Looks like Uber’s autonomous unit is worth $0. Recent rumblings are confirming my long-held view that Uber’s autonomous driving effort is worthless which will incense the Japanese investors who invested $1bn just 18 months ago. Both The Information and Bloomberg have written articles over the last month highlighting severe problems at the unit including disagreement on which direction to take...
Facebook, Apple, Amazon and Google will have to fight for their businesses. The US Congress has issued a damning report that accuses Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon of abusing their market dominance setting the scene for a colossal power struggle. Apple The complaint here is centred around the app store and will have Epic Games (see here) hopping around with...
Apple looks to be going after both audio hardware and radio. Apple has cleared its decks of rival audio products in a sure move that a wider range of speakers, headphones are coming in a move that will help offset the weakening revenue generation from the flagship iPhone product. At the end of September all headphones and speakers from Bose,...
Asset sharing during a pandemic remains a bad idea. If Airbnb can go public at a level 66% higher than it raised money earlier this year, it is another clear sign that we are in another bubble similar to the Internet bubble 20 years ago. Airbnb has filed its initial paperwork to go public meaning that the S-1 should be...
Nikola inadvertently signals that it is in real trouble. The correct way to silence one’s critics is to rebut their arguments with evidence not to have them silenced using spurious methods which strongly hints that Nikola has no proper arguments and that its critics are broadly correct on their key allegations. I have largely stayed away from commenting on Nikola...
New devices do not address the overwhelming issue. Google’s new devices keep pace with the specification of its competitors and beat them when it came to software and AI performance but is unlikely to much more than offer token competition. Pixel. Google changing tack here and being far more aggressive on price in a bid to drive some badly needed...
Palantir takes unfair treatment of shareholders to a new level. Palantir’s S-1 and recent revisions reveal a voting structure that overwhelmingly favours its founders, ensuring that public investors are at great risk of paying the economic price of bad decisions over which they have no say. Palantir voting structure is very confusing to put mildly. On top of the now,...
Google sticks its oar in. Google’s move to tighten up on who can dodge its app store commission goes hand in hand with a more open environment on Android for competing app stores which I suspect is aimed at deflecting growing claims of monopolistic abuse while earning more than ever from Google Play. Google has said that it is going...
SMIC has a way out. The US Department of Commerce is going after SMIC’s alleged connections to the Chinese military rather than placing it directly on the entity list, potentially offering SMIC a way out of its current predicament. On Friday 25th September 2020, the US Department of Commerce communicated new restrictions on the export of certain products to SMIC....
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.
Autonomous Autos – Stark contrast
The leaders should survive while rest look to be in great peril. While Waymo pushes ahead with its “driverless” taxi service, Uber is mired in difficulty clearly indicating that the gap between the leaders and the laggards is widening. Waymo has announced that its “driverless” taxi service trial in Arizona will now be made available to the general public in...