Searching Weekly Analysis
Searching Weekly Analysis
One of the interesting questions arising from the US-China trade tensions, with their intense focus on 5G, is how far US vendors will suffer or benefit. We have covered the debit side of the equation several times – the risk that China, on the defensive, will become technologically self-sufficient, reducing the addressable market for US component and systems providers, and even denying them access to key innovations. On the other side, will the ‘America-first’ mood of the current administration encourage US service providers to buy from home vendors to a greater extent than before? As far as the national MNOs are concerned, there is unlikely to be a big change. They have been prevented from working with Huawei and ZTE…
Processor IP licensing firm ARM managed to boost its fiscal first quarter revenues by almost 10% year-on-year despite a slowdown in its core market, smartphone chip designers. The Softbank-owned company reported revenue up 9.7% to $418m for the quarter ended June 30, despite its royalty revenues falling by 8% because of the stagnant smartphone sector. Its growth showed the success of its efforts, in recent years, to anticipate the end of the smartphone boom by diversifying its target markets and its business model. And now it is introducing a new way to access its technology with a novel flexible licensing scheme While royalties for use of its IP remain its biggest source of revenue – $240m out of a total…
Reliance Jio has made its presence felt in India since it launched its 4G-only network three years ago, but there has been some disappointment that its service models have not been more innovative. In a price-competitive market where consumers badly need higher network quality and greater variety of services, Jio has largely followed the time-honored way to gain market share in India, undercutting its rivals’ fees. Yes, it does proclaim itself to be a digital service provider rather than a connectivity provider, offering a suite of Jio-branded applications and content spanning the home, phone and car; and it is building quad-play propositions with its investment in fiber and media. But the strategy that has enabled it to overtake Bharti Airtel…
While many countries enjoyed a summer break, there was no let-up for Huawei in its attempts to build up defences against further potential US-inspired sanctions and restrictions. While the past week saw the US government relaxing its stance towards the Chinese vendor somewhat, amid a slightly more positive outlook for broader trade agreements, the situation remains unpredictable for Huawei and its customers, and the supplier’s actions over the preceding weeks clearly show that it is determined to make itself as self-sufficient as possible, and so less exposed to changes in US policy. So, at the start of August, Huawei duly announced its own operating system, now called – perhaps ironically – HarmonyOS, and also said it would open a major…
Our publication Rethink Energy is not about global warming, but about renewable energy, but having said that, we were alarmed to see references in the leading analyst group for energy, the almost $400 million Wood Mackenzie, which is consulted by the great and the good and national governments, to an energy transition that will probably see the world go to 3 degrees of warming. It is almost irresponsible for Wood Mac to discuss any scenario that leads to 3 decrees of warming on the basis that it doesn’t expect anything better to happen. It says, “We ascribe a very low degree of confidence that 2 degrees can be achieved due to the challenges across technology, policy, regulation and cost; intergovernmental…
The entire industry seems to believe that Lithium Ion batteries are the be-all and end all of storing energy, but the truth is that pockets of resistance are capable of a handful of exceptions – at the lower end of the scale Vanadium flow has many commercial devotees, and at the higher end, Hot rocks, Liquid Air, and Molten Salt all have their fans – and pumped storage goes without saying, and yet there are so few live projects on the cards for pumped storage, that we felt developments in Montana were worth a mention. A company called Absaroka Energy has managed to get a pumped storage development ready for take-off, and will fire the gun the moment it has…
The sooner oil companies like BP have a way of applying their cash and profits to chase similar cash and profit levels, the sooner they begin to see that it is okay to picture a future where oil revenues head towards zero over perhaps a 25 year period. So getting their EV car charging strategies right is a must, and we covered BP’s activity a few weeks ago in China where it said it would partner with DiDi Chuxing, the Chinese ride sharing network, to build Chinese EV charging stations. It plans to develop EV charging hubs across China for all the 600,000 EVs which DiDi is already is already using there. This week BP has taken its UK subsidiary…
Charter has sowed the seed for carrying Disney+, ESPN+ and Hulu on its Spectrum pay TV platform after expanding a multi-year deal for Spectrum to offer a bunch of additional Disney channels. The two companies are “contemplating” a streaming tie-up which could see Disney’s streaming assets reach 15.8 million subscribers. Broadband usage patterns can identify potential cord cutters, according to a study which found steadily increasing patterns of broadband consumption in the months running up to the moment subscribers switched to broadband-only packages. Network analytics firm OpenVault published its Q2 2019 Broadband Industry report highlighting how broadband usage of eventual cord cutters showed 14% higher usage than non-cord cutters six months before the transition, rising to 20% in the month…
The operating system cemetery features has-beens like Windows Phone which tried in vain to take on the Android-dominated smartphone market, while Samsung Tizen has targeted less saturated IoT plays but has struggled to gain traction. How long before Huawei’s HarmonyOS joins them? Late last week the exiled Chinese firm unveiled its in-house, microkernel-based operating system pegged to be “completely different to Android and iOS.” But to the surprise of many, the first product to be given the HarmonyOS treatment wasn’t a smartphone at all, instead rolling out a duo of smart TVs under the mobile giant’s Honor brand – the Honor Vision and Honor Vision Pro TV sets. The two HarmonyOS-powered 55-inch 4K displays will run a Huawei Honghu 818…
Duke Energy has lost the first round in a legal battle to force Duke to excavate all 6 of its coal ash ponds in North Carolina. It just wants to line them with plastic, but they contain an exotic mix of toxic chemicals that will mix with the water supply. A preliminary ruling this week says Duke must excavate al the ponds and bury the ash in lined landfills. It’s almost not worth looking at Duke’s results after that, as it says that the cost of lining and sealing its coal ash will knock $billions from its cash supply. But it had revenues of $5.4 bn for the quarter, up $250 million on this time last year, with net income…
India’s SECI has put out a 1.2 GW tender for renewable energy plus storage, a deal that we think will attract far more attention than previous hybrids which were just solar plus wind. The potential exists for international developers joining the party who have experience with storage projects. The projects can be based anywhere in India, be solar, wind or a hybrid with storage, and their success will potentially upgrade Indian renewables to up to 6 hours of dispatchable power. Very few local developers will have experience with this type of set up, so the award could be significant for renewables in India and stimulate more interest in India. The auction is on a build and operate basis with a…
As soon as a new government gets into office it is only natural that everyone and their granny wants something from them, and the onshore wind business has pounced on the opportunity that Boris Johnson’s new government in the UK represents. All the great and the good in wind energy including local CEOs at Vestas, Siemens Gamesa, SSE, Scottish Power, EDF, Vattenfall, Innogy and Statkraft – have all signed up to a letter asking the new Energy Minister why onshore wind in the UK has hit a wall. Effectively nothing has been done since 2015 due to a move by the Cameron Government to give more power to local authorities to say no to onshore wind installations based purely on…
We have been critical of most things that BP has done in the name of renewable energy, like partnering Bunge last week Brazil, in biofuels, a move that will simply encourage Brazil to slash more forest. But this week it has partnered the controversial rising star that is DiDi Chuxing, the Chinese ride sharing network, to build Chinese EV charging stations. This is where oil companies should take their exploration cash, and better spend it building out the infrastructure for the fuel of the future – electricity. BP has a head start in that where a petrol station is the right place for a charge station, it has that infrastructure in place already. The new JV will develop EV charging…
While 5G and the opening up of midband spectrum is relieving the spectrum shortage for operators in most parts of the world, the US MNOs remain starved of the best bands to support a strong business case (see separate item). To make matters worse, they are facing new competitors, not just Dish and the cablecos, but the rise of private network operators, often targeting the enterprise and industrial applications which MNOs have often failed to address. These specialized providers will also be looking for licensed spectrum, for those services which are too mission critical to trust to shared bands, and the FCC is showing itself ready to consider some radical changes to some areas of the spectrum to encourage these…
Arizona’s state utility APS has been reprimanded by Democratic Commissioner Sandra Kennedy, who said that a fire in a battery storage installation run by Fluence, the AES-Siemens joint venture, highlights the “unacceptable risks” posed by lithium-ion batteries. This might just be bad PR, but if the complaint lights another fire under politicians, battery storage could take a real hammering in the US. Kennedy is not following the usual channels, publishing her comments in a letter independently of the other four members of the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) that has oversight here. Her letter is part of the ACC’s investigation into the fire at APS’ McMicken substation, which housed a 2 MW (2 MWh) battery provided by Fluence. The fire, which…