Dear reader,
Welcome to this week’s edition of our newsletter.
With recession clouds hovering over the world’s largest economy thanks to weak macroeconomic and geopolitical signals, all eyes are on the indicators of US consumer sentiment. Inflation-related declines in demand resulted in swelling inventories and strong discounts during the latest Amazon Prime Day, says Matthew Orf.
There are smartwatches and then there are fitness smartwatches. It is the latter category where Apple is miles ahead of competitors in terms of technology. In fact, it is well on its way to putting together a robust, privacy-centric digital healthcare ecosystem. Neil Shah takes a deep dive into Apple’s health push.
When two heavyweight concepts of the tech world come together, expect a whopper. IoT combined with artificial intelligence, or AIoT, is transforming every industry, enterprise and consumer, says Subhadip Roy, adding the shipments of 5G AIoT-supported modules will grow at a CAGR of 84% between 2022 and 2030.
All this and much more in the news scroll below.
Happy reading and stay safe!
Team Counterpoint
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As inflation continues to soar in the US and across the globe, commentators are looking toward Amazon Prime Day as a barometer of consumer behavior and purchasing patterns may be...Read more
The use of IoT devices is making our daily lives smarter. IoT combined with artificial intelligence (AI), or artificial IoT (AIoT), is helping in automated...Read more
COVID-19, along with the rise of advanced capabilities such as 5G, AI and imaging technologies, has catalyzed the semiconductor demand for the last over two years...Read more
Samsung revamped its affordable and mid-range smartphone portfolio by launching the Galaxy A-series and M-series in 2019 as an answer to rising competition from Chinese smartphone brands. The M-series smartphones are available via online-only...Read more
This gap between the amount of funds allocated versus required will raise concerns on how effectively the removal program can be implemented. For now, it covers only 40% of the costs for the operators.
Interestingly, this program and the related developments in terms of selection of new equipment vendors will also reflect upon how successful open RAN vendors such as Mavenir and others are in grabbing significant contracts.
As of now, it appears established vendors – Nokia and Ericsson remain the leading choice of vendors and likely to get major benefit from rip-and-replace program. For example – if respective operator’s funding request is approved, Viaero Wireless would opt Ericsson for $1.2 billion contract, Union Wireless to opt Nokia for $688 million contract whereas Triangle’s $18.3 million contract to go to Mavenir.
As with many other commodities, the Russia-Ukraine war has heavily influenced demand and competition for raw materials for li-ion batteries such as lithium and cobalt. The subsequent sanctions have further stressed their global trade – the logistics associated with many other rare earth metals are also becoming more challenging.
Such an unstable supply chain collapsing during the pandemic and the war has made the battery price jump mainly due to the soaring price of lithium hydroxide, a key material for lithium-ion batteries. Building a supply chain with countries where a lot of rare earth elements are buried, such as Australia and Canada, will be critical to battery players from now. More importantly, further efforts to recycle waste batteries will be needed to get through a crisis.
It is known that nickel, cobalt, and lithium extracted from battery recycling are about 50% more than the amount extracted from the mine of the same weight. It is urgent that battery (+ automobile) companies should accelerate preparations for the battery recycling business by promoting cooperation along with their own technology development.
Chart of the week: Counterpoint Macro Index, June 2022 (You may have to enable images to see this chart)
Our Wearables Quarterly, Global Edition (Q2 2022) is ready!! FOLLOW US on LinkedIn and we’ll send you a copy.
Over 40 pages where you will find:
✅ Smartwatch shipment shares by brand and region
✅ #TWS shipment shares by brand and region
✅ Why brand and features trump price in the TWS market
✅ AR & #VR shipment shares by brand
✅ AR & VR global and regional highlights
✅ What’s making India’s TWS market hot?
This report goes through the development history of gaming phones to show how the concept reached today’s shape. It mainly discusses the gaming smartphone with a focus on the performance of four gaming smartphone brands – Black Shark, Red Magic, ROG and Legion – and addresses the subjects around gaming branded smartphones and gaming featured and enhanced smartphones.
