The floor: software takes a back seat With the 5G cycle in full swing, MWC has gone fully back to its roots as an equipment show. Boxes with lots of gold-plated plugs and odd-shaped antennae are everywhere and even Hall 8.1 has a much more commercial and mature feel to it than in previous years. Importantly, the box makers are...
ZTE has the best handset demonstration of 5G. Doing a round of the 5G demonstrations revealed a disappointing situation which also did not hold up well to close inspection or questioning. First, Samsung: which I rate as the most disappointing. The 5G devices on the stand (that one can play with) have no reference in the software or settings to...
Everybody folds and 5G gets real-ish Folding bandwagon In what has unsurprisingly become a crowded space, there is a lot of variation but I think the most impressive demonstration is the FlexPai from Royole which has improved massively since CES. Huawei has launched the Huawei Mate X which I think is a better design than the Galaxy Fold. This consists...
Samsung relaunches the Nokia Communicator. Samsung has resurrected the Nokia Communicator (Galaxy Fold) and launched a good iteration of the Galaxy series that is different enough to warrant an upgrade. At the same time, Samsung has launched a 5G version of the s10 that is bigger by way of a 6.7” screen but importantly not thicker and also packs in...
Finally, some good news for Google. Smart speaker shipments for Q4 18 show that Google has made up some ground on Amazon, but it has a very long way to go before it can have any real hope of offering a real challenge to Amazon in the smart home. 2018 has largely been a year of disappointment for Google as...
A race not worth winning. With Mobile World Congress just around the corner, the focus for the next week or so will be back on 5G as this will be all that anyone has to talk about next week. At the same time, Huawei will be on a massive charm offensive to convince regulators and mobile operators that its equipment...
Google fails again to close on Alexa. While Google is rapidly increasing the number of skills available for the assistant, it has failed to materially close the gap on Amazon in 2018, giving just another indication that the best product might not win this battle. In January 2019, Google Assistant had 4,253 skills in the USA up 141% YoY while...
From revenue to cost. All is not well at Didi as a restructuring of the company is a sure sign that targets are not being met which is certain to lead to questions being asked about the validity of the most recent valuation of $56bn. Didi has announced that it will cut 2,000 jobs (15% of the workforce) as it...
Waymo’s lead shrinks again to 2 to 1. Apple’s offering is awful. Analysis of autonomous testing data submitted to the California DMV for 2018, reveals that while Waymo is still out front, GM Cruise has made up ground, cementing its No.2 position. Newcomer Apple came in 2nd last only to Uber whose performance has deteriorated massively in the last 12...
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.
MWC Day 3 – 5G: No nonsense
No party means no hangover. MWC is almost over and while the stages have seen some confident predictions (eg Cisco: “hype is going to be reflected in the reality”), the message from the floor and in the trenches is much more realistic. To me, this is excellent news because, in reality, no one is getting over excited and consequently the...