7 new trends reveal the future development of the UWB module UWB solution industry, in the past year or two, UWB technology has developed from an unknown niche technology to a hot spot in the market, which also makes many people want to flood into this field in order to get a share of the market. But what is the status of the UWB module market? What are the new trends in this industry?
Trend 1: UWB solution manufacturers are focusing on more technical solutions
Compared with a few years ago, we found that many UWB manufacturers not only focus on UWB technology, but also focus on more technical reserves, such as Bluetooth AOA or other wireless communication technology solutions.
Since the solution link is closely connected with the application, the company's solutions are often based on the needs of users. In practical applications, it is inevitable to encounter some needs that cannot be solved by UWB, and other technologies need to be used. Therefore, solution providers will The advantages of other technology businesses are derived.
Trend 2: UWB enterprise business is gradually differentiated
On the one hand, we do subtraction to make the product more standardized; on the other hand, we do addition to make the solution more complicated. A few years ago, UWB solution providers mainly produced UWB-related products, such as UWB modules, labels, software systems, etc. Now, the game play of enterprises has begun to differentiate.
On the one hand, subtraction makes the product or plan more standardized. For example, in B-side scenarios such as factories, hospitals, and coal mines, many companies provide standardized modular products, which are more acceptable to customers. For example, many companies are also striving to optimize the installation steps of their products, lowering the threshold for use, and allowing users to deploy UWB base stations themselves, which is also a standardization.
Standardization has many advantages. For the solution provider itself, it can reduce the energy investment of personnel such as installation and deployment, and can also make the product reproducible. For users (usually integrators), they can make higher custom functions based on their understanding of the industry.
On the other hand, we also found that in addition to providing UWB-related software and hardware, some enterprises will also carry out more solution integration according to user needs.
For example, in a factory, in addition to positioning needs, there are more needs such as video surveillance, temperature and humidity detection, gas detection, etc. UWB Solutions Chamber of Commerce will take over the entire project.
The advantage of this approach is that it can bring higher revenue to UWB solution providers, while also being more sticky to users.
Trend 3: There are more and more UWB modules in China, but the main opportunity is the smart hardware market
For UWB module companies, the target market can be divided into three categories: B-side IoT market, mobile phone market and smart hardware market. In the past two years, there have been more and more domestic UWB companies, and the biggest selling point of domestic modules is cost performance.
According to the needs of the B-end market, module manufacturers generally differentiate from the C-end market and redefine modules. However, the shipment volume of the B-end market is not very large. Some chip manufacturers will provide higher added value of module products. Products are less sensitive to module price, pay more attention to stability and performance, and will not be replaced because they are cheaper most of the time.
In the mobile phone market, due to its large scale and high performance requirements, UWB module manufacturers are generally given priority for product verification. Therefore, the biggest opportunity for domestic UWB manufacturers is in the smart hardware market, because the smart hardware market has a large potential scale and high price sensitivity. , the domestic has a great advantage.
Trend 4: Multimode UWB+X products will gradually increase
Whether it is the B-side or the C-side, it is often difficult to fully meet the needs using only UWB technology. Therefore, more and more UWB+X multimode products will appear on the market.
For example, a UWB positioning + sensor-based solution can monitor moving people or items in real time based on sensor data. For example, Apple's Airtag is actually a Bluetooth+UWB solution. UWB is used for accurate positioning and ranging, and Bluetooth is used for wake-up transmission, etc.
Trend 5: The increasing number of enterprise UWB projects
Two years ago, in our research, we found that UWB millions of projects were very few, with only a few projects reaching 5 million. In this year's research, we found a significant increase in millions of projects, with larger solution providers having a certain number of millions of projects every year, and even tens of millions of projects are starting to appear.
On the one hand, due to the increasing recognition of the value of UWB by users, on the other hand, the reduction in the price of UWB solutions has made the acceptance of UWB more and more high.
Trend 6: Solutions based on UWB modules are becoming popular
In the latest survey, we found that there are some UWB-based solutions on the market, similar to Bluetooth solutions. The lightweight and standardization of UWB base stations reduces the cost of the base station and makes it easier to deploy, while the tag side requires higher computing power. In the project, if the number of base stations is greater than the number of tags, this can save costs.
Trend 7: More and more UWB companies gain capital recognition
In recent years, there have been many investment and financing events in the UWB circle. Of course, the most important thing at present is to focus on the module level, because it is the beginning of the industry, combined with the current popularity of the industry, it directly promotes many investment and financing events in the module field.
There are also many investment and financing events for mainstream solution providers on the B side. They have deeply cultivated a sub-sector in the B-end field, forming a higher market threshold, which will be more popular in the capital market. At present, the entire market has yet to be developed, which will also be the focus of the capital market in the future.
