Published in PC Hardware

Nvidia fine-tunes Tegra strategy

by on11 August 2014



Adds Android TV, removes phones from the equation

It looks like Nvidia is adjusting its Tegra strategy every quarter and now the company has another update that should help its business develop and grow.

Nvidia confirmed a significant Tegra strategy shift earlier this year. Tegra 4i didn’t work out as expected and neither did the Tegra 4, but luckily Nvidia responded with a course change and a new focus on alternative markets. Nvidia reported that its revenue in automotive grew 70 percent year-over-year and Nvidia expects strong growth in automotive for years to come. The cars of the future will have vastly superior multimedia entertainment systems. Cars like Elon Musk’s Tesla already have a control table powered by another SoC and we expect to see more of this in the future. Nvidia is doing fine in this high margin space.

The second area of interest for Nvidia is gaming. Android is a popular platform and Nvidia expects that more people will start gaming on it. This is the purpose of Nvidia’s Shield console and Shield tablet, as Nvidia wants to capture the attention of Android gamers. Shield is currently the best gaming tablet out there and having laptop grade graphics inside helps. Unfortunately there aren’t that many demanding titles on Android, at least not yet.

Jen-Hsun Huang, the CEO of Nvidia also made an interesting comment in the latest conference call.

"The mobile platform is now extended beyond phones and has gone into tablets, as you know of course, but recently also into television," he said.

He also hinted at some Android TV based product powered by Nvidia hardware choosing his words carefully. 

Nvidia’s CEO was wise to leave the phones completely out of the picture, as apparently Nvidia gave up a hope that it can compete in this space. Jen-Hsun Huang claims that Nvidia spends its R&D in three major segments automotive, Android TV and gaming consoles including Shield series products. Let’s see how this Android TV strategy will play our, as it would not be the first time that Google tried to change the way we watch TV.

Nvidia also noted that it wants to help promising companies such as Xiaomi to manufacture OEM based products. This cooperation really paid off as Xiaomi Mi Pad is selling well in China.

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