Will Apple's Asia & Car strategy work? with Sameer Singh

Continuing our discussed from the last episode, Sameer Singh from Tech-thoughts.net analysed the recent Apple Q1 2016 earning and challenged the notion whether Apple’s Asia (India and China) and their rumoured car strategy will bring them back to growth. Through the lens of the Apple rumoured car, we dived deeper into the conversation on artificial intelligence & autonomous vehicles from China to US.

Here are the interesting show notes and links to the discussion (with time-stamps included):

• Sameer Singh (Tech-thoughts.net, @sameer_singh17)
• Apple’s iPhone Blip and will their Asia strategy with China & India work?
  • Apple’s recent Q1 2016 earnings: What happened? [1:47]
  • How did the Apple miss the forecast of the iPhone earnings? [3:00]
  • Apple’s upgrade cycle is not a cause but an effect. [4:11]
  • Has the switch from Android back to Apple during the iPhone 6 been saturated? [5:25]
  • Is iPhone SE the solution to push up the upgrades? Is Apple using screen size as a way to price their ASP in the Asia context? [6:10]
  • References: Benedict Evans “Notes on Apple’s Refresh“, Neil Cybart “iPhone Warning Signs”, Tech-Thoughts: iPhone Headwinds, Ben Bajarin, “Apple Q1 2016 Takeaways” and “The Big iPhone Debate“]
  • Has the smartphone industry reached a structural change when the technology is now good enough? [8:30]
  • iPhone 6 cycle depressed the entire Android premium phone industry and allows Samsung to return to profitability with the Galaxy S7. [9:40]
  • What does that mean for Apple in the next iPhone 7 iteration? [Tim Culpan’s “Follow Apple’s Suppliers”] [10:33]
  • Apple’s “services” narrative will not work in Asia. [11:15]
  • Apple watch as a trojan horse with the watch bands rather than the watch. Taiwanese (happened to be in Asia) Apple analyst Ming Chi Kuo predicts Apple watch sales will fall in 2016.  [13:00]
  • Is Apple’s expansion to India (with their current focus to China) going to save them? [14:48] Note that China has just banned Apple movie and books services.  
  • Is Apple’s rumored car can restore them to growth? [17:50]
• Self Driving Cars, Business Models & Regulation [18:25]
  • The best autonomous cars has to be electric. [18:50]
  • The different models for autonomous and electric vehicles [19:30]
    • On demand transportation which destroys car ownership: Uber, Lyft (and their recent deal with General Motors).
    • Internet services model with web and mobile: Baidu, Google using maps and search linking it with cars.
    • Car OEMs and hardware makers: Tesla, Apple, and car makers such as Toyota, Nissan, VW Group, Audi, BMW.
  • What is the path forward for self driving cars? Full Autonomy vs Incrementalism [20:18]
  • Asia governments testing the concept of self driving car zones. [Reference: Vox, “The most important question about a self-driving car is whether it has a steering wheel“). [22:17]
  • Self driving cars are more focused on creating fixed and optimised routes rather than creating complexity to transportation. [23:40]
  • Google’s self driving car and potential ride sharing service. (Ref: TheInformation: “Why Google may not win in self driving cars“) [24:30]
  • AI and self driving cars. [26:23]
  • When a car turns into a computer, how much semiconductors does OEM need? [28:10]
  • Tesla’s hybrid model OEM and services with their supercharging stations. [28:48]
  • China’s foray into electric cars, and the launch of LeSee, with the same backer to the Faraday car.  [29:20]
  • Tesla’s model 3’s successful crowdfunding campaign and what does it mean for the automotive industry in the next few years? [30:00] (Tesla sees 300K orders upon crowdfunding). 
  • Uber submits 800 COEs bids in Singapore, changing the game for cars. What does that mean for countries viewing car ownership as a prestige? [33:15]

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The show is hosted by Bernard Leong (@bleongcw) and are sponsored by Ideal Workspace (Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn) with their new Aspirus Desk on Indiegogo (Twitter, Facebook, Medium). Also check out Ideal Workspace’s new standing desk, Aspirus and sign up for their mailing list. Sound credits for the intro music: Taro Iwashiro, “The Beginning” from Red Cliff Soundtrack.