Börse Express – These 3 tech companies are shaping the future

Tech stocks haven’t had an easy time of it lately, but let’s face it: in the longer term, the world will become increasingly digital, intelligent, and automated. So it might be a good idea for long-term investors to take advantage of the slide in the tech sector and look at the companies that are building the essential technology platforms for the future.

Even if the stocks are rather expensive, they stand Amazon.com (WKN: 906866), Tesla (NYSE: A1CX3T) and Illumina (WKN: 927079) well below their 52-week highs. Each of these stocks should at least be on your screen. After all, the technologies behind it are likely to become more and more important in the years to come.

1. Amazon

FAANG share Amazon has set up not just one, but several platforms that will be of central importance for our near and long-term economic future. It is noteworthy that Amazon pioneered cloud computing. This enables companies to use computing and storage capacities as required instead of building them up themselves. Today, Amazon Web Services is by far the number one cloud platform, generating $ 45.4 billion in revenue last year. All of this with growth of 30% and an operating margin of 30%.

And of course, Amazon was the pioneer in making e-commerce a reality in the early days of the internet. Through years and decades of consistent improvements and investments, Amazon is now able to deliver almost any item. For Prime customers, many of these are available in just one day. Amazon recently invested in its own air freight platform, as well as a new stake in the air freight partner Air Transport Services Group and made an investment in Rivian. Thus, it can be assumed that Amazon will continue to improve its world-class e-commerce delivery platform in the years to come.

Amazon’s platforms also extend to media and entertainment. With Prime Video, Amazon not only has one of the leading streaming services, but its Fire Stick is developing into an indispensable advertising platform for connected TV. The Fire Stick can combine data from the e-commerce platform with targeted advertising through its connected streaming TV platform. In the last quarter, Amazon was once again the world market leader in sales of connected TVs. This happened with growth of 36% compared to the previous year and a market share of 12.1%. This should also drive Amazon’s emerging digital advertising business in the years to come.

Having leading cloud, e-commerce and digital advertising platforms should make Amazon a strong growth driver in the years to come. Even after the pandemic.

2. Tesla

There’s a lot of controversy around Tesla stock. Cops say it will become the world’s most valuable breakthrough tech company. Bears, on the other hand, claim it’s just another auto business run by an attention-grabbing snake oil salesman. The answer is probably somewhere in between, but I would definitely lean towards the former more than the latter.

Tesla currently leads the electric vehicle market, with a market share of approximately 69% in the US and 18% worldwide. That is more than three times as much as the nearest competitor. Say what you want about CEO Elon Musk’s behavior and the stock’s valuation, but no one can deny that Tesla has established a world-class mass-market electric vehicle brand faster than many older automakers thought possible. Management predicts an astonishing annual growth rate of 50% for the next several years. The company continues to penetrate China and Europe.

Most people understand Tesla’s vehicles, but how does Tesla become a “platform”? The key will be the software that enables fully autonomous driving. The aim is to create an autonomously driving taxi network as soon as the regulations allow it. Unlike other companies like Waymo, which uses LiDAR sensors, Tesla is equipping its current vehicles with eight video cameras that continuously record 360-degree videos and beam visual data back to Tesla. There, this data is loaded into the company’s neural network. This neural network is constantly improving Tesla’s FSD platform. According to Musk, by the end of this year, the company’s full software will be able to match or exceed human driver safety. “This is a big deal,” Musk said on the recent conference call with analysts.

Thanks to the autonomous driving chip, Tesla believes it can win the battle for supremacy. Thus, Tesla owners could potentially rent their cars to others when they are not using their vehicle. Musk believes Tesla will get software-like returns through such a service. That should then justify the currently sky-high rating of Tesla. Musk said he was also open to licensing Tesla’s self-driving software to other automakers.

The stock is undoubtedly expensive considering the company is a pure automaker. Thanks to its product portfolio with electric cars and trucks, battery production, software as well as solar panels and large-scale energy storage, Tesla can become an important platform for clean energy in the long term. But everyone has to decide for themselves whether that justifies the current assessment.

3. Illumina

An important development in biotechnology is the use of genetic testing. Genetic testing used to be very expensive and was only used by research organizations, governments and universities. But the leading genetic testing platform Illumina did a great job reducing the cost of genetic testing over time.

With 90% of all genetic sequence data performed on Illumina machines, Illumina is a dominant and critical technology platform. It wants to pave the way for the future of medicine. Since 2007 alone, when Illumina introduced its first gene sequencing system, the company has reduced costs by a factor of 10,000. Still, Illumina is not standing still as the company plans to cut costs from $ 600 per genome to $ 100 in the near future. If Illumina can reach this level, it will usher in an era of truly personalized medicine.

55 types of cancer treatments now require an accompanying genetic test. And Illumina just got even more focused on cancer prevention with the $ 8 billion acquisition of GRAIL, a company that uses Illumina’s platform.

Corona also boosts the share. After all, COVID’s vaccines were made from data gleaned from Illumina’s technology. Currently Illumina is helping governments track down new COVID variants as they emerge around the world.

One can bet that in the future, genetic monitoring of infectious diseases and future outbreaks will become increasingly important. That should give further momentum to this important biotech this decade and beyond.

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