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 /...
Baidu leads the way. Baidu has launched a series of tools that allow developers to create generative AI services based on its ERNIE foundation model in yet another sign that one of the key themes of 2024 is going to be the emerging battle for the AI ecosystem. Baidu is holding its Create 2024 developer conference which I suspect will...
The industry is inching towards a bloodbath. All of the larger players who intend to offer robotaxis services are inching towards commerciality but when they finally get there, they are likely to find a bloodbath of brutal competition from which only a few survive and far less profit than expected is earned. Ever since Elon Musk fired the starting...
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.
Apple Vision Pro – Too Much, Too Early.
Apple loses very little with the Vision Pro. It looks like Apple is going to miss its 1m target for the Apple Vision Pro with commentary from suppliers indicating volumes of 200,000 – 400,000 but this is very far from the disaster that it would appear to be. Apple’s main assembler for the Vision Pro (see here) appears to be...