21 Dec 2007, 11:59PM PT
3 Dec 2007, 12:47PM PT
Closed: 21 Dec 2007, 11:59PM PT
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The wireless technology landscape is rapidly changing in the US. Verizon Wireless is opening up and moving to LTE. Google is bidding on spectrum and invading the mobile OS business. Apple has become a massive player in the device space. Sprint is searching for a strategy. There are a lot of big changes happening.
Everyone's talking about how this will impact these big players, but we're interested in how this will filter through down the line from a financial perspective. Which suppliers/vendors/customers/retailers/partners are likely to benefit from these changes and how? We're looking for concrete examples (i.e., Lucent will benefit because everyone will need its equipment or Wal-Mart will benefit because it will be able to squeeze even more margins) with backed up explanations.
5 Insights
Unexpected Beneficiairies Of Wireless Industry Turbulence by Ryan Lanham
Thursday, December 13th, 2007 @ 7:37AM
Google and Apple continue as the biggest winners for the foreseeable future.
Hidden gems? Ericsson will revive. They have a complete, end-to-end solution perfect for developing nations. I look for some of the big guys to buy into Eee PC or Everex to get small Linux platforms...what I call bloggettes.
VoIP continues to be a winner and WiMAX will eventually help as soon as there is an economic model...which I think will be community-based rather than corporate. Long-term Motorola could win a bit there, but I wouldn't hold my breadth.
Sycamore and Ciena are hampered by being on the East Coast. They just won't make it long term.
Mobile in Indonesia is still underpriced. Less so in China. Africa is the future of Mobile...Ericsson is in the best position to capitalize. Corruption and vandalism are issues.
I think Cable and Wireless is a bit undervalued. So too Comcast now that it has been smacked down. They need a way to make their home Internet easy to use with VoIP as a bundled and supported package.
Ebay won't make money with Skype but they can integrate it more with Ebay proper. That will work. Ebay is a good value right now.
Unexpected Beneficiairies Of Wireless Industry Turbulence by Zack Miller
Monday, December 17th, 2007 @ 12:48PM
Unexpected Beneficiairies Of Wireless Industry Turbulence by Devin Moore
Wednesday, December 19th, 2007 @ 5:42AM
Smartphone makers are going to make a ton of money as the plans for using smartphones become more accessible to everyone. Especially smartphones that get WI-FI will get a huge bump from the ubiquitous deployment of WI-FI in the USA. WI-FI hardware makers will also benefit as more people with smartphones that are WIFI equipped will demand WIFI access. I think Linksys will be the biggest beneficiary here, because their WIFI routers are cheap and effective.
Devin Moore Wed Dec 19 5:44am |
P.S. #1: Wal-mart always makes more money, so I don't see how they wouldn't get gains from the wireless turbulence. As the iPhone contract with AT&T runs out, Apple will certainly benefit, and then Google's gPhone will probably sell like crazy provided it has wifi and all the features people are looking for. I remain convinced that the right all-in-one mobile device will outsell all other mobile phones combined, and will become as prevalent as TV sets. |
Unexpected Beneficiairies Of Wireless Industry Turbulence by David Cassel
Friday, December 21st, 2007 @ 1:41AM
And it's just possible that with all these new capabilities, the biggest winner will be: consumers.
Unexpected Beneficiairies Of Wireless Industry Turbulence by Joseph Hunkins
Friday, December 21st, 2007 @ 11:46PM
Historically it is rare to see legacy companies usher in major new technology paradigms. Generally it is the new, flexible, innovative upstart companies that benefit the most from sweeping change. Even in the highly capitalized wireless industry I think this trend will continue, and we'll see several major players fall out as upstarts either eat their wireless lunch or grow much more quickly to challenge them in their own space. Also, to the extent the major players survive I think the level of cooperation required in the market and by consumers make their old business models problematic and profitability will be tough to maintain.
So, who are these new players and hardware/software/service providers that will reap the rewards of the disruptive changes?
Small and medium sized or relatively unknown Open Handset Alliance Partners such as SIRF (GPS enabled location platforms), PacketVideo, (mobile multimedia software) Telecom Italia (national telecom) KDDI (japan telecom) LiveWire Mobile, (personalization software for mobile) Nuance (speech and imaging software) HTC (smartphones). Larger partners will benefit as well, but their size may prevent reaping as high a percentage reward as Open Handset becomes a key new mobile standard.
Despite some lackluster early reviews from Android developers I remain convinced that major change will come from the Open Handset Alliance and Android open software standards spearheaded by Google.
Although Apple iPhone and RIM Blackberry have the current edge and may maintain that lead for 1-2 years, I think it will be increasingly difficult to compete with the very open standards and cheap production model that Open Handset Alliance will bring to the market. Some 3-4 billion mobile phones are in use worldwide, and an increasingly number of those are likely to use open technologies. Early Handset Alliance partners are the likely beneficiaries as the Open Handset standards become the prevailing global standard.
Freescale is a company to watch in the semiconductor space. Created as the result of forced spinoff from Motorola Freescale's "breakthrough" Magnetoresistive memory or "MRAM" technology could have far reaching uses in the mobile industry. Widespread adoption of MRAM in the mobile market could give this company a huge revenue boost, and as a semiconductor innovator they are well positioned to benefit from their strong R&D efforts.
Nanotechnology Companies:
Nanotechnology startups like Nantera in Boston are likely to bring remarkable innovation to the semiconductor space and thus to new mobile devices, but it is not at all clear which will succeed and which will fail. Unlike the underwhelming performance of biotech companies in the 1980s I think nanotechnology will so profoundly improve devices we'll see it used in virtually every aspect of our lives. However, these profound innovations are probably at least 5-10 years in the future so picking companies would be irresponsibly speculative.
Infineon is the world leader in RF transceivers for mobile phones, with over a billion chips deployed to 25% of global market thanks to their quality "high integration" methods that fit many functions onto a single chip. This reduces size and cost. Expanding mobile hardware deployments combined with more rapid turnover could help this company's bottom line significantly.
LTE deployments: Joint testing, and reporting of ongoing results will continue out to the end of 2009, with initial LTE system deployments planned for the 2010 timeframe [source - Nokia].
It seems too early to know how LTE will impact the market, especially given the destabilization caused by Open Handset Alliance and the *billions* of new phones that will come into use globally over the next few years.
Nokia on LTE:
http://www.nokia.com/A4136001?newsid=1166691
Open Handset Alliance Partners:
http://www.openhandsetalliance.com/oha_members.html
Joseph Hunkins Fri Jan 18 10:48am |
Correcting spelling - the Boston Nanotech company is "Nantero": http://www.nantero.com/ |