Jack Ma has made someone very cross. The Chinese regulator has forced both the Shanghai Stock Exchange and the Hong Kong Stock Exchange to suspend the Ant Financial IPO at the last minute in what can only be interpreted as a move to remind Jack Ma who really is in charge in China. Three days before Ant Financial was due...
Tesla is still bad at autonomous driving. Tesla’s latest pronouncement on the performance of Autopilot suggests that Autopilot is safer than humans, but the reality remains that Tesla is very far away from real autonomy and I think well behind its rivals. Tesla needs to give the impression that it is good at autonomous driving because a good portion of...
Re-inventing the silicon wheel makes no sense. Huawei appears to be planning on building its own semiconductor fab that is independent of US technology in a move that looks certain to fail. I think it would be better off using SMIC which despite its problems, is better at making semiconductors than Huawei is. Huawei seems to be intending to build...
Big tech is being driven by deficit spending. Big Tech continued to benefit from the huge increases in government spending during Q3 2020 but the fact that bail-outs can’t go on forever while the pandemic grinds on, caused them to sound a note of caution on the Q4 2020 and FY 2021 outlook. Apple FQ4 2020 Apple reported good results...
Another reprieve in name only. Allowing Huawei to buy non-5G components offers very little reprieve for either the infrastructure business or the handset business and from a security perspective makes no sense. It appears that vendors who are not selling components that are related to 5G will soon be able to resume shipments to Huawei as they now expect to...
Facebook gaming lays bare another dispute with Apple. Facebook has launched its gaming service and by going last it is avoiding the blunders of its rival Google, but Facebook fell short when it came to Apple’s restrictive policies. Facebook has launched its streaming service which will be free to play (at least initially) and it is very different from all...
Finally, the cupboard is bare. Huawei reported a difficult Q3 2020 results as management has finally run out of countermeasures and must now face the hit that the US sanctions are having on its business. 9-month 2020 revenues were RMB671.3bn up 9.9% YoY but when one strips out H1 2020, revenues in Q3 2020 grew by just 3.7% which could...
The foundation shakes Intel followed IBM in reporting weakness in the cloud which was more than offset by the PC market, but this was not enough to calm the market which fears a weakening of Intel’s foundations as well as a resurgent AMD. Intel Q3 revenues / EPS were $18.3bn / $1.02 broadly in line with consensus at $18.3bn /...
Removing the safety driver can lead to a misinterpretation of reality. Cruise has received permission to run its vehicles without safety drivers being present which may say more about the quality of its remote pilot system rather than the autonomous solution itself. Cruise does not have a bad solution for autonomous driving (although it is way behind on its initial...
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.
Qualcomm FQ4 2020 – Happy wave.
Finally, a wave to be pleased about. Qualcomm reported excellent results as the combination of Apple and China is driving a rapid roll-out of 5G enabled devices which is a technology where Qualcomm (as usual with a new radio technology) has the commanding position. FQ4 2020 revenues / EPS were $6.5bn / $2.58 nicely ahead of consensus at $5.9bn /...