NVIDIA wins major support. NVIDIA got a big boost for its acquisition of Arm with MediaTek, Broadcom & Marvell all publicly supporting the deal which I think greatly reduces the biggest roadblock to the transaction. The biggest problem for anyone contemplating the acquisition of Arm has always been the issue of Arm’s independence. Billions of chips using Arm’s IP in...
The first battle is lost but the war has just begun. China is having a very hard time in its struggle to become technologically independent but in the long run, it is in a far stronger position than many give it credit for. Deep down I am pretty sure that China knows that in CMOS semiconductor manufacturing the battle is...
Tencent is the acid test of CCP intent. While Alibaba, Ant Group, Meituan, and so on have all felt the wrath of the regulator (i.e. the CCP), Tencent has so far been left alone and its fate will be a good indicator for what the real motivation of the government is towards big tech and fintech in particular. Pony Ma...
RISC-V wins blue-chip backing. In announcing some higher-end RISC-V-based processors and winning support from Intel, SiFive has improved the credibility of RISC-V when it comes to challenging Arm in more than just low-end microprocessors. That being said, RISC-V and its proponents have an odyssey to undertake before it has a hope of challenging the scale and breadth of the semiconductor...
Oculus should not need advertisements The rapid push back against the idea of advertisements in VR is a clear signal that this monetisation model will not work in this instance but given where Facebook is, this model is not needed. The Oculus Quest 2 is showing signs of being this generation’s version of the Nintendo Wii which launched in 2006....
Simon and Jensen make their case. Arm and NVIDIA have made a good case as to how the technology industry (excluding Intel and AMD) will benefit from NVIDIA’s acquisition from Arm, but I doubt that this was enough to win over its opponents meaning that momentum for RISC-V is likely to continue. Simon Segars (CEO Arm) and Jensen Huang (CEO...
ByteDance’s business model has a fundamental problem. ByteDance had its best year ever last year in terms of revenue, but because it employs over a 100,000 people, it is still losing a fortune which is a situation that a company of this size should have long left behind it. ByteDance grew revenues 111% YoY in 2020 to $34bn with 1.9bn...
Waymo is racing to market. Waymo has raised more money clearly indicating that Waymo’s technological edge has been eroded as the data suggests and that it is now a straight race to the finishing line in terms of the six leading contenders. Waymo has raised another $2.5bn at a valuation that was probably around $30bn which comes on top of...
The OpenRAN pieces may not fit together very well. Vodafone is launching OpenRAN on its network in what looks like an experiment to test whether or not OpenRAN can fulfill any of the promises that its proponents have so often made. I suspect that it is going to struggle to do so. OpenRAN is an industry movement to make the...
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.
MWC 2021 Days 0-4 – Missing in action.
All eyes turn to CES 2022. Mobile World Congress (MWC) is in full swing but a dearth of news flow and footfall at the event reveals that MWC is a very pale shadow of its former self meaning that CES 2022 needs to be a big success to breathe life back into the technology conference circuit. The first day of...