Trade war may end but tech rivalry is just beginning. Despite an easing of tensions on the trade front, it is clear that while the two are happy to trade, the fierce rivalry over technology standards has already begun as is evidenced by what is happening in Europe. The USA and China have signed a new trade agreement that formalises...
OYO is another blackeye in waiting. SoftBank’s flagging reputation may be about to take another hit as another of its flagship investments has hit difficulties and is struggling to overcome them. This is a knock-on effect from the WeWork disaster which has pushed SoftBank to demand that its portfolio companies start making money almost immediately which is causing a lot...
Choice of search engine makes little if any difference. Google choose an opportune time to publish what could have been seen as bad news but in reality, I don’t think it will make any meaningful difference. Right in the thick of CES (Jan 9th), Google sneaked out the news that it will be giving European users a choice of search...
Reality was the real theme at CES 2020 Back to reality The week started with its usual bunch of glitzy press conferences from the big players but their lack of substance meant that the real story was to be found elsewhere. I haven’t seen the official attendance numbers, but it felt like footfall was down in the big halls which...
VR, AR & XR There is a big reduction in the number of offerings present at the show this year. Many commentators are of the opinion that HTC is not going to last much longer in the VR game and a large number of the almost unknown Chinese offerings are not here this year. The top dogs remain Sony, the...
Alexa goes endgame, Chinese disguise & HERE. Google vs Alexa – White suit brigade At a high level, it looks like Google has almost given up on the smart home, but this is not quite the case as it has merely moderated its strategy. Google is no longer unique to the Las Vegas Metro nor is it plastered all over...
The action at CES is all with the small companies. Big guys are short of ideas. The big press conferences where the all the queues were to be found were more devoid of substance than ever before. Sony revealed a logo (PS5) that that was already blindingly obvious and showed a car that it will never make. Toyota reinvented the...
Byton – Still needs to address the elephant. Byton didn’t have new cars but it had plenty of new partners, a production-ready vehicle and some progress on its digital offering. The main reason to buy a Byton vehicle over its competitors is its digital offering. Hence, it was surprising that when the conversation turned to this crucial topic, a third...
CES 2020 gets in tune with reality. CES 2020 is unlikely to go down as a vintage year of excitement meaning that half the story is going to about where the buzz isn’t rather than where it is. There is very little that is new at CES 2020. The trains are still plastered with Google Assistant advertising and the same...
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.
WhatsApp – Money money money.
Advertising is not the way to monetise Instant Messaging. Facebook has abandoned its plans to monetise WhatsApp through advertising which if its peers are anything to go by was always going to fail. Facebook and Google are the kings of digital advertising in developed markets and as their portfolios have expanded, so has the requirement to monetise them. So far,...