ByteDance – Tidy and focus.

ByteDance is moving from growth into monetisation. ByteDance is showing signs of moving into the next phase of its life cycle which involves tidying up loose ends and moving to really monetise the global engagement that it has generated over the last few years. India has become ByteDance’s No. 2 market with 200m users of TikTok as the nature of...

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Food delivery – Bloodbath extended.

The future of Grubhub is still bleak.  Grubhub has decided to sell itself to Just Eat Takeaway rather than Uber in a move that cited regulatory risk but in reality, will result in a continuation of the bloodbath. In a hurriedly put together deal, Just Eat Takeaway will acquire Grubhub in an all-share deal that values Grubhub at around $75.15...

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  • 102

Apple, Arm and Intel – Devilish legacy.

As with servers, the main issue is legacy software.  It looks like Apple is finally about to pull the plug on Intel in its Macintosh computers and switch to Arm which will offer the possibility of unification of iOS and macOS but also raises the problem of all the legacy software that will no longer work. Apple is holding an...

Huawei – Nowhere to run pt XVII.

Patent counting is not an indication of reality.  The notion that the number of patents that one holds is a refection of one’s contribution to a technology is deeply flawed and in the case of Huawei, most of the evidence points to the contrary. Hence, I don’t think that having a large patent count is going to help alleviate the...

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E-Bikes – Sweet spot.

Public transport’s loss is e-bikes’ gain.   The aversion to asset sharing is likely to persist for as long as there is no reliable vaccine (evidenced by the sudden spike in demand for e-bikes) meaning that the pressure on the asset sharing industry is not going to change anytime soon. The example of New Zealand shows that it is not...

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  • 105

Autonomous Autos – Insurance strikes back.

A study with questionable motivations. I have long argued that the automobile insurance industry must resist the adoption of autonomous driving for as long as it can (see here) and a study from one of its industry bodies seems to be aimed at doing exactly that. Despite protestations to the contrary from the industry, I firmly believe that autonomous driving...

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Zoom Q1 2020 – Zoom by nature

All priced in. Zoom reported very strong Q1 2020 results on all levels as far more customers than expected paid up for the service amid the flood of free users caused by the pandemic. Q1 2020 revenue / EPS were $328m / $0.09 compared to consensus at $203m / $0.01. Customers paying more than $100,000 per year was up 90%...

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Quibi – Eyeball desert

Quibi looks doomed to fail. The early figures for Quibi are very disappointing which the company is blaming on the pandemic lockdown which I find very surprising as everyone else is finding precisely the opposite. I suspect that the reality is that the video format that Quibi is pushing simply does not work under any circumstances which will result in...

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  • 109

Huawei – Nowhere to run pt. XVI.

The West hardens further signalling a terrible 2020 and 2021. The combination of a U-turn by the UK, failure to get the extradition case against its CFO thrown-out, the loss of TSMC and a hardening of the EU’s stance personified by Denmark all in the space of 10 days is setting up a really awful year for Huawei. Huawei did...

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Microsoft – Generation game.

Microsoft is determined not to make a mess of this generation. Microsoft is still licking its wounds from being trounced by Sony in the last console generation but is showing all the signs of not repeating the mistakes that allowed Sony to outsell it 2 to 1. Ahead of Sony’s event next week, Microsoft has announced that its new console...

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