Mobileye Hits Highest Level In A Month

Shares of Mobileye NV MBLY, an Israel-based developer of computer vision and machine learning technology for advanced driver assistance systems and autonomous driving technologies, soared higher by more than 8 percent on Thursday.

Mobileye's stock is still lower by around 10 percent for the year, having peaked during the summer months at $51.15. Nevertheless, the stock traded as high as $38.36 on Thursday, which marks the highest it has seen in a month.

New Partnership

Investors were buyers of the stock after the company announced a new partnership with HERE, an Open Location Platform company that enables people, enterprises and cities to harness the power of location.

As part of the new partnership, the two companies will link their respective autonomous driving technologies into one and create a market leading technology for the auto sector.

The new partnership is seen as a positive development after Mobileye publicly lost a key client in Tesla Motors Inc TSLA and at least one notable analyst said Mobileye has "zero chance" of remaining relevant.

Some of the initiatives likely to result from Mobileye and HERE's partnership include:

1. Integration of Mobileye's Roadbook with HERE HD Live Map.
2. Mobileye's utilization of the HERE Open Location Platform.
3. HERE will utilize raw sensor and observation data from Mobileye.

The two companies will also explore other future potential opportunities to further support automotive companies in advancing their autonomous driving strategies.

Commentary

"We are building a state-of-the-art global HD map that is becoming the standard for autonomous driving and other IoT applications that need precise location-based information and services," said Edzard Overbeek, CEO of HERE. "We are rapidly expanding this capability and I am very pleased that we can accelerate that work with Mobileye, a strategic partner which shares our view of where the automotive and other industries are going."

"High-definition mapping is a key enabler for autonomous driving. Mobileye's REM™ technology, enabling crowd-sourced data extraction, together with the backend processing of the Roadbook™ combined with HERE HD Live Map is critical to ensure dynamic, near real-time updates," said Amnon Shashua, chairman and chief technology officer of Mobileye. "We are pleased to work with HERE to create a 'world HD-map' standard, leveraging the combined fleet size of certain vehicle brands initially, with the objective of eventually launching an industry wide initiative."

Image Credit: By U.S. Embassy Tel Aviv (Ambassador's visit to Mobileye) [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons