Weekly Market Links - 09-15 Aug 2021
Fighting over JEDIs, metaverses becoming mainstream, coinbase controversy
Macro
Singapore hits 76.3% vaccinations, Japan and Vietnam accelerates even further.
Japan nears the 50% mark, and India for 30%.
All-in-all, these countries are executing on their vaccination goals.
Countries
USA, Canada
The US is once again requiring customers to wear masks. Delta is getting serious.
Apple and Alphabet receive antitrust pressure from a proposed bill on app stores to “encourage innovation and create a more competitive market”.
US’ Social security adjustments could be 6.2% in 2022, indicating one of the highest cost-of-living changes for retirees. This means more has to be taken out of social security to sustain their lifestyles. Read; More costs on government, and subsequently taxes.
South Korea
7/10 senior citizens want to work till 73, after a survey of South Koreans between 55-79 responded.
Singapore
Singapore intends to grow its manufacturing industry by 50% by 2030, with Semiconductors at the forefront of the effort.
Some stats: Singapore accounts for 5% of global wafer fabrication capacity.
GlobalFoundries have already announced a $4B investment to expand its wafer production in the city-state.
As a comparison, Taiwan generates 64% of the world’s $90B foundry revenue, while South Korea takes up 18%, China 6%, and other countries at 12%.
TSMC commands 55% of the global market, Samsung at 17%, and GlobalFoundries at 5%
Companies
Apple
Someone tested what kind of images are going to trigger Apple’s CSAM alerts. There is a whole field of AI to trick detection models.
Apple Cash customers can now use Instant Transfer with Mastercard and Visa debit cards - this allows withdrawals from Apple Cash to your bank accounts. However, this will cost ~1.5% of the transfer amount.
Additionally, new research has shown that it is possible for AirPods to monitor respiratory rates. Apple is indeed heading down the healthcare hardware route, measuring as many health and fitness metrics as possible.
Alphabet / Google
Google will also start competing with Samsung’s smartphones, with their Pixel 6 models. They have indicated a renewed focus on hardware products, planning a new industrial campus in Silicon Valley.
The Google Pixel is intended to go head-to-head with premium phones such as the iPhone, containing their Tensor Processing Unit (TPUC), compute chips that powered applications for server farms for efficient machine learning.
Mostly for phones though - hardware for VR is not the priority, as Google prefers to focus more on services, apps and games instead. These apps have deep integration with Oculus Quest, such as Tilt Brush, and YouTube VR, bringing the frenemy-relationship between Google and Facebook a little bit closer.
A big but, hinges on a patent fight. A preliminary ruling mentioned that Google had infringed on all five of Sonos’ patents, a company whose IP have apparently been used in Google Assistant speakers. If the lawsuit takes full effect, an outright ban on many Google hardware product such as the Pixel and Chromecast may occur.
Amazon
Remember that 10B National Security Agency contract Amazon was wresting away from Microsoft? Well, they finally won it. That’s a nice 10B contract incoming!
Microsoft is unhappy of course, filing a bid protest with the Government Accounting Office, so we’ll have to see, again, in October.
This whole project is all about catering to specialized use cases of storage and compute on a hybrid cloud setup. No idea what that means? Let us know, we’ll put together a piece on why thats important!
The Pentagon has scrapped JEDI altogether, and is planning a multi-vendor project so more cloud providers can participate for other projects.
The e-commerce firm will pay customers up to $1K if a product sold through its platform injures people or damages property - even if it was sold by a 3rd party.
This is big, as Amazon steps up its responsibility after pressure from complaints from customers for not meeting certain safety requirements.
These are additional expenses for Amazon investors to take into account.
Amazon has also opened their $1.5B air cargo hub in Northern Kentucky. This will help to connect up to 40 sites for Amazon Air’s operations.
Bytedance
Tiktok counters Instagram with…. Tiktok Stories. This gives a more casual interaction mode with Tiktokker’s fans through editing tools, just like Instagram Stories. Well well well.
Disney
Outpaces rivals Netflix, with 12M new customer adds in Q3 2021. Reaching 116M subscribers, Disney had doubled their original subscriber base.
Theme park revenue is also starting to recover. In total, Disney made a profit of $0.50 per share, as compared to -$2.61 in losses a year ago.
Grab
Both Grab and Gojek are joining forces to integrate into Anteraja, a last-mile logistics company. With the infrastructure, heavier packages can be delivered, and to other cities.
Huawei
5G support was dropped from their upcoming line-up. Even when Huawei was one of the leaders for 5G networks, the US sanctions mean that Huawei phones cannot run on 5G wireless connections.
Additionally, key Semicon suppliers are taken out of Huawei’s supply chain, and thus have only “old-tech” chips to work from. Analysts sound out that growth for Huawei is not as bright, and the company will likely invest in their software and applications to have a strong ecosystem until China as a whole can have its domestic Semicon supply (this will take a while).
Xiaomi
Market share for Xiami is now at 17.1% worldwide, overtaking both Samsung and Apple.
FoxConn
EV plants in the US and Thailand will be built by 2022, and to start producing vehicles by 2023. Known famously for being the assembly line for iPhones, it also has Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, HP and Xiaomi as clients, and are now venturing further into EVs.
The social media giant disabled NYU research accounts, on the notion they had not followed their policies on scraping data.
The data was to be used in a study on political advertising, causing US lawmakers to question if the shutdowns were an appropriate response.
Facebook is also allowing you to move your images to Photobucket, and event listings to Google Calendar. Users have control over their data as a result, through the “Data Transfer Project”, a collaboration by Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Twitter.
UK Regulators are seeking to reverse Facebook’s acquisition of Giphy - though, Google’s Tenor, both GIF images and search services, should also be questioned. Not easy to regulate one tech giant when another would have a different kind of monopoly too.
NVDA
Seems like the “universes” are getting some traction, first from Facebook’s Mark Zuckerburg, and now for Nvidia as well.
Dubbed Nvidia’s “Omniverse”, their metaverse for engineers will allow Blender users to create 3D images even more conveniently.
Exchanges, market economics - all that stuff in an MMORPG are also going to be added.
Salesforce
Launches their content streaming service, but for businesses. This is in their bid to be an “always-on business media platform”. Salesforce will have its in-house studio to produce content.
Sony
Crunchyroll is acquired by the manufacturers of Playstation. Bought at $1B, plans are to include it with Playstation plus. It had 5M subscribers, and 120M registered users, giving Sony a great advantage in serving anime fans.
Tyson
The meat producer is pressured to raise prices for chicken and prepared foods, due to rising costs of raw materials such as grain.
So far, Tyson has raised pork prices by 39% last quarter, while beef and chicken prices rose 11.6% and 15.6% respectively. Sales volume had also increased, indicating high demand regardless.
Better enjoy your chicken rice and steak while it lasts
Tencent
Tencent is under fire as the protection of minors were not up to the standards of Chinese law.
Its previous method of limiting game exposure to Minors was not sufficient, as they could still be vulnerable despite limiting their gaming addictions.
Sogou is set to complete a merger with Tencent and will be made a private-owned entity.
Tesla / SpaceX
Swarm Technologies, a 30-member outfit and 120 tiny satellites, will be acquired.
Swarm offers ultra low-bandwidth data services using sandwich-sized satellites
This acquisition is interesting due to SpaceX usually doing most operations in-house - however, there could be an advantage - I think - from acquire-hiring, a gap in tech that SpaceX can quickly fill, or perhaps some licenses Swarm Tech holds. It's speculation at this point.
Industry and Commods
Automotive
KoBold Metals, backed by Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates, are starting to search for metals in Greenland, to be used for electric vehicles. Nickel, copper, cobalt and platinum are aplenty.
Greenland wouldn't be a very nice tourist destination though.
Crypto
Coinbase saw 5% of its staff leaving due to political leanings.
Additionally, Coinbase revealed that their stable coin isn’t backed by actual fiat at all… what?
By right, backing these with actual money would mean that for every dollar offered to investors, there was $1 "in a bank account" to back it. That promise was important for the stablecoin, which unlike Bitcoin has a set price and can be redeemed by users for regular currency. It helped USD Coin grow to be the world's second-largest stablecoin, with $28 billion in assets.
On the day Bloomberg News contacted the company, some of the language describing USD Coin's assets on its website changed. Hmmm…
Telcos
Many telcos around the world are intending to go “super-app” to recoup 5G costs.
China Mobile launches Mobile cloud VR, providing 360-degree content, and a 5G killer app for mixed-reality.
SK Telecom also launched a metaverse platform, allowing users to socialize in different virtual environments. They are also partnering with studios to design avatars for K-pop stars to perform in virtual environments and interact with them. Second life anyone?
Verizon develops virtual Superbowl experiences with the National Football league and watching 3D replays in 360 degrees, while also building a virtual Superbowl stadium for players to explore in the game ‘Fortnite’