Very little substance to this agreement. Renault and Nissan have signed an exclusive deal with Waymo that signals a further fracturing of the Renault Nissan Mitsubishi alliance and when picked apart the deal doesn’t really mean anything. The deal has clearly been worded extremely carefully to give all parties as much wiggle room as possible, meaning that this is not...
Folding phones are now about bragging rights. The launch dates of the Huawei Mate X and the Galaxy Fold have very little to do with demand or market readiness and are really about who can be first with a workable folding screen product. Hidden in the dreadful news (see here) with regard to Huawei’s outlook in smartphones was the news...
Facebook takes a shot at the banking sector. Facebook has launched a digital currency platform that it hopes will succeed thanks to its pervasive network of 2.2bn users into which it can embed its payment system making it much easier to access and use. This is much the same strategy that Apple successfully used with Apple Music where every...
Huawei enters the death spiral. Huawei has warned that its international shipments are already in free-fall which fits with RFM’s recent observations, but I suspect that there could be worse to come as Huawei has entered the death spiral. According to Bloomberg (see here), Huawei is now expecting to see a 40-60m drop in unit shipments this year as...
China likely to be first with a fully digitised vehicle. Alibaba’s partnership with foreign car makers to offer its voice assistant in the vehicles transforms the Chinese market into a two-voice race between Alibaba and Baidu. Alibaba has already released its assistant Tmall Genie for a smart speaker but it has now extended this domain into vehicles with the release...
Epic embarks on a trip around the Digital Life Pie. Epic Games is not resting upon the massive success and cash generation from Fortnite but is instead putting this money to work to build what may become a fully-fledged ecosystem in its own right. On top of its recent purchase of Psyonix (see here), Epic is also buying Houseparty...
Streaming goes after broadcast radio. Spotify has launched a radio-like product that is a niche add-on for now but if successful will challenge the existence of broadcast radio in the USA. The new product is called Your Daily Drive and is part of the offering made to premium subscribers only. It comes in the form of a Spotify playlist that...
The shake-out begins. I suspect that Aurora will regret rebuffing VW’s attempts to acquire it as the loss of this key partner is likely to make life very difficult for this also-ran of the autonomous driving industry. Aurora is just one of many who I think are already struggling, meaning that the inevitable shake-out that is coming, may already be...
Samsung plays the waiting game. Samsung is still clearly struggling with the Galaxy Fold but I suspect that behind the scenes, it is waiting to see how the situation for Huawei’s Mate X pans out. Samsung has made a very vague statement regarding the launch of the Galaxy Fold saying that it will announce the new launch date in the...
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.
Didi – One app to rule them all.
Didi wisely lets in the 3rd parties. Didi’s move to open its platform to 3rd parties indicates that in China, the battle is now all about becoming a transport market place than it is about ride-hailing or becoming a robotaxi operator. Didi Chuxing, which has around 80% of the Chinese ride-hailing market, has opened its platform to 3rd parties such...