Diamonds in the rough? Part of the MWC trade show is the 4YFN (four years from now) section where all the start-ups are to be found, most of whom have nothing to do with mobile technology. For once, I had time to do an in-depth tour of this exhibition and found 4 companies that piqued my interest. Inmersia – Outlandish...
5G non-entity 5G is missing in action at its own show but in many ways, this is a good thing. It means that there is no real controversy, problem or anything desperately exciting about 5G. It has dissolved into the background as it is being rolled out in volume and there will be around 1bn devices in circulation by the...
Its hero not zero MWC emerges from the dark tunnel of the pandemic and its attendees are happy to see the sunlight once again. I think the GSMA will be pretty happy. The show is not rammed but it is busy with I would estimate somewhere between 40% – 50% of the footfall that was experienced in 2019. This would...
Zero or Hero Mobile World Congress returns in earnest in 2022 which will prove to be a real test of how much damage the lockdown and video conferencing has done to in-person events. The GSMA (organiser) is expecting 40,000 – 60,000 attendees with 1,500 exhibitors which is considered to be an optimistic forecast. For context, 2019 had 110,000 attendees and...
Priced for stagnation Alibaba reported reasonable results but heavy investments, competition and China’s restrictive zero COVID policy are hurting both growth and profitability in the short term. I think that China is going to be forced to abandon zero COVID reasonably soon which, combined with stepping up to meet the competitive threat, should mean that growth will come back over...
Chinese regulators come out swinging for round 2. It looks as if another round of crackdowns is about to be launched upon the Chinese technology sector and it is Tencent that remains by far the most exposed this time around. After a period of relative calm which emboldened the bottom fishers, it looks like the Chinese state is not done...
Intel turns its hand to disruption. The first signs of Intel’s new identity are beginning to emerge with the launch of a new product that aims to challenge Chinese dominance of equipment for Bitcoin mining / Blockchain computing. This is something that is badly needed in this industry where the verification of transactions on the distributed ledger is inflexible, slow...
The clue is in the name. I have been sceptical on many companies and projects (and been proven wrong in many cases) but the technology and the company I am most sceptical about is Virgin Hyperloop which appears to need to get rid of the laws of physics in order to get off the ground. Reality is starting to really...
The first example of “build the wall”. With the strategic rivalry between the West and China rapidly evolving into an ideological struggle (see here), new technologies that emerge are likely to be governed by two standards: one for China and its partners and another for everyone else. The current excitement around the Metaverse is a great example of this as...
Richard is founder, owner of research company, Radio Free Mobile. He has 16 years of experience working in sell side equity research. During his 11 year tenure at Nomura Securities, he focused on the equity coverage of the Global Technology sector.
Ericsson – The bugbear is back.
After 20 years, corporate governance is once again a problem. 18 years ago, Ericsson’s corporate governance went from awful to not great but now with its latest blunder, the pressure is on to fix what it should have fixed back in 2004. Activist investor Cevian Capital has accumulated a large position in Ericsson and, smelling blood in the water, is...