Yearly Archives: 2020

News: Polestar recalls its newest EV for the second time this month

• October 29, 2020
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Polestar, the electric vehicle brand that was spun out of Volvo Car Group, has issued another recall for its newest electric vehicle. The company is voluntarily recalling nearly 4,600 vehicles over what has been described as a faulty inverters, Reuters reported. Polestar said in a statement that all affected customers will be notified, beginning November

Polestar, the electric vehicle brand that was spun out of Volvo Car Group, has issued another recall for its newest electric vehicle.

The company is voluntarily recalling nearly 4,600 vehicles over what has been described as a faulty inverters, Reuters reported. Polestar said in a statement that all affected customers will be notified, beginning November 2.

“The recall involves the replacement of faulty inverters on most delivered customer vehicles,” Polestar said in its statement, adding that the inverters transform the stored energy in the battery into the power required by the electric motors. 

Polestar, which in 2017 was recast as an electric performance brand aimed at producing exciting and fun-to-drive electric vehicles, started production this spring of its all-electric Polestar 2 vehicle at a plant in China. The production start was a milestone for the company that is jointly owned by Volvo Car Group and Zhejiang Geely Holding of China.

However, the company has faced some early headwinds. Polestar made its last recall on Oct. 2 after several cars had abruptly stopped while driving. “This happened in very, very rare cases,” Polestar CEO Thomas Ingenlath said during an interview at TC Sessions: Mobility 2020, which was held in October. Ingenlath said at the time that none of the reported cases happened in the United States, nor were any of the affected vehicles involved in an accident. That issue was fixed with a software update.

News: Corsair acquires EpocCam, a webcam app for iPhone

• October 29, 2020
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Corsair Gaming today announced that it has acquired EpocCam, the software developer behind the iOS software of the same name. It’s easy to see why the gaming company would be interested in such an acquisition in 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic has lead to a worldwide spike in remote working — and, as a result, more

Corsair Gaming today announced that it has acquired EpocCam, the software developer behind the iOS software of the same name. It’s easy to see why the gaming company would be interested in such an acquisition in 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic has lead to a worldwide spike in remote working — and, as a result, more people are teleconferencing than ever.

The EpocCam app is designed specifically to turn iPads and iPhones into a webcam for both macOS and Windows PCs. The software works across a number of popular teleconferencing applications, including Zoom, Skype, Google Meet and Microsoft Teams — which is more than I can say for the beta webcam software I’m currently running.

The deal brings the EpocCam brand under Corsair’s Elgato umbrella. Corsair purchased the company’s gaming brand back in mid-2018. That deal, in turn, found the rest of Elgato rebranding its Eve System — a company expressly focused on smart home and home automation.

While most laptops and desktops are fairly lacking in the built-in webcam department, iPhones have taken great strides. So it makes sense for users to take advantage of that imaging power. Of course, with the company now owned by a gaming brand, it’s clear that video game live-streaming is going to be a big part of the value play here.

The app has already been relaunched under the Elgato brand, including deeper integration with its existing products. The company promises that further updates are “already in development.”

News: Daily Crunch: Google had a good quarter

• October 29, 2020
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Google releases its latest earnings report, Spotify is getting ready to raise prices and Excel gets friendlier to custom data types. This is your Daily Crunch for October 29, 2020. The big story: Google had a good quarter Google’s parent company Alphabet released its third-quarter earnings report this afternoon, coming in well ahead of Wall

Google releases its latest earnings report, Spotify is getting ready to raise prices and Excel gets friendlier to custom data types. This is your Daily Crunch for October 29, 2020.

The big story: Google had a good quarter

Google’s parent company Alphabet released its third-quarter earnings report this afternoon, coming in well ahead of Wall Street expectations thanks in large part to YouTube, which saw revenue rise to $5.0 billion (compared to $3.8 billion during Q3 2019).

Google Cloud also grew revenue from $2.4 billion last year to $3.44 billion in the most recent quarter. Overall, Alphabet reported revenue of $46.2 billion and earnings per share of $16.40, compared to analyst predictions of $42.88 billion in revenue and EPS of $11.21.

The company’s shares quickly rose 8.5% in after-hours trading.

The tech giants

Spotify CEO says company will ‘further expand price increases’ — Although the company didn’t detail its plans, CEO Daniel Ek said the hikes will take place in markets that are more mature for Spotify.

Microsoft now lets you bring your own data types to Excel — That means you can have a “customer” data type, for example, bringing in rich customer data from a third-party service into Excel.

Why Apple’s Q4 earnings look different this year — With Apple’s latest iPhone launch running a few weeks behind this year, it missed the window to be included on Q4.

Startups, funding and venture capital

Donut launches Watercooler, an easy way to socialize online with co-workers — The startup also announced that it has raised $12 million in total funding, led by Accel.

One-click housing startup Atmos raises another $4M from Khosla, real estate strategics and TikTok star Josh Richards — According to CEO Nick Donahue, users have started designing the “first dozen homes” on the platform.

Commissary Club wants to help formerly incarcerated people find community —  While 70 Million Jobs focuses on helping people with criminal records find jobs, its new network Commissary Club is designed to be a place for folks to find community.

Advice and analysis from Extra Crunch

VCs poured capital into European startups in Q3, but early-stage dealmaking appeared to suffer — The VC trends of later and larger continue to change the landscape of private capital.

In the ‘buy now, pay later’ wars, PayPal is primed for dominance — Button’s Stephen Milbank writes that the greatest limitation to buy-now-pay-later adoption is its availability.

Twitter’s API access changes are chasing away third-party developers — On August 12, Twitter launched a complete rebuild of its 2012 API.

(Reminder: Extra Crunch is our membership program, which aims to democratize information about startups. You can sign up here.)

Everything else

Europe to limit how big tech can push its own services and use third-party data — Commission EVP Margrethe Vestager confirmed that a legislative proposal due in a few weeks will aim to ban what she called “unfair self-preferencing.”

Comcast says Peacock has nearly 22M sign-ups — But it’s not clear how many of them are paid versus free.

Tech optimism…in this economy? — The latest episode of Equity looks at big startup opportunities for the coming decade.

The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 3pm Pacific, you can subscribe here.

News: PUBG Mobile to terminate access for users in India on October 30 following ban order

• October 29, 2020
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PUBG Mobile, the sleeper hit mobile game, will terminate all service and access for users in India on October 30, two months after New Delhi banned the game in the world’s second largest internet market over cybersecurity concerns. India banned PUBG Mobile Nordic Map: Livik and PUBG Mobile Lite, along with over 100 apps with

PUBG Mobile, the sleeper hit mobile game, will terminate all service and access for users in India on October 30, two months after New Delhi banned the game in the world’s second largest internet market over cybersecurity concerns.

India banned PUBG Mobile Nordic Map: Livik and PUBG Mobile Lite, along with over 100 apps with links to China on September 2. The ban came after India banned TikTok and dozens of other popular Chinese apps in late June.

These apps were “prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of state and public order,” the country’s IT Ministry said on both the instances.

But unlike other affected apps that became unavailable within days — if not hours — PUBG Mobile apps remained accessible in the country for users who already had them installed on their phones, tablets, and PCs. In fact, according to one popular mobile insight firm, PUBG Mobile had retained more than 90% of its monthly active users in the country, a mobile-first market where 99% of smartphones run Android, in the weeks following New Delhi’s order.

(Following the ban, Google and Apple pulled PUBG Mobile apps from their app stores in India. But soon enough, guides on how to workaround the ban and obtain and install the apps became popular on several forums.)

PUBG Mobile had about 50 monthly active users in India, tens of millions of users ahead of Call of Duty: Mobile and Fortnite and any other mobile game in the country.

“PUBG Mobile kickstarted an entire ecosystem — from esports organisations to teams and even a cottage industry of streamers that made the most of its spectator sport-friendly gameplay,” said Rishi Alwani, a long-time analyst of Indian gaming market and publisher of news outlet The Mako Reactor.

“Granted Tencent did a lot of the heavy lifting in building it out, but the game’s quality itself was heads and shoulders above what most Indians were used to on smartphones. And that’s a reason many kept coming back, some eventually monetising as well,” he added.

South Korea-headquartered PUBG Mobile attempted to assuage New Delhi’s concern by cutting ties with Tencent, the game’s publishing and distribution partner in India.

On Thursday, PUBG Mobile said, “protecting user data has always been a top priority and we have always complied with applicable data protection laws and regulations in India. All users’ gameplay information is processed in a transparent manner as disclosed in our privacy policy.”

“We deeply regret this outcome, and sincerely thank you for your support and love for PUBG Mobile in India,” it added.

News: Apple One services subscription bundles start launching tomorrow

• October 29, 2020
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Apple is launching its Apple One services bundle tomorrow, though the company’s workout service Fitness+ isn’t quite ready yet. On an earnings call today, CEO Tim Cook revealed tomorrow’s rollout and called the service the “easiest way for users to enjoy Apple services.” In a conversation with Bloomberg, Apple CFO Luca Maestri revealed the launch

Apple is launching its Apple One services bundle tomorrow, though the company’s workout service Fitness+ isn’t quite ready yet.

On an earnings call today, CEO Tim Cook revealed tomorrow’s rollout and called the service the “easiest way for users to enjoy Apple services.” In a conversation with Bloomberg, Apple CFO Luca Maestri revealed the launch timing for Fitness+ as well. The company also detailed that it has 585 million total paid services subscriptions and expects to reach 600 million before the end of the 2020 calendar year.

The subscription bundle is designed around bringing more users into more Apple Services. It’s a big play to get subscribers to switch from Spotify to Apple Music as that is likely the crown jewel of the offering.

The company’s $14.99 per month individual plan includes Apple Music, Apple TV+, Apple Arcade and 50GB of iCloud storage. Apple also sells $19.99 family plans that bump up the storage to 200GB and is planning to debut a “premiere” plan for $29.99 that includes Fitness+ and Apple News+.

Apple’s Services division is growing in importance to the company’s bottom line, with the group reaching an all-time-high in revenue and reaching past half of the quarter’s iPhone revenues. You can read more on their earnings release below.

Sarah Perez also contributed to this report.

News: Netflix is raising prices on most of its plans in the US

• October 29, 2020
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Time for another Netflix price hike! About a year and a half after the last price increase, Netflix is bumping up the cost for most of its monthly plans in the US by one to two dollars. Here’s how the changes break down: The “Premium” plan (4k and 4 simultaneous streams) will go from $15.99

Time for another Netflix price hike!

About a year and a half after the last price increase, Netflix is bumping up the cost for most of its monthly plans in the US by one to two dollars.

Here’s how the changes break down:

• The “Premium” plan (4k and 4 simultaneous streams) will go from $15.99 a month to $17.99.
• The “Standard” plan (1080p and 2 simultaneous streams) will go from $12.99 a month to $13.99
• The “Basic” plan (SD and 1 stream at a time) will stay at $8.99

The price increase is effective immediately if you’re a new customer. If you’re an existing customer, meanwhile, expect the price shift to take place sometime within the next two months according to CNBC.

Netflix doesn’t outright say why they’re increasing the price now — but between a massive increase in usage/demand during lockdown, an ever-growing number of competitors battling for the same marquee exclusives, and the added cost and complexity of producing original content during a pandemic, it’s not hard to imagine where their costs might be going up.

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

• October 29, 2020
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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
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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
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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
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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.