SoftBank will emerge better and stronger. It is the realisation it overpaid for many of its portfolio investments that is causing SoftBank so much difficulty at the moment which I think will lead to a complete re-writing of its investment process for the better. SoftBank has revealed that it expects to write down some assets in its Vision Fund by...
Radio Free Mobile is running a series of webinars for its subscription clients to present what it sees as the issues an outcomes resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. Richard founded RFM after spending 20 years in investment banking as a technology lead analyst. Richard also gained a PhD in molecular immunology at University College London providing the foundation for a...
Short-term issues mask long-term promise. Zoom has been thrust into the limelight due to the current pandemic and as a result, its shortcomings (typical for any young company), it has lost customers which masks its long term potential. RFM is a subscriber to Zoom’s professional service and regularly uses all of the other systems with its clients as the nature...
Usage increase that will be hard to monetise. There has been a large increase in smartphone usage, but I think that a lot of companies are going to struggle to make real money from the impact of COVID-19. App Annie (see here) which measures app download and usage held a webinar yesterday to discuss what it was seeing in terms...
The pandemic is a great use case for wireless power. Until there is a vaccine, no one is going to want to touch anything they don’t own which paves the way for greater penetration of touchless technology for things like payments, doors, bathrooms and so on. Touchless technology almost always requires the device to have a power source which can...
Samsung Electronics Q1 20 – Cloud rescue. Samsung has reported good Q1 2020 results where the clear indication is that demand for memory, storage and other silicon chips for the cloud has offset weakness in consumer. Q1 2020 revenues / EBIT were approximately KRW55tn / KRW6.4tn below the revenue forecast of KRW56tn but above the EBIT forecast of KRW6.2tn. Samsung’s...
An equity raise will be brutal. I have very little doubt that Airbnb will survive this crisis but there is very little visibility in terms of how much value the market will put on its operations the next time it has a market event. Airbnb is in a very tough spot as not only it is a travel company, but...
Amazon and Microsoft are in pole position. The COVID-19 pandemic is making both temporary and permanent changes to the way the economy works but picking the beneficiaries is much more difficult than it would seem. The net result of everyone staying at home has been skyrocketing internet usage which is beginning to put a strain on the core network which...
SoftBank is likely to have to sell more assets. SoftBank is in an increasingly tight spot as many of its portfolio companies are in trouble and need cash injections right at the exact time when SoftBank needs to conserve cash the most. WeWork – Any more work? WeWork is in real trouble and SoftBank’s withdrawal from the share purchase worsens...
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.
Netflix – The addition game
Netflix needs subscribers. Netflix is being hailed as one of the lockdown winners and while usage of the service has probably jumped 30% or more in the last quarter, Netflix needs to add subscribers to increase revenues and justify its recent rally. RFM research has found that most of the digital ecosystem will not benefit from the pandemic induced lockdown...