In recent years, with the rapid development of intelligent vehicles, the global autonomous driving market is expected to usher in a period of rapid growth.
According to IDC, global shipments of autonomous passenger vehicles are expected to grow from 27.74 million in 2020 to 54.25 million in 2024. It is also proposed in the "Medium and Long-Term Development Plan for the Automobile Industry" that by 2025, the penetration rate of autonomous vehicles in China will reach 80%, of which the penetration rate of L2 and L3 will reach 25%.
In-vehicle cameras are indispensable sensing sensors for autonomous vehicles. ADAS technology promotes changes in the automotive industry and also provides a driving force for the growth of the vehicle camera market.
According to data from well-known research institutions, the shipments of automotive lenses will increase from 88.807 million in 2017 to 143 million in 2021, with a compound growth rate of 12.7%. It is estimated that in 2023, the shipments of automotive lenses will reach 204 million.
According to the forecast of ICV Tank, the global car camera market size will reach 27 billion US dollars in 2025, and the scale of China's car camera industry is expected to reach 23 billion yuan.
With the continuous improvement of autonomous driving technology, the demand for in-vehicle cameras in smart cars has gradually expanded from rear view to side view, surround view, front view, and interior view.
Among them, the surround-view camera is called a panoramic image monitoring system, which is mainly used to identify parking lane signs, road conditions and surrounding vehicle conditions; generally, images from multiple cameras are spliced to provide 360° imaging for vehicles.
According to the detection requirements of the surrounding situation of the vehicle body, the surround view camera is mainly installed in the position of the car logo or grille in the front and rear of the car.
At present, the number of bicycles with surround-view cameras in smart cars is generally 4. With the continuous improvement of the level of automatic driving, the number of bicycles equipped with surround-view cameras is also climbing year by year, driving the development of industry chain companies.
After years of cultivating the optical track, the Surround View 3M vehicle lens developed by the SZOF Optical Technology Corporation R&D team will be mass-produced in 2022.
Compared with the mainstream surround view car lens on the market, the surround view 3M car lens technology developed by SZOF is more advanced. At present, the mainstream surround view car lens is 1.2 million pixels.
According to SZOF, through reasonable settings, the optical imaging system of the company's Surround View 3M vehicle lens has the advantages of ultra-wide angle (200°) and 3 million high-pixel (3MP) high pixels. Among them, 3MP brings 2.5 times higher resolution, providing clearer imaging effect, longer detection distance, and larger FOV field of view.
At the same time, the Surround View 3M vehicle lens uses a glass-plastic hybrid structure, which makes the resolution performance more stable in extreme environments (high temperature, low temperature, shock resistance, waterproof).
Relying on the rich technical accumulation in the field of mobile phone cameras and the increase in R&D investment, SZOF has achieved good results in the field of vehicle cameras.
At the 5th Smart Car Annual Conference and Annual Golden Globe Awards Ceremony, SZOF Automobile Association won the "2021 Leading Supplier of Intelligent Driving Market Segment (Camera Module)"; SZOF was selected as one of the top 10 global car camera manufacturers. It can be seen that SZOF is in a dominant position in the field of vehicle cameras.
SZOF's newly developed 100-megapixel 7P optical lens has been commercialized in early 2021, and the newly developed 8-megapixel ADAS front-view HD camera will be mass-produced soon. This year, a trinocular with two 8-megapixel cameras will be launched. The assembly meets the visual perception of the full range of the front view.
In-vehicle cameras are the basis for SZOF's layout in the field of smart cars, and extend to millimeter-wave radar, lidar, HUD, body electronics, instrument central control and other products, constantly enriching the product matrix layout, and becoming a supplier of full-stack intelligent driving solutions. In addition to the smart car business sector, SZOF also continues to strengthen the development of new technology products, and multi-directionally deploys optical optoelectronics business in new fields such as VR/AR, industrial, medical, and sports cameras, making it an important growth contributor in the future.
SZOF proposed in the "Strategic Plan for the Next Five Years (2021-2025)" that it is necessary to build a strategic positioning of the business structure system of the three major sectors of smart phones, smart cars, and new fields. With the new strategy and SZOF maintaining its leading position in the smartphone field, in response to market demand, it will continue to accelerate its deployment on new tracks such as smart cars and VR/AR, opening up new profit models for the company and creating the second growth pole for its business.