Incremental improvements hallmark a rather humdrum keynote. With less to say about AI and Android, Google added hardware launches and pushed a privacy agenda in its keynote in a sign that this is going to be an ordinary developer event. The most relevant announcements included: First, Google Assistant: A big development by Google in the last 12 months has been...
Plenty of nice. No must-have In a company that is now so dominated by the enterprise, its gaming business increasingly sticks out like a sore thumb begging the question as to whether Microsoft will eventually divest it. Microsoft’s annual developer conference was a business-as-usual event, with incremental improvements here and there that was somewhat spoilt by a Hololens 2 demo...
Epic fuels its ecosystem ambitions Psyonix adds weight to Fornite’s already mighty presence in the world of digital gaming meaning that Microsoft, Sony, Valve and Google should take notice. Epic Games is acquiring Psyonix which is both a long-term partner as well as the creator of Rocket League, a very popular e-sports game with 50m players. Psyonix does two things...
A reason to give your kids Android. Apple vigorously denies that its purge of parental control apps has anything to do with its new Screen Time feature but even its own words cast plenty of doubt on its excuse of “privacy and security”. Parental control apps typically use a technology called mobile device management (MDM). This is administrator level software...
Apple FQ2 19 – Stabilisation Apple reported what was considered to be good results as the iPhone business showed greater stabilisation than the more pessimistic end of the market had feared. FQ2 19 revenues / EPS was $58.0bn / $2.46 compared to consensus at $57.5bn / $2.38. Guidance was also ahead of expectations with FQ3 19 revenues / gross margins...
Google Q1 19 – Risky investments. Google reported disappointing Q1 19 results as both its size and the fact that it is 50% dependent on fixed internet advertising caused it to underperform expectations. Q1 19 ex-TAC revenues / adj-EPS were $29.5bn / $11.90 which were below expectations when compared to consensus at $30.3bn / $13.21. This was largely caused by...
Mate X unlikely to launch on time. The timing of Samsung’s inevitable (see here) delay of retail availability of the Galaxy Fold will be short-lived as while the Huawei’s Mate X has a better design, this choice is likely to have come at the cost of extreme fragility. Samsung has delayed retail availability but for how long will depend on...
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...
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...
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.
Tesla – Leaky bucket
The assumptions do not hold water It looks like Tesla has been successful in raising money for its autonomous driving ambitions but I find its commentary to be somewhat misleading which combined with a total lack of hard data makes me wonder whether Tesla is going to make it in this space. This is not helped at all by Elon...