18 months on and making a vehicle still makes no sense. Making a vehicle in 2024 makes as little sense as it did in 2016 because Apple’s brand and its valuation are dependent on its profitability more than ever. This is because even if it is successful, Apple will never make 40% gross margins on vehicles even if it is...
Radio Free Mobile will return on the 4th of January 2021. RFM would like to wish all of its readers a happy Xmas and a better 2021 than 2020!
Zoox promotes everything but its future. Zoox has unveiled a product and a service which has very little if anything to do with its long-term future. Zoox’s approach before its acquisition by Amazon (see here and here) was an Apple-like fully integrated approach to robotaxis. This meant designing both the vehicle and the service from the ground up which is...
The sector’s “Semper Augustus” moment may not be far away. The current frenzy gripping the technology sector has nothing to do with the quality or fundamentals of the companies themselves but instead is being driven by sentiment and narratives which makes the technology sector both an inefficient and a dangerous place for value investors. (Semper Augustus was the rarest and...
The consequences could be serious indeed. If the FTC wins its case and forces Facebook to be broken up, the consequences for Facebook will be far more serious than the hit that was taken by Microsoft when it suffered similar treatment. This is because the valuation of the separate pieces will be way below the $791bn valuation that Facebook enjoys...
Deep Mind puts a branch of science out of business. Deep Mind has crossed a milestone with the demonstration that its ability to predict protein structure is as good as the painstaking, expensive and difficult current methods potentially offering a big boost to medical and biological research worldwide. In the latest protein structure competition (see here), Deep Mind’s algorithm both...
Uber’s autonomous driving technology finally goes in the bin. Aurora signals the end of the road for Uber’s woeful autonomous offering in a deal where I think ATG investors should be thankful they are only taking a 50% haircut on the valuation they paid as I estimate that the haircut should have been closer to 100%. Aurora is effectively acquiring...
And so the next big race begins. A group of Chinese scientists is claiming to have reached quantum supremacy which while it means very little in practical realities at the moment, fires the starting gun on the next big technology race. Quantum computing offers a great deal of potential as it is capable of computation speeds that are impossible for...
The UK hardens its stance still further. A new bill passing through the UK parliament that bans the installation of Huawei equipment from September 2021 has caused some consternation but makes sense given the long-term restrictions and Huawei’s inability to procure components. The UK has been taking an increasingly tough stance on Huawei firstly because there are genuine security questions...
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.
CES 2021 – Digital shadow.
A large part of the show is likely to be missing in action. The pandemic is likely to have 2 main impacts on CES. The first will be to push healthcare tech to the top of the agenda and the second will be to greatly reduce its impact and utility for the majority of participants. Unlike Mobile World Congress, which...