2020, an Asian tech decade!
3-in-1: 3 digital news in 1 minute. On Monday. Episode 186
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News 1: Softbank Vision Fund is back! More careful, more India
Softbank Vision Fund is the largest venture capital fund of the world. After spending the first 100 billion (!) USD with a last investment in Aug., 19. Now back with supplementary 106 billion to invest. 5 invests since Oct., 30. Less of an invest frenzy, a sign of “more careful” since the WeWork disaster. Opinion: One can interpret a new strategy at SVF with less spectacular investments, $290m in Automation Anywhere (a pretty sure path), $655m in Greensill (goes into the working capital model). Still 2 invests in India, a billion in One97 (the company behind payment #1 Paymt). B2B takeout: Following the SVF investments is like doing a trend excercise — which country? Which category? Which amount? An amount that will be spent and visible. One can see the WeWork billion in every large city in EU and US.
News 2: Baidu overtakes Google in smart speakers
This is a sign of time: Baidu sold more smart speakers in total than Google (Nest) in 2019. It brings Baidu to #2 after Alexa. The latest launch is a smart speaker with a screen called Xiaodu Zaijia X8. “Xiaodu, xiaodu” is the wake word for the Baidu speaker. Opinion: Baidu is the search engine #1 in China and has spearheaded the smart speaker market in China with a comprehensive AI-based system called DuerOS. Lot of sales were done by discounting the price of the speakers, not unlike the Alexa tactics though. B2B takeout: The 2020 will be the China tech decade — growing in all sectors
News 3: 5G, an Asian affair
5G networks will massively extend in 2020. South Korea had the first network and consumer pricing, Japan will showcase 5G at the Tokyo Olympics and China evaluates a 110 million user coverage potential by the end of 2020. Opinion: Europe used to lead the mobile network market in 3G times. This time is over — with a mighty Huawei as 5G equipment leader rolling on the Asian markets. B2B takeout: Another sign of an Asian tech decade, the expansion of 5G in those countries. Interesting to follow the use cases for 5G — the hypothesis is of mainly professional use cases, rather than just watching videos faster.
Authors are the 10 trend scouters at Space and Lemon, always on the hunt for the newest trends in tech and digital. Gathered here in original weekly news since 2016 — no re-write of TechCrunch, always with an opinion and B2B takeout. Come back next Monday and share your opinion.
