Meta Platforms Q3 24 – Boondoggle? Meta reported good results but the continued heavy investments into AI and The Metaverse from which returns are hard to quantify, made the market worry whether Mr Zuckerberg is going back to his old profligate ways. Q3 24 revenue / EPS was $40.6bn / $6.03 which was broadly in line with revenue forecasts of...
Meta pushes harder for independence. Meta’s difficult experience with Android and iOS has left it so determined to be self-reliant that in addition to AI, it is now having a go at creating a search engine in another sign that the industry increasingly thinks that Google no longer has an edge in a must-have service. Meta appears to be building...
Apple would be in less danger than Google. The advent of LLMs potentially creates a dislocation in the market that has many start-ups and every beaten-down and written-off competitor of Apple and Google in the digital ecosystem wondering whether the time for revenge has finally come. Apple and Google have had the digital ecosystem (ex-China) market pretty much to themselves...
By its own standard, the shares should be falling. Tesla reported excellent results and guidance but given the valuation of the shares and how the company sees itself going forward, the shares should be falling not rising. Q3 24 Revenues / Adj-EPS were $21.6bn / $0.79 ahead of forecasts of $25.5bn / $0.59 and Mr Musk was very bullish for...
More noise than bang. Arm has served Qualcomm with a notice that cancels its contract to sell Arm IP in its products, but because the notice period ends in the middle of the trial, it is going to have no incremental impact on Qualcomm’s ability to sell chips. Arm and Qualcomm have been embroiled in a contract dispute for some...
Automotive joins the Oryon family. In what was an obvious move, Qualcomm has rolled the Oryon custom CPU into its automotive product offering that will give OEMs a greater opportunity to push back against the predations of the digital ecosystems on their livelihoods. Qualcomm has launched two new chipsets the Cockpit Elite (for infotainment) and Ride Elite (for ADAS) that...
Qualcomm slays the 64-bit ghost. Qualcomm has slain the ghost of 64-bit computing by returning to custom CPUs in smartphones with a big leap in performance that will have competitors working harder to beat the new benchmark. Qualcomm held the first day of its Snapdragon Summit where announced the migration of its custom Oryon CPU core to mobile and hinted...
A potential benefit of hardship. China’s lack of cutting-edge silicon and limited amounts of cash to spend on compute is forcing it to innovate in ways that may allow it to compete very effectively with AI especially when it comes to cost. The prevailing view in Silicon Valley is that the bigger the models become and the more data that...
The Chinese are no longer stockpiling. The combination of economic-related delays and China realising that stockpiling ASML equipment ahead of further bans might not help them very much has caused ASML to lower its outlook for 2025 resulting in a large correction. ASML reported good results but the outlook for FY 2025 has been taken down, which caused the...
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 & Amazon – Mixed Bag
Apple FQ4 24 – Intelligence upgrades. Apple reported good results as the promise of Apple Intelligence has generated a mini-upgrade cycle, but it was not nearly enough to return the company to the kind of growth that its valuation demands. FQ4 revenues / Adj-EPS were $94.9bn (+6% YoY) / $1.64 slightly ahead of consensus at $94.4bn / $1.60. iPhone revenues...