Apple declares war on OEMs. The strength of Apple’s position in the domestic vehicle market has given it the confidence to make a play for the whole digital vehicle making Apple as threatening to the OEMs as Google. Apple’s expansion of CarPlay into the instrument cluster pushes OEMs further away from the Digital Life of the vehicle and brings them...
Apple declares war on short-term loan providers and car makers. Apple produced an ordinary performance but saw announcements that challenge both the vehicle makers and the fintech industry. However, there was nothing on the Metaverse clearly indicating that Apple is far from ready with anything confirming its position with Google and Microsoft at the back of the pack in RFM’s...
Tesla – Never a dull moment Mr Musk has been living up to his mercurial reputation by ending work from home, announcing job cuts and then backtracking on them two days later leaving everyone as confused as ever. Tesla also postponed its AI Day by 6 weeks in the hope that its humanoid robot would be working by then something...
The strangest profit warning. Microsoft has been forced to downgrade its earnings forecast less than one month after it gave it in what is both a complete non-story but also makes me wonder whether something else is going on here. On 26th April 2022, Microsoft said that FQ4 22 revenue / EPS would be $52.4bn – $53.2bn / $2.28 –...
The cash register retires. Meta Platform’s most important executive has decided to retire leaving some very big shoes to fill by Javier Olivan who has been responsible for building the international user base. Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Meta Platform is retiring to pursue philanthropy after 14 years at the company and there is no reason to think that her retirement...
Indian unicorns sing like canaries. India is a few months ahead of the USA when it comes to dealing with the fall-out of easy money as its once highly sought after “unicorns” are scrambling to conserve cash sending a clear sign of what is to come next in the ongoing SPAC crash. 44 companies in India managed to achieve a...
FAW may signal the end of the worst. Didi is in real trouble but the addition of a large, state-backed vehicle maker as a shareholder could help the company mend its fences with the state which still remains incentivised to see Didi go out of business. Didi’s shareholders have voted to delist the company from NYSE and with no immediate...
Sony finally makes sense When Sony launched its prototype Vision-S EV at CES 2022 it looked like a bad case of FOMO (fear of missing out) but it has become clear that the real aim is to be a lead vendor of sensors for EVs which makes much more sense. As many companies are finding out (see here), making cars...
Half out of the woods Alibaba reported good FQ4 2022 results and ended the worst year in its history on a high note but then went on to suspend its guidance as a result of the zero Covid policy in China which is playing merry hell with the economy. FQ4 22 revenues / EBIT were RMB204bn / RMB16.7bn nicely ahead...
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.
China Tech – Bottom ahoy!
The state sees some sense at last. The readmittance of Didi (and two others) to the Chinese transport market is the first tangible evidence that the regulatory crackdown that has crippled the Chinese technology sector is, at last, coming to an end. However, there are worrying signs that the Chinese government is determined to cling onto Covid-zero meaning that the...