QCOM -- To Acquire Israeli Automobile-Chip-Makeer Autotalks -- May 8, 2023

Locator: 44602CHIPS.  

What did QCOM do today? Anyone want to hazard a guess?

Flat today.

It's doubled in five years. 

March, 2023 -- the Great Reset. 

Another spectator sport: watching chip companies finally realizing there's money to be made in ACS (just as oil-field services goes by the "acronym" OFS, so automobile chip services, in shorthand, for me at least, for the time being, will be ACS. 

According to this article which I remember posting / linking while back - it says this article was published in 2021 - it seems longer ago than that -- CarPlay is not a moneymaker for Apple. CarPlay simply makes the iPhone more valuable to a user.

But then again, look at this buried deep in the article:

CarPlay is mainly about making the iPhone more desirable. It also offers also other benefits to Apple, such as making Apple Music subscriptions more valuable -- people want to play music in their car, but need an easy way to control it while driving.

In a March note, Citi analyst Jim Suva estimated that CarPlay could add $2 billion to Apple’s annual services sales.

But CarPlay in itself is not a moneymaker.

Currently, CarPlay is free in most new vehicles, from basic models all the way up to luxury SUVs.

BMW used to charge users a monthly fee to access CarPlay, but stopped in 2019 after customers complained. Apple says doesn’t charge automakers to use the software. It’s not a licensing business. (If it were, Apple could bundle it at $750 per unit and sell 9 million units by 2025, generating $6.5 billion in sales, Suva estimates.)

So, there you ago. Another freebie from Apple. LOL. 

May 7, 2023:  

Apple Services. Apple gets it.