XPE Lounge, page-1709

The space is dominated by large incumbents, such as Qualcomm and Intel, and conducting business with them can be difficult.

This assumption stems from the fact that, in the smartphone space, this has indeed been the case. One would be hard-pressed to find a single cellular market without Qualcomm chips operating on it.
However, the dynamics are already beginning to change. The large incumbents, which built their competitive advantage by integrating as much as possible into a chip and constantly pushing the performance envelope, are now facing a very different market. The focus now is on chipsets requiring fewer features, reduced cost, and lower power.

This discontinuity has provided the opportunity for smaller companies with unique technologies to step in and claim a primary position in the market. For example, these smaller companies already have a higher market share in the CAT-1 space, breaking the monopoly held by the big players.

The multitude of cellular IoT standards creates fragmentation that increases cost and compromises interoperability.

Cellular IoT has two variants—Cat-M1 and Cat-NB1—which creates fragmentation in the market and leads to higher investment in developing chipsets. However, we’re beginning to see the development of a multimode IoT chip capable of supporting both variants in one chipset. The ability to run both technologies on a single chip will mean that any incremental costs are marginal. Therefore, although the presence of more than one standard will always create some fragmentation, the market will certainly react positively to a product that supports both in a single chip, without any cost premium.​