Formal Remarks Q4 2020 Results Webcast
Some other important accomplishments in 2020 that are not captured by
the financial statements included:
• We made an important step in sustaining our technology leadership
in Massive IoT by introducing the second generation of our Monarch
platform optimized for LTE-M/NB-IoT, which has been sampling since
the beginning of 2020 In Q4, we introduced a module based on
Monarch 2 As we noted during our January investor event, the
customer reception has been excellent, largely because we have built
on the maturity of Monarch 1 and its reputation, adding advanced
features and significantly reducing power consumption. During the
event, we spent considerable time discussing the major opportunities
we see in metering. We also discussed our relationship with Itron, the
largest company in the metering space, so I won’t repeat it all here
except to note that, in Q4 and so far in Q1 we have landed many new
designs wins in the metering space as well as other Massive IoT
applications.
• Meanwhile, during 2020 we also announced our second-generation
Calliope platform for Cat 1, which will be sampling in the first half of
this year. As mentioned during the investor event, this is a unique
offering with huge potential, and we expect Calliope 2 to drive market
share gains in the Cat 1 portion of the market beginning next year.
During Q4, we secured a proof-of-concept phase of a project with a
large consumer electronics company for a product using Calliope 2
and extended our Renesas engagement in Massive IoT to cover Cat1
in addition to LTE-M/NB-IoT. Then, in January, we were very pleased
to announce that Thales/Gemalto will adopt both Monarch 2 and
Calliope 2 as the basis for its new LTE-M and Cat 1 modules for
Massive IoT. It is always confirmation of our performance and
leadership and gratifying to win a repeat customer – in this case for
the third time. There is also strong interest in Calliope 2 from other
module-makers as well... and we have recently engaged with a major
OEM. Meanwhile, we are pleased that we are seeing strong demand
for our current Cat 1 platform – much stronger than we expected –
from existing customers.
• On top of our work on second-generation Massive IoT products, we
also managed to reach all our major 5G milestones on schedule and
the relationship with our major 5G strategic partner is progressing
very well. As announced last month, in addition to Monarch 2 and
Calliope 2, Renesas has chosen to work with us on Taurus, our high-
end 5G/4G platform. We are seeing very strong interest in Taurus
from both potential strategic partners and potential alpha customers.
We expect this interest to increase as we get closer to sampling
because everyone is looking for a more fully-optimized and cost-
effective solution for Broadband and Critical IoT applications than is
currently available in the market with existing solutions that are
optimized for smartphones.
• Finally, during 2020, we implemented very important go-to-market
initiatives designed to scale our direct sales capability with the
addition of several reps . . . and to scale our channel capabilities with
the addition of several large distributors and several microcontroller
companies as partners. All of these have already born fruit in the form
of design wins or significant new business opportunities . . . and we
expect even more traction as time goes on. Expanding our reach and
positioning the company to serve a fragmented market through these
distributors and channel partners will be a key factor in our ability to
reach scale. |
