Technology Roundup – Alibaba gains bull on expansion potential, Tesla ‘very close’ to level 5 self-driving technology

科技精选——阿里巴巴获买入评级,特斯拉“非常接近”5级自动驾驶技术
Published on: July 10, 2020
Author: Amy Liu

Alibaba gains bull on expansion potential

Needham starts Alibaba (NYSE:BABA) with a Buy rating, citing the e-commerce giant’s potential to expand into “adjacent industries such as offline retail, food delivery, and cloud computing.”

Analyst Vincent Yu praises BABA’s “well-established ecosystem” and strategic value chain position as “crucial competitive barriers to newer market entrants”

Needham sets Alibaba’s price target at $275. BABA has a Street-high target of $315 and an average price target of $268.91.

Alibaba shares are up 1.8% to $262.16, adding to yesterday’s gains after a report the Ant Group fintech arm is considering a Hong Kong listing.

Tesla ‘very close’ to level 5 self-driving technology

Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) is “very close” to achieving level 5 autonomous driving technology, CEO Elon Musk said by video at the opening of the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai.

“I remain confident that we will have the basic functionality for level 5 autonomy complete this year,” he added, as the company competes against Google’s Waymo (GOOG, GOOGL), GM’s Cruise (NYSE:GM), Amazon’s Zoox (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Uber (NYSE:UBER) in the self-driving arena.

Level 5 is typically referred to as “full automation,” where all roads and environmental conditions can be managed without a driver and steering wheels are optional.

Tesla shares took a slight breather yesterday from their breakneck rally that started in late June. Shares are up more than 47% in the past month.

HP, Lenovo top Q2 global PC shipments

Traditional PC shipments were up 11% Y/Y globally in Q2 to 72.3M units, according to new IDC data.

HP (NYSE:HPQ) topped the market with 18M units, followed by Lenovo (17.4M), Dell (NYSE:DELL) (12M), Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) (5.6M), and Acer (4.8M). HP and Lenovo had Y/Y growth rates over 20%, while Apple’s units grew 6%.

U.S. volume is expected to top 21M units, the highest volume since the end of 2009.

The research firm says early indicators show strength in education, enterprise, and consumer, which were partially offset by small and medium-sized business spending freeze.

“The strong demand driven by work-from-home as well as e-learning needs has surpassed previous expectations and has once again put the PC at the center of consumers’ tech portfolio,” says IDC research manager Jitesh Ubrani.

Spirent Federal inks $1.8M U.S. military contract

Following other recent awards worth $4.6M supporting the Florida space launch, Spirent Federal Systems (OTCPK:SPMYY -4.3%) received another $1.8M contract for supporting a major military program.

Spirent Simulator provides multiple outputs for CRPA and FRPA applications, including inertial sensor outputs.

Snap -1.5% as TikTok loosens China ties

TikTok (BDNCE) execs are considering corporate structure changes that could include a new management board or a headquarters outside of China, according to The Wall Street Journal sources.

The app’s popularity surged during the global pandemic-related stay home orders, and the demand increased scrutiny over TikTok’s ties to China.

The app has worked to distance itself from ByteDance’s Beijing base. TikTok denied providing user data to Chinese authorities and pulled out of Hong Kong entirely due to China’s new national security law.

A new transparency report shows TikTok received 500 government data requests from July to December last year and none were from China or Hong Kong.

The Trump administration has hinted at a potential TikTok ban, which has served as a tailwind for competitor Snap (NYSE:SNAP).

Snap shares are down 1.5% to $26.01.

Technology