Alexa might finally deliver on a 6-year old promise. Amazon’s annual Alexa event was dominated by generative AI, but the reality is that Amazon promised all this 6 years ago and remains demonstrably behind the curve when it comes to generative AI. It is ironic that Amazon has by far the largest installed base of hardware that could be upgraded...
The US sees through the propaganda. Commentary from the US Department of Commerce indicates that it has not fallen for the propaganda and realised that the ability to make chips economically at scale is more important than being able to achieve a single feat of engineering. The launch of the Huawei Mate 60 Pro has caused a lot of fuss...
Microsoft accidentally makes the case for edge AI. A simple mistake by employees exposed terabytes of Microsoft’s internal data to the world underlining that generative AI is still at the Wild West stage and that inference and even training at the edge is a safer prospect in the long-term. Microsoft’s AI researchers posted a repository of training data on GitHub...
Unity gambles with its market position and brand. Unity’s financial requirements have led it to alienate its customers which if left unresolved could cause its dominant position to erode and with it the substantial long-term potential it has as the platform for The Metaverse. Unity has updated its terms of business which will now require developers who meet either revenue...
WhatsApp Business is the only real opportunity. WhatsApp cost $22bn to acquire but has so far delivered very little although the indirect value that it has created in terms of keeping Meta as one of the largest digital ecosystems globally is indisputable. Unfortunately, unless one is a generative AI company, $0 revenues mean no contribution to the share price which...
SoftBank takes most of the value. At $51 per share, investors are being asked to pay for much of the growth that the company says it should be able to generate meaning that there is not very much being left on the table for public market investors. Despite the current malaise in the smartphone market, Arm is expecting a fairly...
A gesture, some silicon and a bit of camera. When the most exciting new feature is a gesture for the Apple Watch, it is clear that the new iPhone offers minor incremental upgrades over the iPhone 14 that are unlikely to kick start the replacement cycle that is needed to bring Apple back to growth. Apple launched the iPhone 15,...
Apple grudgingly extends its contract. It turns out that cellular radio is difficult (5G particularly) as Apple has been unable to create a high-quality 5G radio of its own which has forced it to extend its contract to buy 5G modems from Qualcomm until at least 2026. Apple’s extension means that it will purchase modems from Qualcomm in 2024, 2025...
Apple is at higher risk than Qualcomm. Both Apple and Qualcomm have taken a hit over their exposure to China, but the reality is that Apple carries much higher exposure to China than Qualcomm does even though the numbers signal the opposite. Apple’s shares fell by 2.9% and Qualcomm by 7.2% on a series of stories that included Apple products...
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.
The Metaverse – Volatile times
Weak markets don’t matter that much. Life is not great in The Metaverse at the moment as shipments are expected to almost halve in 2024 but in the grand scheme of things, this is irrelevant as RFM Research does not expect any real traction in this market much before 2028 or 2029. According to Counterpoint Research (see here), shipments declined...