Ofo’s travails will put it in Didi clutches. Ofo is facing another angry creditor, which combined with the seemingly endless bicycle graveyards in China, clearly indicates that the consolidation phase is now upon us. Bike sharing like food delivery, app stores, valet apps and so on is passing through the classic hype cycle (first defined by Gartner) and now finds...
Anecdotes are not data. Waymo may appear to be struggling with some of the most basic vehicle operations, but the little data that there is still suggests that it is miles ahead of the competition. A report from The Information cites anecdotal observations (see here) that Waymo vehicles have had trouble making left turns at intersections and that local residents...
Volareo is way too late to have a chance. The smart speaker market is already extremely crowded which is likely to ensure that Volareo’s offering disappears without a trace. Volareo is a Dutch start-up whose proposition is based on ensuring that musicians get a large slice of the revenue from a song with payment being enabled using cryptocurrencies. The device...
On course to become a commodity. Toyota is partnering with Uber in a move that confirms that it has no confidence in an in-house autonomous vehicle offering as well as little understanding of how its industry is becoming driven by software. Toyota will invest $500m in Uber at a valuation of $72bn and begin manufacturing Sierra Minivans with Uber’s self-driving technology...
Didi has its Baidu and Facebook moment. Chinese technology companies have a culture of moving fast and breaking things, and while Didi got a free pass from the regulator for the first incident (unlike Baidu), it is unlikely to get off scot-free the second time. Another passenger looks to have been the victim of a homicide perpetrated by a driver...
Device pays the hype price. There is nothing wrong with the Magic Leap One when compared to its peers, but relative to what Magic Leap promised, the device is very disappointing. This is the problem with failing to appropriately manage expectations as the general opinion of this device is now not as good as I think it should be. Comparing...
Gross margin of 6.7% is all one needs to know. Xiaomi reported what is being received as a reasonable set of results, but in my opinion, these results further highlight Xiaomi’s chronic inability or unwillingness to make money for its owners. Q2 18 revenues / adj-EBIT were RMB42.2bn / RMB1.6bn (3.9%) after removing the one-off impact of stock compensation and...
Cable cedes users to a combination of streaming and OTA. The usage of digital antennas to receive over-the-air broadcast TV is continuing to rise in yet another sign that the cable TV subscription is facing an existential threat. The latest research from Parks Associates (see here) has found that the penetration of digital antennas has increased to 20% from 16%...
Way too early to go public. Most metrics for Qutoutiao are pointing in the wrong direction, leaving only its relatively low penetration of the Chinese market as a positive. Qutoutiao is a content aggregator which makes some sense in a world where there is so much content that finding what one likes is increasingly difficult. On the plus side, those...
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.
Samsung – Optimistic Origami
Folding devices to offset the ravages of commoditisation. The announcement of a device with a truly flexible screen looks to have been perfectly timed as Samsung is starting to run out of hardware differentiation in its Galaxy handset line-up. The idea of a device with a flexible screen has been around for more than 7 years (see here) and as...