Monthly Archives: October 2020

News: Twitter revenue rises 14%, but user growth fails to impress

• October 29, 2020
• by:   
• in:  Blog 
• note:  no comments 

Twitter continued to see its traffic rise in the third quarter, thanks to that trifecta of returning sports, the presidential campaign and the COVID-19 pandemic. But there wasn’t quite enough growth to appease Wall Street.  Twitter beat out analyst expectations on revenue and net income; However, Wall Street appeared to get stuck on Twitter’s user

Twitter continued to see its traffic rise in the third quarter, thanks to that trifecta of returning sports, the presidential campaign and the COVID-19 pandemic. But there wasn’t quite enough growth to appease Wall Street. 

Twitter beat out analyst expectations on revenue and net income; However, Wall Street appeared to get stuck on Twitter’s user growth figures and sent shares lower in after-market trading. Twitter’s MDAUs — the company’s internal audience metric that measures monetizeable daily active users — hit 187 million in the third quarter. That’s a razor thin improvement from the 186 million the company reported in second quarter of this year and growth from the 145 million in the third quarter in 2019. Analysts from FactSet had expected 195 million MDAUs.

Shares were down nearly 15% in after-market trading.

Twitter reported Thursday net income of $29 million in the third quarter, or 4 cents per diluted share, a decline from the same time period last year, when the company brought in a net income of $47 million at 5 cents per diluted share. Adjusted earnings were 19 cents a share.

The company’s revenue came in at $936 million, up 14% from the same period last year. Analysts had expected revenue of $777 million. 

Twitter’s ad revenue also grew 15% to $808 million. Total ad engagement rose 27% over the same period in 2019. The return of live events as well as increased and previously delayed product launches helped boost ad revenue, Twitter CFO Ned Segal said.

“We also made progress on our brand and direct response products, with updated ad formats, improved measurement, and better prediction. We remain confident that our larger audience, coupled with ongoing revenue product improvements, new events and product launches, and the positive advertiser response to the choices we’ve made as we have grown the service, can drive great outcomes over time,” he added.

The U.S., Twitter’s biggest market, accounted for $513 million in revenue, a 10% increase YoY. 

However, Twitter warned that the holiday season and U.S. election could impact advertiser behavior.

News: Strong ad revenues boost Facebook past expectations as company cites ecommerce boom as tailwind

• October 29, 2020
• by:   
• in:  Blog 
• note:  no comments 

Facebook reported its Q3 earnings today, including revenues of $21.5 billion, net income of $7.8 billion. The company earned $2.71 in per-share profit during the three month period. Analysts had expected Facebook, the social giant, to earn a much-smaller $1.91 per-share off smaller revenues of $19.82 billion. The company also reported an average of 1.82

Facebook reported its Q3 earnings today, including revenues of $21.5 billion, net income of $7.8 billion. The company earned $2.71 in per-share profit during the three month period.

Analysts had expected Facebook, the social giant, to earn a much-smaller $1.91 per-share off smaller revenues of $19.82 billion.

The company also reported an average of 1.82 billion daily active users in September, up 12% compared to the year-ago period. Monthly actives were 2.74 billion, also up 12%. Both results were ahead of expectations.

Notably Facebook’s headcount rose sharply during the year, rising 32% compared to the year-ago period. That outstripped its 22% year-over-year revenue growth. The company’s total expenses rose 28%, again faster than its revenues.

Shares of Facebook are effectively flat in after-hours trading, up around 0.4% at the time of writing.

The company did not share a specific outlook for Q4 2020 or 2021 in its report, instead noting that it anticipates “fourth quarter 2020 year-over-year ad revenue growth rate to be higher than [its] reported third quarter 2020 rate,” along with stronger non-advertising revenues stemming from Oculus Quest 2 sales, the company’s new VR helmet.

Facebook did say that 2021 will bring a “significant amount of uncertainty.” A potential hurdle of Facebook will be the regulatory environment in Europe, and viability of transatlantic data transfers. Facebook says that its “closely monitoring the potential impact on our European operations as these developments progress.”

Analysts expect Facebook to generate revenues of $24.25 billion and per-share profit of $2.67 in the fourth quarter of 2020, and $100.0 billion in 2021 top line leading to $10.26 in per-share income.

What matters in all of this? That the core advertising market that seemed to bolster Snap’s own results has helped fill Facebook’s wings as well. Facebook noted in its earnings that it thinks that the “pandemic has contributed to an acceleration in the shift of commerce from offline to online,” leading to it experiencing “increasing demand for advertising as a result of this acceleration.” Twitter, meanwhile, saw ad revenue only marginally increase, about 8% from the year prior, as advertiser tastebuds remain volatile.

That’s a tailwind from a secular shift. For Facebook, it could mean a good year’s growth.

News: Why Apple’s Q4 earnings look different this year

• October 29, 2020
• by:   
• in:  Blog 
• note:  no comments 

On Thursday, Apple delivered a Q4 earnings beat but the stock slid anyway as wary investors saw worse than expected iPhone revenues. At the time of writing, stock was down around 5% in after-hours trading. It was a mild beat, with Apple posting $64.7 billion compared to the $63.7 billion Wall Street was expecting and

On Thursday, Apple delivered a Q4 earnings beat but the stock slid anyway as wary investors saw worse than expected iPhone revenues. At the time of writing, stock was down around 5% in after-hours trading.

It was a mild beat, with Apple posting $64.7 billion compared to the $63.7 billion Wall Street was expecting and $0.73 earnings per share versus an estimated $0.70. While Apple showcased all-time-highs in Services and Mac divisions, iPhone revenues were down 20 percent year-over-year.

Generally, Apple’s Q4 earnings feature a bit of a bump from the first few days of sales of the new iPhones, but with Apple running a few weeks behind this year, their launches have missed the window to be included on Q4 and will instead all be bundled into the Q1 holiday quarter.

The iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro dropped on September 20 of last year, while this year’s iPhone 12 was released more than a month later on October 23, while the iPhone 12 Pro has still yet to launch but will be available November 13.

The bigger question is how this delay might affect the company’s entire product release schedule. Will the iPhone 12 and 12 Pro see a shorter life cycle than previous models or will October/November be the new launch timeline for the company’s smartphones going forward?

Digging into the other numbers beyond iPhone, Apple showcased $9.03 billion in Mac revenue for Q4, $6.80 billion in iPad, $7.87 in Wearables etc. and $14.55 billion in Services revenue. Interestingly, this is surely the closest Apple’s Services revenues have gotten to iPhone sales to date, with revenues there reaching just over one-half of overall iPhone sales for Q4. In 2019, the ratio was closer to 1:3.

Next quarter is likely to be big revenue-wise, but investors don’t seem to have been wooed with Q4.

News: Amazon crushes Q3 expectations, but AWS growth slowed to 29%

• October 29, 2020
• by:   
• in:  Blog 
• note:  no comments 

Amazon has continued to reap the rewards of a society increasingly dependent on ecommerce — a trend further fueled by the COVID-19 pandemic. The company crushed analyst expectations Thursday, reporting net income of $6.3 billion in the third quarter, or $12.37 per diluted share, compared with $2.1 billion in net income, or $4.23 per diluted

Amazon has continued to reap the rewards of a society increasingly dependent on ecommerce — a trend further fueled by the COVID-19 pandemic. The company crushed analyst expectations Thursday, reporting net income of $6.3 billion in the third quarter, or $12.37 per diluted share, compared with $2.1 billion in net income, or $4.23 per diluted share in the same quarter last year. 

The company brought in a total of $96.15 billion in revenue, a 37.4% increase from the $69.98 billion it generated in the same period last year. 

Analysts polled by Yahoo expected earnings per share of $7.41 on average, up from $4.23 last year. Analysts expected revenue of $92.7 billion, up from $69.98 billion in the same year-ago period. 

While the third-quarter numbers beat expectations, the picture wasn’t all unicorns and rainbows. The company’s cloud-computing service AWS saw growth slow in the third quarter. AWS generated $11.6 billion in sales, a 29% YoY sales growth. That sounds dandy, but it’s actually smaller than the 35% YoY sales growth the segment experienced in the third quarter of 2019.

The financials released Thursday also showed growth from the second period of this year, which was considered at the time a “killer quarter” by just about every measure. Revenue grew 8% and net income popped 21% from the second quarter, figures that suggest that consumers have yet to reach their limit for commerce delivered to their doorsteps.  

Meanwhile, Amazon reported that its operating cash flow increased 56% to $55.3 billion for the trailing 12 months compared to $35.3 billion for the trailing period ended September 30, 2019. Free cash flow (operating cash flow less capital expenditures) also rose to $29.5 billion in the third quarter compared with $23.5 billion in the trailing period ended September 30, 2019. 

Looking ahead, Amazon is bullish on sales, but notes costs related to COVID-19 might affect operating income. The company said it expects sales to grow between 28% and 38% in the fourth quarter compared to the same period in 2019, which would bump that figure to between $112 billion and $121 billion.

Amazon said it expects operating income to be between $1 billion and $4.5 billion, compared with $3.9 billion in fourth quarter 2019. This guidance assumes approximately $4 billion of costs related to COVID-19.

News: Comcast says Peacock has nearly 22M sign-ups

• October 29, 2020
• by:   
• in:  Blog 
• note:  no comments 

Comcast’s latest earnings report includes some official user numbers for Peacock, the new streaming service from Comcast-owned NBCUniversal. Specifically, Comcast says that Peacock has received nearly 22 million sign-ups since it launched in July, and that it’s “exceeding our expectations on all engagement metrics in only a few months.” What’s not clear, however, is how

Comcast’s latest earnings report includes some official user numbers for Peacock, the new streaming service from Comcast-owned NBCUniversal.

Specifically, Comcast says that Peacock has received nearly 22 million sign-ups since it launched in July, and that it’s “exceeding our expectations on all engagement metrics in only a few months.” What’s not clear, however, is how many of those sign-ups come from paying subscribers.

NBCUniversal has emphasized the free, ad-supported tier while pitching the service. That tier includes a large library of classic shows and movies like “30 Rock,” “Parks and Recreation” and “Saturday Night Live.” However, if you want access to a larger library of content (particularly Peacock Originals), as well as earlier access to new NBC shows, you’ll need to pay $4.99 per month for Peacock Premium, or $9.99 per month to remove the ads.

It’s also worth noting that the service has had some major limitations on connected TVs. Peacock only launching on Roku last month and, thanks to continuing business disagreements, it’s still not available on Amazon’s Fire TV.

Netflix, meanwhile, just reported that it has 195 million paying subscribers, while Disney+ had 60.5 million subscribers as of August 3.

News: Strong YouTube ad growth powers Alphabet to better-than-expected Q3

• October 29, 2020
• by:   
• in:  Blog 
• note:  no comments 

Today after the bell, Alphabet announced its Q3 performance. The Google parent company generated revenues of $46.2 billion and per-share profit of $16.40 off the back of net income of $11.2 billion. Analysts had expected Alphabet to earn $11.21 per share, from revenues of $42.88 billion according to Yahoo Finance; other estimates were larger, targeting

Today after the bell, Alphabet announced its Q3 performance. The Google parent company generated revenues of $46.2 billion and per-share profit of $16.40 off the back of net income of $11.2 billion.

Analysts had expected Alphabet to earn $11.21 per share, from revenues of $42.88 billion according to Yahoo Finance; other estimates were larger, targeting $11.37 in per-share income off revenue of $42.84 billion.

The company’s shares instantly rose around 8.5% after its earnings beat.

Of all the major tech companies to report today — Twitter, Facebook, Apple, Amazon, and Alphabet — this is the most positive market reaction that we’ve seen. How did it come together? Let’s take a look.

Sum of the parts

Digging into the company’s numbers, YouTube revenue rose to $5.0 billion, from $3.8 billion in Q3 2019. Analysts had expected YouTube to generate $4.52 billion in total revenue during the most recent quarter.

Google Cloud managed to generate $3.44 billion from $2.4 billion in Q3 2019. The Google Cloud collection of cloud computing, productivity software, and other enterprise services generated $3.0 billion in the second quarter of this year. Analysts had expected Google Cloud to generate $3.31 billion in total revenue during the most recent quarter.

And Alphabet’s skunkworks division, Other Bets managed to generate $178 million in revenue, another quarter in which the set of companies was an excellent source of negative operating income. The collection of efforts lost $1.1 billion in the quarter.

That loss was higher than the year-ago operating deficit of $941 million for Other bets, implying that its financial issues remain. Of course, Alphabet doesn’t intend for Other Bets to generate positive net income. But to see it torch north of $1 billion in operating profit is still somewhat surprising. Google revenues made up 99.66% of the company’s total revenues for the period, for reference.

Finally, Alphabet continues to be an amazing business. The company generate net cash from operations of $17.0 billion in the quarter, leading to free cash flow of $11.6 billion. Damn.

News: Google tests a helpful app comparison feature on Google Play

• October 29, 2020
• by:   
• in:  Blog 
• note:  no comments 

Google is testing a new feature that could improve discovery for Android apps on Google Play. The company confirmed it’s experimenting with a “Compare Apps” option that would allow Google Play users to quickly and more easily understand the slight differences between otherwise similar apps by comparing specific features and metrics — like star ratings

Google is testing a new feature that could improve discovery for Android apps on Google Play. The company confirmed it’s experimenting with a “Compare Apps” option that would allow Google Play users to quickly and more easily understand the slight differences between otherwise similar apps by comparing specific features and metrics — like star ratings or total downloads, for example.

The feature was first spotted by Android Police, which found it at the bottom of an individual app listing page for a media player on the Play Store (ver. 22.4.28).

Image Credits: Android Police

Google confirmed the feature is live but only as a small test.

After users scrolled down past the app details and reviews, the page offered a comparison chart that allowed users to compare the VLC Player app with other media players across aspects like “Ease of Use,” support for offline play, and various media player specific features — like visual quality (HD, SD, etc.) and controls (gesture control, playback, scrubber, etc.).

The feature may leverage data Google has sourced from questions it asked app reviewers, though that aspect is not clear at this time. It also pulls in other data it already has on file, like the aggregate star rating and how many downloads the app has seen to date, for instance.

Typically, in place of the comparison chart, Google Play would provide a list of “similar apps” at the bottom of the listings page. This is similar to Apple’s “You Might Also Like” app suggestions and common across app stores. The idea with “similar apps” is to help point users researching apps to others in same genre. But making a determination of which to download often requires reading through the app’s descriptions and user reviews, which can be time-consuming.

With a comparison chart, users could more quickly figure out which app was the better fit for their needs, instead of wasting time researching or downloading multiple apps to install only to find they didn’t offer a particular feature the user had wanted.

Google confirmed to TechCrunch this is a “small experiment” that’s currently running, but says it doesn’t have immediate plans for a broader rollout. That’s a shame!

News: Precursor Ventures promotes Sydney Thomas, its first hire, to principal

• October 29, 2020
• by:   
• in:  Blog 
• note:  no comments 

In 2019, only one Black woman was named partner in venture capital, according to All Raise, a nonprofit focused on accelerating female founders and investors. The data has shown, shows, and will continue to show how the tech industry fails to invest in underrepresented women of color. Thus, hiring the next generation of founders and

In 2019, only one Black woman was named partner in venture capital, according to All Raise, a nonprofit focused on accelerating female founders and investors. The data has shown, shows, and will continue to show how the tech industry fails to invest in underrepresented women of color.

Thus, hiring the next generation of founders and decision-makers is key (and promoting them is, too).

Sydney Thomas, who was the first hire at Precursor Ventures, a seed and early-stage focused fund led by Charles Hudson, has been promoted from senior associate to principal. Thomas is joined by Hudson, analyst Ayanna Kerrison, and entrepreneur-in-residence Chapman Snowden, to make up Precursor.

After graduating from the Haas School of Business at Berkeley in 2016, Thomas joined Precursor to do what Hudson says most applicants wouldn’t: the operational work of bringing a solo-GP fund, then with less than $5 million in committed capital, to a more organized place.

“The fund was basically running out of my inbox,” Hudson said. “She really helped us get to a much better place operationally.” Hudson started off as an intern, toggling time between working for a Precursor portfolio company and the fund itself, and eventually came on as a senior associate.

As a principal, Thomas will now have more discretion to do deals and make decisions for the firm. “The goal was always for her to get us to a place operationally where she wasn’t as critical,” Hudson notes. Thomas did not respond to request for comment.

Roles within venture have grown increasingly, and often intentionally, vague over time. At any given fund, there can be principals, investors, partners, investing principal partners and senior associate investors. Depending on the fund, each person could just go under the guise of “partner” and call it a day. But in action, every member on a venture team has a varying range of investment autonomy, decision-making authority and weight at the firm.

While the vagueness can balance out egos within a firm, it can often leave founders confused over who has the ability to give them money.

Hudson says he takes role differentiation seriously, and (patiently) wants to build Precursor into a place that helps people in venture get their first start. With Thomas’s promotion, she has the ability to green light investments without the mass overhead of what it means to be a partner.

“I think the only reason to make someone a principal is if you think that they could develop into a partner,” he said.

News: Google brings Halloween to life using augmented reality

• October 29, 2020
• by:   
• in:  Blog 
• note:  no comments 

There’s an AR ghost on Google Search. There’s a dancing skeleton, set of creepy jack-o’-lanterns, and costumed cats and dogs, too. Ahead of Halloween weekend in the U.S., Google has launched a set of fun, augmented reality-powered features on Google Search which appear as an option when you search for specific Halloween terms using a

There’s an AR ghost on Google Search. There’s a dancing skeleton, set of creepy jack-o’-lanterns, and costumed cats and dogs, too. Ahead of Halloween weekend in the U.S., Google has launched a set of fun, augmented reality-powered features on Google Search which appear as an option when you search for specific Halloween terms using a mobile device.

For example, if you search for the word “Halloween” and scroll down the search results page, you’ll see a box that prompts you to “Summon up a 3D ghost.” When you tap the “View in 3D” button, you’re able to see the ghost floating around your room.

On the iPhone, you’ll first have to move the phone around the room to get started, as with other AR apps. On Android devices, however, the ghost immediately appears in 3D but there’s a separate button, “View in your space,” that will place the ghost in the environment with you.

Google says the features work in the Google Search app and in the mobile browser.

Once the AR object has been placed in your room, you can move around it to view it from different angles, move closer or further away, or drag it around it around with your finger. The object even leaves a shadow on the floor, to make it seem like it’s really there.

Spooky, Halloween music will also play in the background as the AR objects float or dance in your space. You can then take a photo or a video to share elsewhere, if you choose.

In addition the AR ghost, you can search for a set of three jack-o’lanterns, a dancing skeleton, a hot dog (well, a dog in a hot dog costume), a pirate dog, and a magic cat.

The latter two appear when you google for the keywords “dog” or “cat,” while a search for “hot dog” will pull up the playful dachshund that paws at the ground and wags its tail. Searches for “skeleton” and “jack-o’-lantern” (and some variations) will bring up the others.

You may also see a pop-up at the bottom of the main Google.com landing page that suggests you try the new AR feature, but it wasn’t showing up consistently for us on every visit.

Google has experimented with AR features on Google Search for some time, having offered up 3D models of animals, places, spaceships, celestial bodies including the moon, the planets and more, as well as biology terms, anatomical systems, chemistry terms, plus cars, shoes, and even Santa.

Unfortunately, there’s no easy way to find all the AR objects offered in one place — you usually just stumble upon them when searching.

Besides the AR Halloween search feature, Google also introduced two new doorbell ringtones for its Hello Nest devices, “Black Cat” and “Werewolf.” You can continue to use the sounds introduced last year, like ghost, vampire, monster or witch noises, for example.

Google Assistant, meanwhile, now tells Halloween-themed riddles and can sing a Halloween song, as well, in another nod to the holiday.

News: In the ‘buy now, pay later’ wars, PayPal is primed for dominance

• October 29, 2020
• by:   
• in:  Blog 
• note:  no comments 

Stephen Milbank Contributor Share on Twitter Stephen Milbank is the co-founder and Head of Global Strategic Partnerships at Button, a mobile commerce technology company that is powering a commerce-driven internet. The COVID-19 pandemic has already dramatically reshaped how Americans shop, with e-commerce expected to grow 20% in 2020 as a greater proportion of users shift

The COVID-19 pandemic has already dramatically reshaped how Americans shop, with e-commerce expected to grow 20% in 2020 as a greater proportion of users shift from in-store to online. Due to this transition to greater online shopping coupled with the increased financial uncertainty of the American public, Button expects that COVID-19 will also reshape how Americans pay for their shopping with a similarly dramatic increase in adoption of “buy now, pay later” payment programs (BNPL) at checkout.

The greatest limitation to BNPL adoption is its availability, i.e., whether the retailer offers its customers a BNPL program. Offering such a program in the checkout flow doesn’t happen with the flip of a switch. It requires a direct integration into the retailer’s point-of-sale system, which is an onerous process and a meaningful moat for providers in place. Leaders in the BNPL field include Klarna, Affirm, Afterpay and Quadpay — and PayPal made a major announcement in August that it would begin offering BNPL services.

In anticipation of this season’s increased adoption of BNPL, mobile commerce platform Button examined our marketplace to understand the current state of affairs as it relates to BNPL — how many retailers feature BNPL programs, which programs are most prevalent and how often do the BNPL programs compete head-to-head.

Using Button’s Commerce Intelligence, we analyzed the payment method used by consumers in our marketplace over the past 90 days. We reviewed nearly 500,000 transactions across more than 300 retailers. Key highlights included:

• Of nearly 500,000 transactions, Button observed five available alternative payment solutions: Afterpay, Affirm, Klarna, QuadPay and PayPal. While PayPal’s payment option is not exclusively a BNPL option like the others, we included it in this analysis to highlight the significant foundation upon which it can build its BNPL program relative to its competitors.
• PayPal had the greatest retailer coverage with a presence of 65% retailers. Afterpay was a distant second at 10%, then Affirm 6%, Klarna 5% and QuadPay 2%.

Image Credits: Button (opens in a new window)

It’s difficult to step out of PayPal’s shadow … the other payment solutions had the following overlap with PayPal of their respective retailer inventory: Klarna (87%), Affirm (80%), AfterPay (77%) and QuadPay (60%).