China Domestic ADAS L2+ Capable Chipsets Anticipate Market Share Increase

Mainland China saw a surge in Level 2 assisted driving systems in electric passenger vehicles, accounting for 62.2% of the market share. Domestic Chinese brands, particularly emerging ones, are leading in developing advanced assisted driving technology. Nvidia dominates the supply chain with a 44.2% market share, followed by Horizon with 15.1%. Chinese chip startups are differentiating themselves through open collaboration, improving computing power, and targeting the mainstream market with the expectation of increasing their market share.

China's domestic brands are leading the market in the development and implementation of advanced assisted driving systems, capitalizing on their early-entry advantages in the electric and intelligent vehicle sector. These brands have an edge over other joint ventures in the planning and execution of smart assisted driving systems. Notably, the new emerging brands in automobile manufacturing hold a significant lead in the roll-out of high-level assisted driving systems. Among the top 10 brands selling vehicles equipped with L2+ assisted driving, nine are domestic, representing 93.6% of the total L2+ installations. Among these, new emerging brands account for 70.6% of the total market.

As the technical roadmap for achieving L2+ assisted driving functions becomes clearer, Canalys expects most domestic brands with L2+ to increasingly capture the CNY150,000 (US$20,925) market.

On the supply chain side in the market of electric vehicles equipped with standard L2+ assisted driving functions in mainland China, Nvidia led the pack with a 44.2% market share, followed by Horizon with 15.1% in Q1 2023.

Nvidia has taken the lead in high-computing-power fields, capturing the high-end market in line with the "dumbbell" structure of the Chinese market, characterized by the dominance of both high-end and entry-level models. Meanwhile, Chinese chip startups are differentiating themselves through their open collaboration models and are expected to further increase their market share.

The Chinese chip startups, while continually improving the computing power of their chips (with Horizon Journey 5 reaching 128 TOPS and Black Sesame A1000 Pro reaching 106 TOPS), have differentiated themselves from other models followed by Qualcomm, Nvidia as chip and solution providers, and Mobileye as a full-stack solution provider. Instead, these startups participate in a more open collaboration style that involves vehicle manufacturers in product and platform development. This helps car manufacturers in personalizing development, meeting the diverse needs of a “thousand vehicles, thousand faces” model, thereby continuously expanding to secure orders from vehicle manufacturers. With further penetration of proprietary products into the mainstream market, these brands anticipate an increase in their market share.