Macro and competition temper outlook Alibaba reported disappointing results and cut full-year guidance as China’s restrictive Zero COVID strategy is slowing demand and its competitors are nipping at its heels. This all comes at a time when Alibaba is also investing heavily for the future which while it is well-timed in terms of increasing competition means that in the short-term...
Alibaba: a bail-out to win favour? The fact that news of an Alibaba-led consortium being the lead contender to bail out failed chipmaker Tsinghua Unigroup sent the shares down 5% tells investors everything they need to know about this transaction. Tsinghua Unigroup is just another example of how problematic China’s strategy to become self-sufficient in semiconductors has become. While the...
Qualcomm answers the M-series challenge. Qualcomm has worked out how to challenge Apple’s current advantage in Arm-based CPUs but the fact that it will be 2023 before it hits the market underlines just how far ahead Apple is. Qualcomm held its 2021 analyst day in which it stated that it sees its serviceable market growing by 12% for the next...
Interoperability between these two is the easy bit. Interoperability between Microsoft and Meta Platforms is an important step to ensuring the success of the Metaverse, but this one was an obvious and easy move meaning that interoperability remains by far the biggest hurdle that the Metaverse has to overcome. Microsoft and Meta will partner so that Microsoft Teams and Horizons...
A deeper investigation was always expected. It looks like the UK Government is going to order a phase II investigation into Nvidia’s purchase of Arm from Softbank which is going to delay things further and may force Nvidia to make bigger concessions to get the deal through. The UK Sunday Times (see here) has found sources that claim that Nadine...
I am not a big believer in simulation. GM Cruise is one of the leaders in autonomous driving, but I suspect that its use of simulation as opposed to the real world will prevent its performance from getting to a level where it can be truly called autonomous. GM Cruise held an event last week where it discussed its autonomous...
Regulatory overhang remains. A slow down in growth at Tencent was mitigated somewhat by international expansion but could hide the fact that the regulatory spectre still looms large over this company particularly in financial services. Q3 2021 revenues / operating profit were RMB142.4 ($22.0bn) / RMB40.8bn a little behind estimates of RMB146.0bn / RMB40.2bn which sent the shares down...
Dreams trump arithmetic for now. Rivian is coming to market at $78 a share giving it a valuation of $77bn despite not having sold a single vehicle. Furthermore, no one is even bothering to discuss unimportant issues like revenue or cash flow preferring instead to rely on the “dreams” that are being sold by the management and its advisors. These...
Roblox confirms that it is not Peloton. Roblox has exited the pandemic in good shape despite its users getting out and about again confirming that it is a proper contender for the Metaverse if or when it comes to the mass market. Q3 2021 bookings / EPS were $637.8m / LOSS$0.13 which was ahead of expectations of $624.2m / LOSS$0.04....
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.
Zoom Q2 2021 – No prisoners
Zoom gets punished for a tiny slip again. Zoom again demonstrates that when the multiples are very high, any tiny slip compared to expectations will be harshly punished by the market. Zoom reported good results and guided nicely for the coming quarter but the bugbear of post-pandemic growth continues to dog the company which turned a 9% rally into a...