The next BIG tech battle is drawn. Microsoft and Google will fight over AI and broad natural language translation (yes, ChatGPT and similar species). Facebook’s Meta has picked VR/AR. Amazon is looking for its own and is settling for NFT: “E-commerce giant Amazon is making its first move into the crypto industry as it plans to launch a non-fungible token (NFT) initiative sometime in Spring 2023….Amazon will focus on different sectors with plans to dab into NFT gaming”. 

Amazon has a chance to discover value therein because it has millions of Prime users who can see whatever it does as a marginal value to renew that subscription. There are only a few companies in the world where people pay for the privilege to spend money therein, understanding that  the payment unlocks massive savings over time!

If NFT gaming does that, it is a win for Amazon provided there are people that renew Prime for access to the games. This is the reason why I called these companies ICT utilities in a Harvard Business Review work.

They will become like your electricity boards, water boards, etc as the evolution of digital empires of the future advances.

Amazon’s Whole Foods, meanwhile, is not going web3 as it continues to work on a path to compete:

“In a bid to retain customers, Whole Foods Market has asked its suppliers to help put a lid on food prices. The Amazon-owned grocery chain said their costs should already reflect slower inflation. While grocery prices nationally rose an annual 11.8% in December, the dollar value of sales climbed higher — a sign that customers have yet to see the impact of lower costs. Foot traffic at Whole Foods, meanwhile, slipped 8% last month, as shoppers defected to discounters such as Aldi and Trader Joe’s, according to placer.ai.

Meanwhile, Tesla’s is getting heat as the industry battles for market share. So, the game is on for the EV battle.

Ford is cutting the price of its Mustang Mach-E by up to $5,900, just weeks after electric vehicle rival Tesla announced a similar set of price reductions. “We’re not going to cede ground to anyone,” said Marin Gjaja, chief customer officer at Ford’s electric Model e division. He added that Ford is accelerating production of the electric SUV, increasing from 78,000 vehicles to 130,000 units annually. The Mach-E’s starting price now ranges from about $46,000 to $64,000, depending on trim level and performance package; Tesla’s Model Y starts at about $53,500 to $57,000. Tesla’s discounts sparked a backlash from customers who bought EVs just weeks before the price cuts were announced, The Wall Street Journal reports. Ford sold some 65,000 EVs in America, while Tesla — the market leader — sold more than 522,000. (LinkedIn News)

As Musk is dealing with the competition from other EV makers, Fidelity is cutting its valuation of Twitter, reports LinkedIn News.

Twitter shareholder Fidelity has slashed the value of Twitter’s stock by over 60% since Elon Musk acquired the company for $44 billion at the end of October. Fidelity’s latest cut saw the carrying price of shares down 9.58% from late November-late December. The company has lost around 80% of its staff through layoffs and resignations since Musk’s takeover, with many opting to leave after being asked to sign a pledge to adopt “hardcore” working hours. The social media site has faced several obstacles in recent months, with everything from the failed blue-tick pay plan to privacy coming under fire.

Yet, Musk had a win as it made a key interest rate payment: “Twitter has made its first interest payment on the nearly $13 billion in debt that Elon Musk racked up to take the social media platform private. Bloomberg estimates that the quarterly interest payment to a group of seven lenders was about $300 million. The payment should boost confidence in Twitter’s ability to avoid a bankruptcy in the near term, Bloomberg notes. But the company’s debt load is heavy with annual interest expected to top $1.2 billion, some of which has a floating rate that could go up further as the Federal Reserve hikes rates.”

Comment on Feed

Comment 1: You did not read that Elon Musk has filed papers to make Twitter a payment processing entity? I do not think that what comes within the AI space can be left to Microsoft and Google to decide. Tesla didn’t lead the EV space by hiding under Toyota or GM, so I expect a separate behemoth to dominate the AI space too.

As for Amazon and NFT, that is the only way to give value to the latter right now, because we cannot be fearing global recession while talking about investing and making fortunes on NFT.

Meta may as well postpone or give up on VR/AR, because that one is more difficult to scale, the cost will make it unattractive.

As the tech behemoths build their mansions and cathedrals, we the small guys will be dealing with sands, gravel and steel, to help make their lives easier…

Comment 2: If Amazon is going to have anything to do with the gaming industry, then Meta will be waiting for them in the battleground.

This is because the future of gaming is VR, which Meta is currently championing.

Microsoft and Google have already drawn their battle line in the AI industry.

I would love to see how it goes for Meta and Amazon.

It will be interesting to watch how MAANG will battle to remain relevant in the era of disruptive technologies.

For me, the companies that would evolve smoothly and remain an empire in the future are those that would not discredit disruptive technologies (no matter how little).

And also they’ll have to be willing to let their business model evolve.

My Response: Meta has the consumer ecosystem to thrive therein

The governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, has finally honored the invitation of the House of Representatives on Tuesday, following a threat by the Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila, to issue a warrant for the governor’s arrest.

Emefiele was repeatedly invited by the House over the redesigned naira notes and weekly withdrawal limit – policies that have stirred chaos across the country.

Late last year, the CBN announced the redesigned N200, N500 and N1,000 notes and also the new policy limiting weekly individual and corporate withdrawal to N500,000 and N5 million respectively. However, the policies were faulted and Emefiele was invited by the lawmakers amid calls for them to be adjusted.

The central bank had earlier, fixed January 31 as the deadline for Nigerians to return old naira notes to the banks. This triggered chaos across the country as there was not enough redesigned naira notes in circulation, even as the deadline nears.

With these exigencies, the House was irked that the CBN governor has snubbed its invitations, which were meant to address the issues.

The Chairman of the House ad hoc committee looking into the matter, Alhassan Doguwa, had last week, vowed to ensure that Emefiele is arrested if he fails to appear before the House.

But following intense pressure from all corners of the country, President Muhammadu Buhari, on Sunday, approved the extension of the January 31 deadline to February 10. But the house, not satisfied with the gesture, insisted that Emefiele must appear before its committee.

“The 10-day extension for the exchange of the old naira notes is not the solution,” Doguwa said.

The threat appears to have forced the central bank governor to appear before the House, where he said commercial banks must accept the old Naira notes even after the expiration of the 10 February deadline.

In the extension announcement he made on Sunday, Emefiele said an additional 10-day window that will commence from February 10 to 17, 2023, is open to enable Nigerians to return the old naira notes in their possession to the CBN (not commercial banks) after the February 10 deadline.

Gbajabiamila had last week cited Section 20 (3) of CBN Act, which mandates the apex bank to redeem the face value of the recalled currency upon demand, even after the expiration of the notice of recall. He said notwithstanding the deadline imposed by the central bank, the House will see to it that this provision of the law is honored in full.

“Now let me explain that again: the CBN Act, under Section 20, allows the Central Bank to change the legal tender. It also says that after the expiration date, such naira notes changed will no longer be legal tender, but it also says that even five months, three months, or two months after, even in June, all the old notes presented to the bank shall be redeemed by the bank,” he said.

Based on this section of the CBN Act, which outlaws the February 10 deadline, Emefiele succumbed to the demand of the House committee.

He said: “The law which says even after the old currency has lost its legal tender status that we are mandated to collect these money. And I stand with the House of Reps on this. What does that mean? It could have lost its legal tender status which means we have moved on.

“But if you have your money that you have not been able to send to the bank we will certainly give you the opportunity to bring them back into the CBN to redeem it. Either you pay it to your bank account or you want to do an exchange—we will give you. You will not lose your money. This is the assurance I give to Nigerians.”

SpaceX’s satellite internet service Starlink has announced its availability in Nigeria, months after it signed agreement with the Nigerian government to bring in its satellite-based internet coverage.

Starlink announced the launch on Tuesday, making Nigeria the first African country to use the satellite internet and 46th in the world.

Starlink is now available in Nigeria – the first African country to receive service! ? https://t.co/slZbTmZmAt

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) January 30, 2023

The Minister of Information and Digital Economy, Isa Ali Ibrahim, acknowledged the development on Tuesday, saying the company hosted him in their Headquarters, USA in December 2022 to complete the logistics for the deployment.

We have made it again. @SpaceX thank you for hosting me in your Headquarters, USA in December, 2022 to complete the logistics for the deployment. https://t.co/gkp2sBkR8i

— Prof. Isa Ali Ibrahim, CON (@ProfIsaPantami) January 31, 2023

The availability of Starlink internet now widens competition in the Nigerian internet market, which has been dominated by telecom-based internet service providers. The players, MTN, Airtel, Globacom and 9Mobile currently have 154.8m internet subscribers, according to National Communication Commission.

However, the new comer is expected to disrupt the market with speed. Starlink has 50-200 Mbps internet speed, dwarfing Nigeria’s 21.54 download and 10.10 upload Mbps, which respectively places Nigeria at 93^rd in December 2022 internet speed ranking, according to Speedtest Global Index.

With its speed edge over mobile and fixed broadband internet services in Nigeria, Starlink is expected to dominate the West Africa’s largest internet market in no time. But its biggest challenge remains affordability.

At the onset, Starlink had fixed $600 as the cost of its hardware and $43 dollar as the cost of its monthly subscription. Converted to naira, Nigeria’s local currency, the cost amounted to about N438,000 and N31,000, using the parallel market exchange rate.

The cost, which is highly unaffordable for an average Nigerian, was expected to force the majority of Nigerian internet users to stick to their local internet providers. However, Starlink ushered in the deal breaker upon launch. The Elon Musk-founded satellite internet company, which now makes its charges available in naira, slashed the costs of the hardware to N274,098 and subscription plan to N19,260 per month, making for the ultimate disruption.

Although the cost is still considered unaffordable for millions of individual internet subscribers, the move by SpaceX is expected to drive millions of Nigerian internet users to Starlink, especially the big corporations that made up the internet service providers’ biggest customers.

But the cost may defeat the objective, which is to deliver internet service to rural areas that lack broadband penetration.

The Minister of Communications last week said, with the operation of Starlink satellite internet, Nigeria has achieved 100% broadband. He said that through the National Broadband Plan (NBP 2020-2025), Nigeria was targeting 90% broadband coverage by the year 2025, but this has been achieved ahead of time through the licensing of Starlink as Nigerians can now have access to high-speed internet from any part of the country.

But that depends much on the affordability of the satellite internet service. Musk has been complaining that Starlink is losing a lot of money providing free or subsidized internet service around the world, suggesting that there could be a review of its subscription cost in the near future.

However, analysts said that the Nigerian internet providers can mitigate the impact of Starlink by deepening broadband penetration in remote parts of the country, where their services will become the preferred because it offers cheaper subscription costs.