Automotive dominates on day 1. Consumer electronics companies are regularly referring to vehicles as devices on wheels in their CES 2022 marketing which is almost certain to incense the very companies that they are hoping to sell their products to. This is because “handset on wheels” or “IoT on wheels” is a sign of failure for the OEMs who look...
Omicron pandemonium – Silver lining Despite the best efforts of the CTA, the advent of the hyper-contagious SARS-Cov2 variant means that CES 2022 is going to be a subdued affair. Not only have many participants decided to stay away but many others that were still going (myself included) have failed to pass the health check required to attend the conference....
Radio Free Mobile wishes its readers a happy Christmas and new year. RFM will return for CES 2022.
Meta hasn’t given up on Fintech Meta’s purchase of trademarks is a clear sign that it has not given up on financial services, but the vested interests and central banks will do everything they can to prevent Meta from making any headway. The story of Meta’s cryptocurrency, Libra (now Diem), is a tale of woe. What began as a great...
Retreat and live to fight another day. SenseTime’s addition to the US investment blacklist has delayed the already-downsized IPO where I think the sensible move is to postpone the listing and come back when conditions are better. As far as the West goes, SenseTime is a controversial company as it is alleged that SenseTime’s best-in-class facial recognition software is being...
Listing in Hong Kong will not help much. Didi has begun its preparations to relocate its listing to Hong Kong but this is unlikely to be able to make up for the fact that the company is already a very pale reflection of its former self. Didi, like much of the Chinese technology industry, has been under regulatory scrutiny for...
Deep Mind chips away at the big challenges. Deep Mind has released new research on language models which is an attempt to address 2 of the big problems with deep learning and again demonstrates that it is one of the best AI companies in the world. Deep Mind has published 3 papers (see here, here, and here) that outline the...
Legitimacy is the silver lining to the latest cloud. It looks like China is going to tighten the rules around how Chinese companies access foreign capital which could more nervousness but at the same time, it would ass legitimacy to what has been a very grey and increasingly dangerous aspect of Chinese investing. Chinese regulators are drawing up a list...
Intel should sell as much as it can. In the face of nonsensical valuations for the EV sector and Mobileye no longer being a core part of Intel, it makes complete sense to relist the company, but Intel should sell as much of the company as it can. Acquisitions are more often than not abject failures, but this one can...
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.
CES 2022 Day 2 – Peace and progress.
Quiet floors but lots to see Contrary to the words of Gary Shapiro, CTA CEO, the floors of Vegas are not messy but sparse and quiet. It looks to me that fewer exhibitors than the CTA led us to believe have turned up, but given the Omicron tidal wave, this is not a big surprise. While the footfall is probably...