News

Enhancing Global Competitiveness by Strengthening Development of Automotive/Mobility Systems and Sensing Edge Devices for the Web3.0/5G/6G Age

Alps Alpine Enters into Capital and Business Alliance with FreeBit, Acquires Shares

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Mar 31, 2023

  Alps Alpine Co., Ltd. (TSE: 6770; President & CEO: Toshihiro Kuriyama) today entered into a capital and business alliance agreement with FreeBit Co., Ltd. (headquarters: Shibuya-ku, Tokyo; President, CEO and CTO: Atsuki Ishida) with a view to developing a Web3.0 business model. Web3.0 represents the next generation of the Internet, decentralized and based on blockchain technology. FreeBit will carry out a disposal of treasury stock through a third-party allotment with Alps Alpine taking control of those shares, increasing its equity stake in FreeBit to 17.59% from 12.60%.

[Purpose of the Capital and Business Alliance Agreement]

  Alps Alpine is working to enhance its product development for the CASE domains – connected cars, autonomous driving, sharing and services, and electric vehicles – by leveraging an extensive track record supplying products to the world’s automakers, as well as product design and manufacturing expertise spanning a wide range of fields, such as input/output devices, communication and sensing. Activities so far have encompassed automotive systems and solutions, such as Digital Cabin solutions (DCS) and vehicle entry systems (including backend elements), and communication devices, such as 5G cellular modules.

  The FreeBit Group’s core business is smart infrastructure and the company boasts one of the top shares of the Internet services market for housing complexes in Japan. With privacy protection and information security growing in importance, Web3.0 – built upon blockchain and decentralization technology – is forecast to expand. FreeBit, anticipating full-scale implementation of 5G and 6G, aims to be a builder of platforms with strengths in blockchain technology – the cornerstone of Web3.0 – and service development capability, and has already realized a service that makes it into the world’s top five blockchains in terms of scale measured by the number of nodes.*1

  Through the capital and business alliance, Alps Alpine is looking to further enhance its software development activities and work with FreeBit to develop service platforms for automotive systems, mobility services and sensing edge devices employing blockchains and other Web3.0 technologies, thereby helping both companies maximize their Web3.0-related offerings on the global market.

  This will further boost business relating to safety and peace of mind while strengthening IT services business utilizing Alps Alpine’s sensing edge devices, including their deployment to housing complexes; automotive infotainment system business supporting new architecture; and mobility services business. The aim is to expand recurring business involving ongoing provision of value.

[Background]

  The two companies announced the formation of a comprehensive alliance on July 23, 2019, looking to establish a services business within the automotive market and to realize seamless car lifestyles for the CASE era. The alliance’s many achievements include joint development of “The Log,” a log data storage technology tied to blockchains that counters the risk of data tampering, and interaction among engineering personnel.

  The companies entered into a capital and business alliance agreement on March 31, 2023, with a view to further strengthening collaboration to enable provision of solution services in time for the upcoming Web3.0 and 5G/6G age, joint business proposals to customers, and the establishment of joint businesses, including recurring revenue model businesses.

  Alps Alpine is committed to developing optimal products capturing the needs of the market and customers into the future and aims to contribute to society through business.

FreeBit Co., Ltd. Website:

https://freebit.com/en/

*1
According to FreeBit research on the number of nodes per blockchain from information publicly available on the Internet as of March 9, 2023. FreeBit’s TONE Coin original loyalty point service, an Ethereum-compatible layer 1 blockchain run on smartphones, had more than 3,000 nodes in regular operation over a roughly 10-month period during a user-assisted demonstration experiment (carried out from June 2022, involving TONE Labo participants).