processor, and its computing power is increased to 24TOPS, and its power consumption is only 10W, which can meet the driving demand of L4.

In 2022, Mobileye laid out high-level autopilot, and issued three chips in succession, including EyeQUltra for L4 autopilot, and EyeQ6L and EyeQ6H for L2 autopilot.

Compared with the previous products, the performance of the three chips has been greatly improved under the premise of controlling energy consumption. In particular, EyeQUltra, which is specially designed for autonomous driving, has 64 core processors and 12 RISC-VCPU, each with 24 threads, which can achieve high-efficiency and accurate calculation with less than 100W power consumption. It does not need the computing power and cost of integrating multiple systems, and solves the major challenges faced by the industry. EyeQUltra is expected to be fully put into production in 2025. This chip is benchmarked against Xavier of NVIDIA, but its computing power seems to be slightly lower than that of NVIDIA.

In the early days, mainstream OEMs chose EyeQ3 and EyeQ4 series in succession, which enabled Mobileye to successfully occupy the pre-assembly market. However, its black box model has shown signs of acclimatization and the market growth rate has slowed down. Previously, Mobileye EyeQ6, EyeQ6L and EyeQ6H had reached in-depth cooperation with Volkswagen Group and Ford Motor Company, and also reached an agreement with Geely. EyeQUltra is expected to provide samples in 2023 and mass-produce cars in 2024.

Heizhima intelligent

Black Sesame Intelligence is the advocator of single-chip SoC scheme. The A1000L and A1000 single-chip SoC schemes support the integration of navigation and parking without time-sharing and avoid increasing the security risks of the whole scheme.

Since 2019, the series of chips launched by Black Sesame include Huashan No.1 A500, Huashan No.2 A1000, A1000L, A1000Pro and A2000. Among them, A500 focusing on autonomous driving has a computing power of 5-10TOPS, Huashan No.2 A1000 with 16 nm technology has a computing power of 40-70TOPS, the low version A1000L has a computing power of 16TOPS, and the high version A1000Pro has a single chip computing power of 196TOPS, which supports high-level autonomous driving and can realize seamless connection from parking, urban interior to high-speed scenes. A2000 is the first 250T large computing chip in China, which adopts the core IP of domestic independent intellectual property rights in 7 nm process and meets the ASIL B level security certification standard.

In April, 2023, Black Sesame Intelligent released Wudang series cross-domain computing platform for smart cars and its first chip C1200, covering the needs of different domains of smart cars such as cockpit and smart car with higher cost performance, and realizing multi-domain integration capability. Based on 7 nm process, C1200 provides powerful general-purpose computing and general-purpose rendering computing power by using A78AE and G78AE, which support lock step. The self-developed DynamAI NN low-power neural network acceleration engine supports NOA scenarios; Built-in mature and high-performance Audio DSP module and a new generation of self-developed NeuralIQ ISP module that processes 1.5G pixels per second online. It can provide the industry’s highest MCU computing power of 32KDIPMS, handle the input of more than 12 HD cameras at the same time, and support high-speed MIPI.

Up to now, Black Sesame Intelligence has cooperated with OEMs such as Jiangqi, Dongfeng, Geely, FAW, SAIC, Hechuang Automobile and SAIC-GM-Wuling, as well as enterprises such as Bosch, Zhongke Chuangda, Soto Ruian and Baolong Group for L2 and L3 ADAS and autonomous driving perception system solutions, including Baidu Apollo’s partners.

Xinchi technology

Xinchi Technology is the world’s first "full-scene, platform-based" chip product and technical solution provider. Its products cover intelligent cockpit, intelligent driving, central gateway and MCU, covering the core chip category of the future automotive electronic and electrical architecture, aiming to achieve "four cores in one".

From 2019 to 2020, Xinchi Technology released V9L/F and V9T autopilot chips, which support ADAS and domain controller respectively. In 2022, Xinchi Technology released an autopilot chip V9P/U with a computing power of 10-200T, which has higher computing power and can support L3-level autopilot. V9 series processor is a car code chip specially designed for a new generation of intelligent driver assistance system, which integrates high-performance CPU, GPU and CV engine, and can meet the increasing demand for computing power.

In 2023, Xinchi Technology will launch a V9S autopilot chip with higher computing power, which is developed for the central computing platform architecture, with a computing power of 500-1000T, and can support L4/L5 autopilot Robotaxi.

At the 2023 Shanghai Auto Show, Xinchi Technology released a new generation of vehicle regulation processor V9P, which is specially designed for the ADAS domain controller with integrated traveling and parking. The CPU performance is 70KDMIPS, the GPU is 200GFLOPS, and the overall AI performance is as high as 20TOPS. All functions of mainstream L2+ADAS such as AEB, ACC and LKA, auxiliary parking and memory parking functions can be realized on a single chip, and the driving recorder and high-definition 360-degree viewing can be integrated.

horizon

As a large-scale pre-assembly mass production enterprise of domestic car-gauge AI chips, Horizon has successively launched China’s first car-gauge AI chip Journey 2, a new generation of AIoT intelligent application acceleration engine Sunrise 2, a high-performance car-gauge AI chip Journey 3 and a new generation of AIoT edge AI chip platform Sunrise 3.

Horizon’s third-generation car-level product Journey 5 has a single-chip computing power of up to 128TOPS, which has both large computing power and high performance, and supports the needs of 16-channel camera perception computing and multi-sensor fusion, prediction and planning control required for autonomous driving. Its core IP is 100% self-developed BPU Bayesian architecture, which can support the latest convolutional neural network and Transformer architecture and meet more than 170 different operators required for various autonomous driving scenarios. Using deep learning to accelerate ultra-large-scale parallel computing, reduce the whole computing delay and improve efficiency, and its image rate has increased from 1283 frames per second in 2021 to 1531 frames per second in 2022. With the launch of Journey 5, the horizon covers the whole vehicle smart chip scheme from L2 to L4.

At present, Horizon has reached cooperation with many OEMs and Tier 1, including Changan, FAW, SAIC, GAC, Chery, Dongfeng Motor, Zhiji, Jianghuai, Ideality, BYD, Great Wall, etc., as well as mainland China, Asia Pacific, Sagitar (parameter | inquiry) Juchuang, Winch Technology, Neusoft Ruichi, ADAYO Huayang, Desai Xiwei, etc.

Huawei

As a giant in the ICT field, Huawei’s smart car business can be traced back to 2012. In 2018, it launched the smart driving computing platform, and launched the MDC600 supporting L3 and the MDC300 supporting L4. In 2019, Huawei formally established the Smart Car Solutions Division, and in 2020, it released the MDC610 computing platform, using the Ascent 610 chip, with a single chip computing power of 200TOPS.

Huawei Shengteng 910 is an AI processor with super computing power, and its maximum power consumption is 310W W. The Leonardo da Vinci architecture developed by Huawei greatly improves its energy efficiency ratio. Its 8-bit integer precision (INT8) performance reaches 640TOPS, and its 16-bit floating-point number (FP16) performance reaches 320 TFLOPS.

The Ascension series includes training and reasoning chips. The Ascension 910 used for training has a semi-precision (FP16) computing power of 256TFLOPS, which is twice that of the industry. For reasoning, the computing power of Ascension 310 and INT8 is 16TOPS, and the power consumption is only 8W.

Aiming at the demand of automatic driving for computing platform, the MDC solution introduced by Huawei integrates the self-developed Host CPU chip, AI chip, ISP chip and SSD control chip. So far, Huawei has successively launched four series products with different computing power-MDC300, MDC210, MDC610 and MDC810, covering the L2-L5 autonomous driving ecological chain.

At present, auto-driving R&D companies such as Heduo Technology, Xidi Intelligent Driving, Neolithic, Yuanrong Qixing, Tage Zhixing, Huituo, Nezha Automobile, etc. all adopt Huawei’s MDC computing platform.

Dezhou instrument

Texas Instruments (TI) is a traditional automobile chip manufacturer with rich experience in product landing and strong supply chain management ability, and its customers are all over the automobile industry. In terms of processors, TI has launched the seventh generation, and each generation uses its own IP and patents. Twenty years’ experience in digital processors has also continuously optimized this heterogeneous processor.

TI’s mainstream intelligent driving products include TDA4 VL, TDA4 VM and TDA4 VH, with computing power of 4TOPS, 8TOPS and 32TOPS respectively. Among them, the TDA4 VM of 8TOPS has been mass-produced, which is the mainstream choice for the light-weight traveling and parking integrated domain control track.

TDA4VM series processors for ADAS and self-driving cars are based on Evolutionary Jacinto 7 architecture, which combines high-performance computing, deep learning engine and special accelerator for signal and image processing in a unique way in a target architecture with safe and compatible functions, so it is very suitable for robotics, machine vision, radar and other applications.

These devices are highly integrated, which makes the advanced automobile platform supporting centralized ECU or multiple sensor modes scalable and low-cost. The key cores include the next generation DSP with scalar and vector cores, dedicated deep learning and traditional algorithm accelerators. These devices also include the latest Arm and GPU processors for general computing, integrated next generation imaging subsystem (ISP), video codec, Ethernet hub and isolated MCU island. All these are protected by automotive safety hardware accelerators.

Renesas

Renesas is a traditional automobile chip giant, and its automobile products are mainly MCU and SoC Renesas. The early product is R-CAR V3H, which is heavily used in the intelligent forward-looking integrated machine with the help of Tier1 such as Bosch and Denso. R-CAR V3H SoC supports the safety index of ASIL C level in real-time domain, which can reduce the need to use external safety microcontroller to manage sensor fusion and final decision execution. R-Car V3H has rich and verified IP, supports perception stack, ISP with radar and/or lidar sensor fusion and up to 8 megapixel cameras, and also has a full set of video processing and image recognition IP for advanced sensing and recognition.

R-Car V4H, the central processor for ADAS and AD solutions released by Renesas in 2022, adopts 7-nanometer technology, with a deep learning performance of 34TOPS, and can recognize and process the surrounding objects at high speed through cameras, radars and lidar. The device is scheduled to start mass production in the second quarter of 2024. With the careful combination of first-class IP and professional hardware optimization, R-Car V4H has achieved an industry-leading performance-to-power ratio, which is suitable for mass production of L2+ and L3 autopilot applications.

Thanks to its high degree of integration, R-Car V4H helps customers to develop a cost-competitive single-chip ADAS electronic control unit (ECU) to support L2+ and L3 driving systems, including complete NCAP 2025 functions. R-Car V4H also supports the function of looking around and automatic parking, and has excellent 3D visual rendering effect.

Concluding remarks

The development of automobile intelligence is expected to bring trillions of market opportunities. From the current situation, L3 and above autopilot is accelerating penetration, and the demand for high-power autopilot chips is also increasing. In addition to the major enterprises mentioned above, many domestic enterprises such as CAMBRIAN, Zero Run, and Naineng have actively invested in the field of chips.

However, the research and development of autonomous driving chips is a process with huge initial investment and long payback period. Therefore, if there is no loading capacity of 1 million vehicles, it is impossible to make a profit by developing an autopilot chip with the power of a main engine factory and using it by itself.

On the whole, the smart driving chip market is still in a rapid iteration period, and China manufacturers are expected to break through, but they also have to face many uncertainties. Only by firmly grasping the certainty and market rhythm, accelerating the iteration of technology, products and tool chains, and taking the lead in forming a closed-loop business, can we further compete with the global automotive chip giants after squeezing into the table.

The 18th and 19th China Film China Watch Awards Ceremony was held in Beijing. Half the entertainment circle gathered at this ceremony, and male and female stars competed on the red carpet, trying to show their best.

Zhang Ziyi, the first-line flower, Chen Kaige, the top director, and a number of traffic stars from the bottom came to the event. It is reported that there are more than 600 people from all walks of life in the entertainment circle. It’s not the weight of the China Watch Award that brings so many people together, but it can be regarded as the biggest event of China movies since the epidemic was unsealed.

Red carpet stars came one after another. Unexpectedly, Chen Kun and Zhou Xun didn’t walk on the red carpet, but quietly waited for the award ceremony in the infield. A group of photos of two people in the cinema released by the official studio are full of stories.

Soon, these photos went viral on the Internet. Isn’t this better than a star competing with concave shapes outside the red carpet? The two of them just sat there quietly, as if telling a story. This is the movie star, and this is the world of light and shadow.

Subsequently, the two men jointly awarded the Best Actor Award, a black suit and a white evening dress, and they walked leisurely to the center of the stage, with the film texture that mature actors naturally have, and the fireworks that seemed to be visible and captured; They also have a sense of relaxation in the vanity fair in the entertainment circle, and they feel so relaxed that Chen Kun and Zhou Xun are really pleasing to everyone. Moreover, there is no utilitarian taste of bundling CP with each other, and there is no humility between men and women, for fear that bundling together will affect the generosity and nature of each other’s fans, which explains the best appearance of friendship in the entertainment circle.

I have known each other for 20 years and cooperated for more than a dozen times.

From "Fog Like Rain Like Wind" to the latest film "Serve the Gods", from TV series to movies, both of them have left each other the most beautiful years.

Zhou Xun and Chen Kun met for the first time, and it was also the first time for everyone to see the appearance of two people in the same box. One was a charming little girl with a pair of ponytails, and the other was a young girl whose eyes were full of tender cream. After so many years, they seem to have changed, but they seem to have not changed. As beautiful as those two pairs of eyes, there are more stories in the eyes and more each other.

In the past 20 years, they have never stopped cooperating with each other. If they want to play a couple, they will play a couple. If they want to make a guest appearance in each other’s movies, they will make a guest appearance in each other’s movies. Compared with later, many people like to say which pair of immortals CP has lived for a long time. In fact, how good the private relationship is, but for those who have no chance to cooperate, they have always been able to cooperate, and they have never deliberately promoted two people in the same box. It is really a good relationship.

Start a company together to find new actors.

In addition to their own cooperation, both of them have become bosses. There are many actors in the entertainment circle who have jumped from star to capital. They all want to make money and squeeze a new generation of actors after becoming capital.

However, they are not the same. After Chen Kun and Zhou Xun started an entertainment company together, they also set up an acting training school called Yamashita School, hoping to explore the possibility of more new actors and explore the limits of actors.

Chen Kun rented a five-story villa to start this school at the foot of the mountain. The overall decoration style is as simple and natural as the name of this school, and everything is simple. Their powerful artists, such as Dahong Ni, naturally became the teachers of this acting school. To give a more successful example, during this period, everyone said that Chen Douling, whose acting skills took off on the spot, studied in the school here. It seems that it was fruitful, and his facial features did not fly around, and his eyes also changed.

Obviously, this school is really different from some stars who go back to their hometown to open a local art test training institution, just to get money from their own star brands, with their mouths full of ideas and their hearts full of business. Chen Kun and Zhou Xun just want to start over and dig up more good new actors.

Not a real couple, but they can grow old.

From their private lives to interviews, both of them have decided that they will grow old together.

A casual search of Chen Kun and Zhou Xun’s private lives shows that they have lived upstairs and downstairs for many years. As long as you move, I will move and wear my own slippers to go across the hall.

When interviewed, it is even more straightforward to say that the other party is their own friendship. Chen Kun is complex and sensitive, with a little emotional change and reaction. Only Zhou Xun can detect it for the first time, and Zhou Xun can give him the most comfortable comfort, which seems to be their innate tacit understanding and trust.

The relationship between Chen Kun and Zhou Xun, I’m afraid, is not just a model state of the entertainment circle. For ordinary people, I also hope to have such good friends.

The price of new mineral water products continues to drop, and the bottled water market may usher in a new pattern.

Ipoh has recently made new moves in the field of mineral water. Ipoh official Weibo shows that Ipoh recently launched a brand-new mineral water brand "Benyou", which includes two specifications of 350 ml and 555 ml. At present, it has been officially listed and priced in the most mainstream 2 yuan range of bottled water.

According to reports, the positioning of "Benyou" is a simple and fashionable drinking natural mineral water that satisfies consumers’ daily thirst quenching and has a sense of closeness. On the consumer side, not all consumers can know the difference between mineral water and pure water. However, Ipoh dropped the price of mineral water to 2 yuan market after Master Kong, which means that the price boundary between mineral water, natural water and purified water is blurring.

As early as 2018, the retail price of Master Kong’s packaged drinking water terminal increased from 1 yuan to 2 yuan. At this point, the water age of bottled water in 1 yuan has completely ended, and the mainstream price of domestic bottled water has entered the 2 yuan range, but within this range, mineral water products are rare. For natural aquatic products, enterprises are required to lay out water sources in advance, and natural mineral water is required to obtain mineral water mining licenses at the same time, and mineral water categories have higher requirements for water sources and mineral water mining licenses.

However, in March this year, in March this year, Master Kong introduced a new bottled water product called "Drinking Mineral Springs", which was priced at a bottle of 2 yuan. It can be seen that the mineral water brand "Benyou" recently launched by Ipoh is also breaking through the 2 yuan water track. This means that mineral water products, which were originally priced higher than pure water, are exploring the market price boundary.

Ipoh and Master Kong have successively launched 2 yuan mineral water. In the price belt market in 2 yuan, the competition for drinking water will be more intense.

With the debut of pure water, Ipoh’s bottled water business has always been mainly based on pure water. Since last year, Ipoh has launched the high-end mineral water "Ipoh Dew" for the first time at a price of one bottle in 15 yuan, which can be said to be a luxury in drinking water. The mineral water brand "Benyou" launched this time is priced in 2 yuan and has the characteristics of "being close to the people".

Specifically, this time, "Benyou" launched different specifications of PET plastic bottles, including 555 ml and 350 ml, which were priced in 2 yuan and 1.5 yuan respectively. Among them, the 350 ml mini bottle is mainly portable when going out to meet the female group with a small amount of disposable drinking.

In the direction of supply chain, Ipoh has also increased its efforts. It is understood that in February this year, the commissioning ceremony of China Resources Ipoh East China Production Base was held in Yixing, Jiangsu Province. After all the production, it will become the first all-product factory of China Resources Ipoh, covering 8 mainstream drinks such as packaged water, near-water drinks, sports drinks, milk tea, coffee, fruit juice, tea drinks and lactic acid bacteria drinks, with an annual production capacity of nearly 200 million cases.

From pure water to mineral water, Ipoh launched "Benyou" in 2 yuan, which continued to open the price war in the mineral water market.

In fact, mineral water prices in 2 yuan are rare.

First of all, the 2 yuan price band is the main product price range of Ipoh Pure Water. However, in bottled water, the price range of brand products represented by ice dew, Wahaha and Master Kong pure water is usually within 1.5 yuan, and natural water is in 1.5 yuan, while the price of natural mineral water is usually higher than that of 2 yuan.

At present, among the domestic mineral water brands, Jinmailang’s Jinmao, Yuanqi Forest’s Mined, Changbaixue, Tongyi Aikua and Baisui Mountain are all above 3 yuan and 3 yuan, while 2 yuan’s mineral water brands are few.

At the same time, the market size of mineral water market is larger than that of pure water. Packaging drinking water is divided into natural water, natural mineral water, drinking pure water and other drinking water according to the different water sources. Because there is no restriction on the source of drinking pure water, according to Jost Sullivan’s report, drinking pure water is the largest market at present, which is 119.1 billion yuan in 2019, accounting for 60.4%.

According to Jost Sullivan’s data, from 2014 to 2019, the compound annual growth rates of natural water and natural mineral water were 24.8% and 18.4% respectively, and the CAGR of retail sales was 29.1% and 19.0% respectively. It is estimated that the compound annual growth rates of natural water and natural mineral water will be 15.4% and 14.2% respectively from 2019 to 2024.

The sales growth rate of natural water and mineral water is expected to be faster than that of pure water. According to the Annual Report on Mineral Water Consumption Trends in 2022, the sales growth rates of mineral water, drinking natural water and purified water were 43%, 35% and 31% respectively, and the growth rate of purified water was the lowest.

Judging from the domestic bottled water market share, the head brand has a high market share and market concentration. The market share is the highest, followed by China Resources Ipoh. The bottled water market share of the top six enterprises has exceeded 80% of all domestic markets.

Since the beginning of this year, in the bottled water market, most brands have not made large-scale new moves for mineral water tracks, but the new products and brand upgrades for this are very lively.

Zong Qinghou once said that the beverage industry is out of date and will always be a sunrise industry. Bottled water companies also want to use mineral water to make a "turnaround" of water.

From the price point of view, the average price of natural mineral water is above 4.5 yuan /500ml because it is rich in natural substances, while the average price of drinking pure water is around 1.5 yuan /500ml, and the prices of mineral water products promoted by major brands this year are mostly above 3 yuan.

It was Master Kong who started the price war and launched "Drinking Mineral Springs" in March 2023. The Tmall platform shows that Master Kong’s "drinking mineral spring" that has been sold at present includes four kinds of packages, the specification is 550ml, and the price is 23.9 yuan /12 bottles, about 2 yuan/bottle;

In April, Yuehuo, a high-end drinking water brand owned by COFCO, announced the launch of "Yuehuo Changbai Mountain" natural mineral water, which is another mineral water that takes water from local water sources after "Yuehuo Emei Mountain" natural mineral water, and will focus on home life scenes. The packaging is 500ml specifications, and the terminal will implement the price of 3-4 yuan in different regions;

In mid-May, Evian also launched a brand-new aerated natural mineral water with 330ml and 750ml specifications. At present, the reference price is 300 yuan /12 bottles *750ml, which is about 25 yuan/bottle;

In early June, Yuanqi Forest also launched a new evaluation activity. However, unlike the mineral water with the price of 3 yuan, this evaluation object is the newly-launched pure water of Yuanqi Forest, with the specification of 520ml. At present, the test link has been launched in Yuanqi Forest Member Center, and 0 yuan has experienced 9.9 yuan /3 bottles.

In mid-June, Wahaha launched a brand-new upgraded drinking natural mineral water, highlighting the water source of Wulongquan in Changbai Mountain, and the price is 3 yuan/bottle. Zong Qinghou, the founder of Wahaha, mentioned at the 2023 national distributor conference that the status of water market should be "restored" in 2023, especially focusing on 3 yuan water market. Last year, Wahaha began to develop natural mineral water.

In July, the Arctic Ocean also launched a new product "natural mineral water with gas" with a specification of 330mL, which is aimed at middle and high-end consumers. JD.COM shows that the price of 330ml*12 FCL is 139 yuan, about 11.5 yuan/bottle. According to reports, the gas-bearing natural mineral water in the Arctic Ocean is obtained from natural water sources, which is rich in natural gas of carbon dioxide and various minerals such as metasilicic acid and strontium, which are beneficial to human health.

In fact, when Evergrande Ice Spring first came out, it once priced mineral water at five yuan. In the following years, its price dropped to 2 yuan /500ml. A year and a half ago, Jiaduobao’s high-end mineral water "Kunlun Mountain" took the initiative to lower its profile. The retail price of Jiaduobao Kunlun Mountain mineral water products has dropped from the previous range of 5~6 yuan to 4 yuan, and Evian has also lowered its products to the price belt of 5 yuan.

It can be seen that in recent years, the underwater exploration price of natural mineral springs has become the general trend, but whether the price reduction to the level of 2 yuan can be sustained or not is worth further observation.

In addition, it is understood that in 2021, Ipoh signed contracts with four major drinking water production bases, namely Changbai Mountain in the northeast, Wuxi in east China, Wuyishan and Heyuan in south China. Jin Mailang’s "drinking mineral spring" has two water sources: Qinglongquan in Changbai Mountain and Bishanquan in Huangshan Mountain.

Comparatively speaking, there are about 12 water sources mainly engaged in natural water and mineral water, and Baisui Mountain, which also focuses on mineral water, has 7 water sources.

For enterprises that want to play low-priced mineral water, such as Ipoh, whether they can get more water sources will also be the key to their future development.

Will the mineral water market start a comprehensive price reduction war in the future? On the one hand, lowering prices means that enterprises have to deal with the risk of product profits being compressed. On the other hand, whether consumers can form a more stable consumption mentality is also the key to whether the mineral water market can break through. This bottled water war has just begun.

(This article is the first titanium media APP, written by Liu Dafang, edited by Fang Yu)

Image source @ vision china

After eight days, Hua Xizi finally spoke.

However, the statement did not respond to the high-priced controversy, but reiterated its brand vision as a domestic beauty brand "promoting the beauty of the East and casting a century-old national makeup".

Whether this statement can satisfy consumers who have previously felt "backstab" or not. It is almost a consensus that it is not so easy for "all girls" to buy it.

More and more rational, they are using actions to announce the failure of their price and sentiment cards to the brand.Since the price dispute, they have been saying, "Who is not a domestic product? Who will feel sorry for me?" Take off the emotional binding, while comparing the domestic make-up with the gold price, and measure the cost performance with the accurate price comparison method.

At the same time, it is obvious that Li Jiaqi has had a hard time recently.

Being questioned and apologizing twice failed to quell dissatisfaction. It seems that this matter can’t pass if the powder continues to fall, the topic is constantly derived, and the heat persists for a long time.

Image source @ Little Red Book Davidkwok

Looking back from the time corridor, on the one hand, Li Jiaqi, who has grown into the "first brother" by virtue of his low price advantage and high emotional value, and on the other hand, the light of domestic products, which embodies consumers’ feelings and high cost performance expectations.The rise and fall of the two are so similar and intertwined.

Now, the other side of Li Jiaqi being questioned is the dilemma of domestic beauty cosmetics.

More and more consumers are beginning to feel that domestic products are becoming more and more expensive. They show their feelings and seek resonance by taking screenshots of their past orders on social media.

Image source @ Xiaohongshu Xiao Lv’s embarrassing life

Is this really the case?

Take shanghai jahwa, which owns well-known brands such as Liushen, Meijiajing, herborist, Qichu and Yuze, as an example. According to the announcement of its main business data, the average price of skin care products in the first half of this year and the second quarter of this year increased by 50.42% and 20.16% respectively compared with the same period of last year, which helped its skin care products achieve positive revenue growth.

Image source @ shanghai jahwa’s main business data announcement in the first quarter of 2023

Image source @ shanghai jahwa main business data announcement in the second quarter of 2023

Look at Polaiya, the parent company of Polaiya, Yuefushan and Caitang. In the first quarter of 2023, the skin care products and beauty cosmetics products of Polaiya increased by 21.69% and 23.28% respectively.

Image source @ Proya’s main business data announcement in the first quarter of 2023

In addition, in the first and second quarters of 2023, the average selling price of Marubi skin care products increased by 39.76% and 14.83% respectively, and the average selling price of beauty products increased by 27.22% and 15.90%. In the first half of 2023, the price of skin care products increased by 5.6% and the price of cosmetics increased by 4.9%.

Image source @ Betani 2023 semi-annual report

It can be seen that the price increase that consumers feel is not groundless.

From the main cost performance to "more and more expensive", the rising price of raw materials may be the reason that cannot be ignored.

At present, the key raw materials used by domestic skin care and beauty enterprises mainly rely on imports from the United States, Germany, Japan, South Korea and other countries, such as surfactants for cosmetics, thickeners, high-performance oils and fats, and high-safety preservatives. Therefore, the fluctuation of the supply price of upstream raw materials will indeed greatly affect the beauty and skin care brands.

Since the epidemic, the price increase of some basic raw materials, such as glycerol, has been particularly obvious.

Recently, many giants such as Dow Chemical, Japan PE Co., Ltd., Japan PP Co., Ltd., Sanyo Chemical, Longbai Group, etc. also announced price increases ranging from 5% to 23%, involving cosmetic raw materials such as silicone, surfactant, PMMA, PP, PE and titanium dioxide used as a physical sunscreen, and the price per ton directly exceeded 1,700 yuan.

Polaiya also said in the announcement that the prices of its main products, ruby and active substances with strong efficacy, have increased significantly-the average unit price in the first quarter of 2023 increased by 305.85/kg, an increase of 116.05%.

With the rising cost of raw materials, it is not only domestic brands that raise prices. However, the price increase of international big brands is much milder.

For example, the financial report of consumer goods giant Unilever shows that the price of beauty and health care products rose by 7.5% in fiscal year 2022.

Estee Lauder Group has also raised the price of its products twice in 2023, involving many of its star products, but the increase is relatively limited except Clinique Little Daisy Blush.

Data Source @ Official Flagship Store, Cartography @ Titanium Media APP

In this way,The rising cost caused by the rising price of raw materials is not enough to explain why domestic brands have changed from "flat replacement" to "expensive replacement".

The huge marketing expenses, including the commission of the anchor with goods, are another main reason.

According to the financial report data released by various companies, the sales expenses of various beauty products accounted for about 45% of the revenue in the first half of this year, and the parent company of Perfect Diary, Yixian E-commerce, had the highest proportion, accounting for 61.69%.

Image source @ 么么么么么么么么么么么么么么么么么么么么

Comparing the marketing expense rate of international brands such as Estee Lauder, Shiseido and L ‘Oreal, which is around 30%, we can see that domestic beauty brands are highly dependent on marketing.

This is actually related to the growth experience of domestic beauty brands.

A few years before the flood of new domestic brands emerged, the grass planting economy was just emerging and the online traffic cost was still relatively low. At that time, most of the new beauty brands were established in a short time, with small capital scale, and their ability to lay offline sales channels was limited. Therefore,In the early days of its establishment, online became the main position for the marketing and sales of domestic beauty brands.

At that time, an unwritten explosive formula was popular in the industry: "5,000 little red books+2,000 Zhihu questions and answers+head anchor with goods = a new brand".Seize the user’s mind and achieve explosive growth through marketing, which has almost become the standard of new brands of domestic beauty.

Take Huaxi Zi in this storm as an example. Founded in 2017, it is experiencing a channel dilemma when it comes into contact with the live broadcast room in Li Jiaqi in 2018. At that time, Li Jiaqi had just defeated Ma Yun in the Double Eleven PK selling lipstick, and began to emerge in the field of e-commerce live broadcast.

Looking back on the five years when Hua Xizi and Li Jiaqi were deeply bound, many sales miracles occurred at this time: in 2019, "double 11" sold 700,000 boxes of loose powder of Hua Xizi; In 2020, "618" Hua Xizi became the first in the turnover list of domestic beauty products with GMV of 235 million yuan, and its revenue jumped from 10 million to several billion. According to the quality statistics, from January to February, 2020, 40% of the sales of Huaxizi flagship store came from the live broadcast room in Li Jiaqi.

Hua Xizi’s growth experience is only a typical representative of domestic beauty, and there are also perfect diaries, orange blossoms, Yuze and so on.

Over-reliance on online marketing has made many domestic beauty products form a revenue-driven growth model.

Take Yixian E-commerce, the parent company of Perfect Diary, which was listed on the US stock market only three years after its birth, as an example. According to its announcement data, from 2018 to 2020, Yixian E-commerce spent 309 million yuan, 1.251 billion yuan and 3.412 billion yuan on sales and marketing respectively, with the highest proportion accounting for 65.2% of the total revenue. With the rising marketing expenses, its scale has also been rapidly expanded.

However, with the contraction of marketing expenses by Perfect Diary, its operating income is also affected simultaneously: in the first quarter and the second quarter of this year, the proportion of marketing expenses of Yixian e-commerce decreased by 7.9% and 2.5% respectively compared with the same period of last year, and the total net income decreased by 14.1% and 9.8% respectively.

More seriously, with the surge in online traffic costs,Many domestic beauty brands are caught in the "strange circle" cycle of exchanging marketing for revenue.That is to say, if marketing is reduced, revenue may decline, but if marketing is maintained, high traffic cost will cause losses, and even it may fall into a negative cycle of more money burning and more losses.

In this way, the price increase has become a natural choice in the dilemma of domestic beauty.

At the same time of rising prices,A large number of domestic beauty brands are disappearing in invisible places.

According to incomplete statistics, from June 2022 to now, there are about 12 cutting-edge makeup brands that have declared bankruptcy/clearance/suspension. Among them, there are some brands that have exploded, such as floating Fomomy and Kale said Colorpedia, which shows that the market competition is fierce.

Cartography: titanium media APP

Consumers’ enthusiasm for buying domestic beauty brands has also begun to cool down.

In this year’s TOP20 of Tmall’s 618 beauty industry, only four domestic brands entered the list, namely Polaiya, Winona, Fumei and Shuguang, and the corresponding rankings were TOP4, TOP9, TOP13 and TOP19.

Image source @ tmall beauty cosmetics

Looking back at the development of domestic beauty brands in the past ten years, the market share has increased from 15% in 2012 to 28.8% in 2021.

However, while we are excited about this, we should also see the fragility of relying on short-term marketing strategies and transferring costs through price increases.

Cosmetics, as a complex mixture of various raw materials, as the core active ingredient and the production technology such as fermentation and synthesis technology, are the key to build its core competitiveness.

In the process of the rise of international beauty products, many brands rely on core ingredients and production process barriers to build a protective city. Take L ‘Oré al’s self-developed Bose factor as an example. Since the successful research in 2000, helena rubinstein, Lancome, Xiuliko, YSL and Yuxi have all participated in Bose factor, occupying the forefront of the anti-aging category. The unique fermentation process of the core ingredient Pitera in the immortal water also helped SK-II build its core competitiveness.

However, R&D capability and core production capability are the disadvantages of domestic brands.

According to the statistics of Dongxing Securities, as of 15th, 2022, the number of patents of Procter & Gamble and Unilever reached 177,154 and 86,074 respectively, and mainly concentrated on inventions with higher gold content and longer patent protection period.

Image source @ Dongxing Securities

According to the data of Tianyancha, the number of patents of shanghai jahwa, Betani, Marubi, Huaxi Bio and Yixian E-commerce are 1650, 244, 396, 646 and 174 respectively, and among the patents in shanghai jahwa, the design category with relatively low gold content accounts for 80.24%; By 2022, Yixian e-commerce has 174 patents worldwide, of which 43 are invention patents.

Image source @ Tianyancha

Image source @ Tianyancha

In addition, domestic beauty products mostly adopt OEM OEM mode, lacking the ability and technology of self-built factory production.

Under this model, the upstream foundry masters the core production technologies such as raw material extraction and preparation, synthetic biotechnology, etc., while the brand side is often caught in homogenization competition, making it difficult to build a brand moat.

Take the category of freeze-dried mask. As a rapidly growing sub-category in recent years, there have been many explosive products. For example, in 2020, the SKU of Yuze freeze-dried mask will reach 2 billion; In 2021, Winona’s double eleven pre-sale freeze-dried mask products were pre-sold in three seconds.

But in fact, these explosions, such as Yuze Centella asiatica reassuring repair mask, Winona soothing repair freeze-dried mask, and Appropriate Herbal Gentian reassuring repair freeze-dried mask, were all made by the same foundry that mastered the core freeze-dried mask technology-Weibo Haitai.

According to the information, Weibo Haitai has cooperated with many brands to list dozens of masks and essence products of herborist, Yuze, L ‘Oreal, Ke Beili, Yiyibucao, Winona, Royal Nifang and Liangliang.

Under such fierce competition of homogeneous products, it is difficult to impress today’s consumers only by fighting for low prices and "selling badly"It has become an industry consensus to improve R&D capability, increase investment in innovation and improve product quality.

In the first half of this year, the proportion of research and development expenses of domestic beauty cosmetics has increased to varying degrees. Huaxi Bio invested 187 million yuan in research and development in the first half of 2023, accounting for more than 6%; Betani’s R&D investment accounted for more than 4%, up 33.58% year-on-year; The R&D expenses of Giant Bio increased year-on-year, reaching 80.75%.

Image source @ 么么么么么么么么么么么么么么么么么么么么

In addition to research and development, domestic beauty brands are also making up for shortcomings.

For example, in August this year, the first factory of Yixian E-commerce was put into operation, integrating R&D, manufacturing and quality control, trying to build a moat through self-built factories; Winona gradually diversified her own sales channels, vigorously added more offline, and tried to get rid of single dependence.

Some domestic beauty products have gone abroad and started to show their strength on the international stage.

According to public data, Hua Xizi has been sold to Japan, the United States, Europe and other countries and regions; And relying on "girl’s heart" to win Lolita’s favorite flower knowledge has also caused repercussions in the Japanese market.

The process of the rising of domestic beauty products is doomed to be not smooth sailing. Only by reducing the low cost and increasing the consumption of feelings, a stable and far-reaching brand is bound to fail.

With the continuous evolution of these brands, more possibilities will be created in the future. May a hundred flowers blossom and domestic products become stronger.(This article is the first titanium media APP, written by Yuan Ning, edited by Zhao Hongyu)

references

1. Q2 Skin Care Products’ Restorative Growth, Focus on Performance Repair and Omni-channel Development of Key Brands in the Future-china galaxy Securities Research Institute