Project Fear fails to reflect reality. Until users vote with their feet, criticism of Facebook’s business practices is irrelevant. A cracking set of results further dispel the notion that the end is nigh for Facebook as neither users nor advertisers are deserting the platform as critics claim. The only real problem remains AI and profitability which are inextricably linked and...
The switch to DAU hides reality. Twitter reported good results as its actions to stimulate engagement began to bear fruit but any notion that this is a return to long-term growth does not bear up to scrutiny. Q1 19 revenues / net Income were $787m / $191m ahead of consensus at $775m / $117m as product improvements drove users to...
Pony’s pilot highlights everyone’s problems. The launch of Pony.ai’s 1st live pilot looks great but digging into some of the details reveals that, just like everyone else, Pony.ai is plagued with the limitations of AI which are going to take a long time to solve. Pony.ai has announced PonyPilot which is a pilot “autonomous” ride-hailing service available in Guangzhou that...
Japanese investors have a bad case of FOMO syndrome. Fear of missing out (FOMO) is the only rational reason I can come up with for why Toyota and Denso would pour $667m into such an awful asset. I think that the only hope for this billion not to disappear into a black hole is for Uber to buy one of...
Huawei’s issues are likely to be just as bad. It looks like the majority of the screen failures on the Galaxy Fold are user errors but there are still enough other problems to warrant a delay to shipment while Samsung sorts them out. I doubt whether Huawei will fare much better. A whole slew of review units are showing catastrophic...
Tesla’s bold claims do not hold up to scrutiny. Elon Musk has made some pretty bold claims on Tesla’s behalf regarding the state of its autonomous driving solution but with no official hard data being offered and its record, it is hard to take the claim seriously. Tesla’s CEO, Elon Musk, has given an interview to an MIT researcher (see...
Ultimately, the pressure proved too much for Apple. Apple and Qualcomm have settled their long-running dispute (see here) over patent royalties and chipsets in what looks to me to be a big victory for Qualcomm. This outcome is very different from the settlement that was announced with Nokia in 2008 where I was of the opinion that Nokia got the...
Investors will now pay the price of allowing poor governance. The move to oust Mark Zuckerberg will almost certainly fail in the strongest signal yet that companies with uneven share voting structures should attract a discount to their valuation. An attempt is being made to remove Mark Zuckerberg as chairman that is almost certain to fail because unless Zuckerberg votes...
A profitless platform isn’t worth anything. Uber is asking for a much higher valuation than Lyft which it is trying to justify through its dominant position in its home market. However, Uber seems to have a chronic inability to make money in spite of its dominance, leaving me wondering when or if real earnings will ever grace the income statement....
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.
Verizon 5G – Speed not substance
The laws of physics reassert their supremacy. Verizon has been forced to ditch the $10 premium that it charges customers to access the 5G network as the performance delivered is exactly what the laws of physics predicted. Verizon, of course, has dressed this up as a sales promotion but this fools no one. The reality is that frequencies of 28Ghz...