The News: Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. just announced a multi-year agreement with the Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team. The partnership will see Qualcomm’s Snapdragon platform help create unique and disruptive experiences, both in person and online, for F1 fans. Read the full Press Release from Qualcomm here.
Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Races to Forefront with Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS Formula One Collaboration
Analyst Take: In today’s world, it’s all about creating memorable experiences. Snapdragon is Qualcomm’s consumer product brand, powering experiences across channels such as gaming, XR devices, wearables, smartphones and connected cars. The Qualcomm Mercedes AMG partnership will uplevel fan experiences both in person and digitally for one of the fastest growing sports.
This isn’t the first time Snapdragon and Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS have partnered up. They first started working together back in 2015, looking for ways to save time on the speedway. Using Snapdragon technology, Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS was able to send tire data to race engineers digitally in real time. Since then, they’ve made numerous refinements to that technology.
Partnership Details Still Hazy but Digital Experiences are a Priority for F1 Racing
While it’s not clear how Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS will use Snapdragon on the fan side, we can see from prior statements that Formula One itself has been looking to improve digital experience for a number of years. Believe it or not, as recently as 2017, Formula One did not even have a digital media department. They knew they needed to build a younger, more engaged global audience, and that technology is what would get them there. Last year, they made a deal with Salesforce to focus more on data collection and utilization. It’s no surprise then that the Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS team would look to step up its own game with Snapdragon. The platform offers huge speeds, low latency, high capacity, and the ability to deliver uniform user experiences, no matter where in the globe someone may be viewing a race.
A few things we know right now: the Snapdragon logo will be featured on the team’s 2023 car, the Mercedes-AMG F1 W14 E PERFORMANCE, which was recently unveiled in the UK. Snapdragon branding will also be featured feature on race suits and on the trackside teams. According to reps from Qualcomm, the Snapdragon/Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS team will continue to explore new and novel ways they can partner to accelerate digital transformation at the team’s headquarters in the UK.
Another obvious question for F1 fans and onlookers about this deal would be the quick pivot from Ferrari to Mercedes as it was just one season ago that Qualcomm did a large sponsorship deal with Scuderia. However, the glaring opportunity for Qualcomm is the broader Mercedes relationship and the large commitments between Qualcomm’s automotive business and Mercedes to build intelligent vehicles on Qualcomm’s platform. I see this as a more direct path to a return for Qualcomm from its F1 sponsorship—which sits nicely as F1 continues to gain popularity and Qualcomm continues to ambitiously grow its Automotive business. 2022 was a banner year for Qualcomm seeing its automotive pipeline swell to $30 billion—Mercedes part of that growing number.
Overall, I see this as a strategic move for Qualcomm. The popularity of F1 plus the company’s automotive ambitions seem to make for a sensible investment for Qualcomm.
Disclosure: Futurum Research is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.
Analysis and opinions expressed herein are specific to the analyst individually and data and other information that might have been provided for validation, not those of Futurum Research as a whole.
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Author Information
Daniel is the CEO of The Futurum Group. Living his life at the intersection of people and technology, Daniel works with the world’s largest technology brands exploring Digital Transformation and how it is influencing the enterprise.
From the leading edge of AI to global technology policy, Daniel makes the connections between business, people and tech that are required for companies to benefit most from their technology investments. Daniel is a top 5 globally ranked industry analyst and his ideas are regularly cited or shared in television appearances by CNBC, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal and hundreds of other sites around the world.
A 7x Best-Selling Author including his most recent book “Human/Machine.” Daniel is also a Forbes and MarketWatch (Dow Jones) contributor.
An MBA and Former Graduate Adjunct Faculty, Daniel is an Austin Texas transplant after 40 years in Chicago. His speaking takes him around the world each year as he shares his vision of the role technology will play in our future.
