All roads lead to Nvidia. Amazon reported good results that were led by AWS as appending on AI has reignited growth, but capex is growing to support these massive models and the main beneficiary remains Nvidia. Q1 24 revenues / EPS were $143.3bn / $0.98 ahead of estimates of $142.7bn / $0.84 and guidance for the coming quarter was broadly...
2 hits, one miss Alphabet: AI everywhere Alphabet reported strong results and spent its conference call reminding everyone that it is the best AI company even if it does a poor job of getting that message out to the media and investors. Q1 24 revenues-exTAC / EPS were $67.6bn / $1.89 ahead of estimates of $66.1bn / $1.53. Alphabet also...
Zuck returns to a bad habit. Meta reported reasonable results but Meta’s habitual tendency to spend resurfaced spooking the market which sent the shares down 15% which I can understand as, based on what it launched last week, Meta should be less capital intensive than its peers. Q1 24 revenues / EPS were $36.5bn / $4.71 slightly ahead of estimates...
TikTok: The ball is in China’s court. The chances of a ban on TikTok have increased substantially meaning that Beijing will now have to choose between the global expansion of a national champion and national security. The bill to force ByteDance to sell TikTok has passed the Senate and will now go to the office of the President who has...
Meta will need to stop making hardware. Meta has decided to open its VR software to 3rd party manufacturers in a sign that Meta is already thinking about the ecosystem of the Metaverse, but it does mean that Meta will have to stop making hardware. Meta Platforms will make the operating system of its headsets available to 3rd parties and...
New chip. New phone. Same story Huawei’s new Pura 70 Ultra smartphone sports some interesting satellite functions and uses a new applications processor but even a modicum of scrutiny reveals that the chip is both uneconomical to manufacture and further behind the cutting edge compared to a year ago. Huawei has launched the Pure 70 Ultra with some extra bells...
Meta Platforms is implying its models are the most efficient. In the ever-expanding, world of huge AI models, Meta is hinting that it is going the other way with Llama 3 meaning that if it can match its peers on performance, then it will quickly become the model of choice for almost everyone. Meta has launched its latest foundation model,...
ASML really does not want to talk about China. ASML reported disappointing Q1 results as bookings dropped and there is clearly a difference of opinion over why China is such a strong element of sales which is setting the company up for a disappointment when the export rules properly start to bite. Q1 24 revenues / EPS were €5.3bn /...
Automotive Ecosystems – Play Suspended
Mercedes bails on Apple CarPlay 2.0. Mercedes Benz has confirmed that it has no plans to support the next generation of CarPlay as it has realised that letting Apple take over the infotainment domain will destroy its ability to monetise digital services in the vehicle. Ola Källenius was very clear on the Decoder podcast answering “the short answer is no.”...