Category: Billion Dollar Companies

Dating is stressful enough. No matter how well you know a person through a chatting app, there’s plenty of room for disappointment. What if they aren’t as interesting in person? What if they have a facial tick or halitosis? Or, worse still, what if you get left staring at an empty place setting in a restaurant watching the minutes tick by?

If that’s dating in the western world imagine what it’s like dating’s a country like India, where there are over 100 rapes a day and Indian men think stalking is normal. It’s only natural that women there are nervous when it comes to romance–and why, according to actress and investor in the company, Priyanka Chopra:

“Indian women needed Bumble”

What Is Bumble?

Just in case you haven’t stumbled across Bumble, it’s the latest online dating app looking to branch into the Indian market–with women in its sights.

One of the app’s main features that should particularly appeal to women is that it requires them to make the move first. This gives them the option to speak with whom they wish without the fear of receiving a barrage of unwanted messages.

Chopra, a celebrity in India, will be advising the app’s team over the expansion.

Localizing for the Target Market

Bumble announced the news last Wednesday, just under a week after the app’s main rival Tinder launched a “My Move” feature in the Indian market, allowing women to select the option of always initiating the conversation first.

Despite the timing of the announcement, the female-friendly dating app has been planning its move to India for some time, and Chopra was part of a high-profile group of women who kickstarted Bumble Bizz, Bumble’s networking app, in October of last year.

Bumble CEO and Founder Wolfe Herd told CNN that the biggest challenge of entering the Indian market was:

“localizing the experience and attracting women”

This will be the main job for Chopra, as a household name in the country. The app will be localized in Hindi and “Hinglish,” and available on both Android and iOS. The company will also be rolling out additional safety features before entering the market, although these have yet to be revealed.

India Named the Most Dangerous Country to Be a Woman

Safety is an absolute priority for Indian women, living in a country with a global reputation for violence against women. In fact, in June of this year, India was ranked as the most dangerous country in the world for women, which sort of puts the halitosis thing into perspective.

Dating can be a literal suicide mission with the wrong person.

To protect their privacy, women will not be asked for their full details by the app (something incredibly refreshing to say, Facebook). They will not need to provide a first or last name, but just a photo and an initial. There are also several ways of reporting bad behavior to ensure that bad actors are kept out of the app. There is a photo verification service as well.

Ongoing Feud

Before starting Bumble, Wolfe Herd was one of Tinder’s first employees, leaving back in 2014 after suing for discrimination and (ironically) sexual harassment. While the case was settled outside of court, it’s hardly surprising that the rivalry continues between these two companies.

In fact, Tinder’s parent company Match is currently suing Bumble for theft of trade secrets, while Bumble is counter-suing Match for using the litigation as a revenge attempt after failing to acquire the popular app.

India will be a key market for Bumble thanks to its sheer size and fame for sexual harassment. India has some 390 million internet users, second only to China in numbers.

Whether they make like their name and ‘bumble’ their attempt into the South Asian market remains to be seen. Although throwing another lifeline to young females in a dangerous dating market can only be a good thing.

Featured image from Wikimedia.

Are you ready for more Chinese social media apps? Beijing-based startup ByteDance thinks you are. The Chinese company is decided to conquer Western social media fans, after reaching 500 million monthly active users worldwide with one single app.

The TikTok app (in Chinese, Douyin) is a mobile-only social video platform that allows users to watch music videos, as well as record their own 15-second videos, edit them, and add special effects.

The app everyone’s eye this spring, when it became the most downloaded app in the Apple store for Q1 of 2018, with 45 million downloads (more than WhatsApp, Facebook, or Instagram).

China’s ByteDance is looking to increase the number of users for all its apps across Asia, South America, North America, and Europe.

TikTok Is Doing Everything to Win over New Subscribers

Musical.ly was the first Chinese app that made it in the US, racking up over 20 million users in North America and over 100 million users worldwide. Thanks to its lip syncing feature and its funny faces, it was very popular among internet users.

ByteDance bought Musical.ly for $800 million and merged it with TikTok so that anyone who had an account on Musical.ly was automatically on TikTok as well. This strategic move increased the number of TikTok users significantly.

Now TikTok seems to be ready to take over the US market at all costs. Last week, they took advantage of YouTube’s crash to lure more subscribers:

 

YouTube may be down, but TikTok is alive, awake and never better #StayWoke #YouTubeDown #MakeSocialFunAgain pic.twitter.com/sjEw8Si4Bj

— TikTok (@tiktok_us) October 17, 2018

ByteDance Is Going Global with AI Technology

ByteDance uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to gain insights on consumers’ preferences and develop popular products for both Chinese and foreign audiences.

The company started its international expansion in 2015, with TopBuzz, a separate English version of the Chinese Toutiao–an app that uses AI to provide its users with customized news feeds, and has 700 million users consuming content for an average of 76 minutes per day.

ByteDance also bought the video startup Flipagram, now promoted under the name Vigo Video.

Last year, investors valued ByteDance at $20 billion. This year, the Chinese tech giant is looking to hit the jackpot as it raises money at a valuation of up to $75 billion. This would make it one of the world’s most valuable tech unicorns, next to Uber (worth $76 billion).

ByteDance presently owns eight products that are available in over 40 countries including China, South America, North America, Europe, and Southeast Asia.

Featured image from Shutterstock.

Having just added India’s e-commerce retailer Flipkart to its pool of acquisitions, Walmart’s strategy is being shaped to reflect more growth than profit. The world’s largest retailer pruned down its profit forecast on Tuesday to reflect its $16 billion purchase of India’s biggest online store.

While hosting its annual investor meeting on Tuesday, the company made known how it had lowered its profit guidance for the current fiscal year within the range of $2.65 to $2.80 per share.

This is in contrast to its prior outlook which was as high as $3.05 per share. The impact of Flipkart (which is its largest acquisition ever in Walmart’s history) would take its toll on profit by 25% a share, Walmart noted.

The Bentonville-based multinational retail corporation estimates profits as high as $4.80 a share for next year which notwithstanding, is lesser than its prior forecast of up to $5.05 a share.

Ranked among the 30 largest publicly owned enterprises trading on the New York Stock Exchange, its stock rose by 3% during after-hours Wednesday as the bump suggests that the company’s investors are borrowing a leaf from Amazon investors through their readiness to make do with a profit slump in exchange for growth in market share.

Locally Sourced Products

Going by the potential hike in many consumer goods due to tariffs levied by the Federal Government, Walmart chief financial officer deemed it fit to address these concerns stating Walmart’s intention to reduce the impact of any potential hike in price to its consumers.

He further noted that two-thirds of products sold at Walmart stores were sourced within the US.

Walmart US constitutes three-fifths of the multinational sales unit and thus, the biggest unit that investors are focused on. Online sales are estimated to reach the 35% mark for the next fiscal year. The US division’s comparable sales are projected to rise by 3% for the next fiscal year.

The upward projection comes on the heels of the division’s release in August which recorded an unprecedented performance in online sales put at 40%. Ranked as the best quarterly comparable sales in over a decade, its sizable store fleet fared excellently well among other online rivals in August.

The company plans to raise its competitive edge against Amazon by focusing more on online investments as it said it plans to open less than 10 Walmart stores next year.

Coupled with online spending, Walmart revealed that about $11 billion of capital spending would be earmarked for store remodels, technology and customer initiatives.

Pickup locations are expected to rise to 3,100, catering to the grocery department— the company’s most significant product segment, which has been the vehicle of its online and store traffic.

Anticipated pickup locations as of August were put at 1,800. The delivery of groceries is expected to reach 1,600 locations; a right step in its ambition to reach 40% of the US consumer population by the end of this year.

Walmart US’s online strategy is quite multi-faceted, and apart from its emphasis on grocery, the company hopes to leverage consumers preferring the convenience and one-stop shopping with its e-commerce initiatives.

Online Acquisition

These initiatives have involved a shopping spree including this month’s purchase of online lingerie retailer Bare necessities and plus-size fashion retailer Eloquii.

Walmart has also opened an e-books store and its recently revamped Jet.com is the largest US acquisition of 2016, squarely locating it as a site to target affluent urban millennials. As part of the facelift, fashionable men’s clothing brand Bonobos which was acquired by Walmart is now being sold on Jet.com, even though it is still absent on Walmart.com.

From an international perspective, Flipkart:

“transforms Walmart’s position in a country with more than 1.3 billion people, strong GDP growth, a growing middle class and significant runway for smartphone, internet, and e-commerce penetration.”

With its sights now focused on exploiting last-mile delivery as a big differentiator for global e-commerce, Walmart in September last year, finalized agreement to purchase Cornershop, an online marketplace for crowd-sourced, on-demand delivery in Mexico and Chile.

Meanwhile, the sales index according to research firm RedSeer Consulting saw Flipkart getting the better of the market with a 51% share while Amazon had to settle for 32% of the festive October sale which began on October 9 and ended October 14.

Flipkart’s performance was put down to the high demand for smartphones and fashion verticals during the festive period.

Images from Shutterstock.

The European Union (EU) has given its approval to Microsoft for purchasing the software web-hosting service GitHub for $7.5 billion. The commission has also stated that it firmly believes that GitHub will continue to exist as an open platform.

Should Developers be Worried?

When the acquisition was announced in June 2018 by Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, many developers weren’t happy with a ‘corporate entity’ taking over an open source platform. Some developers mentioned that the takeover was impossible to avoid while others simply deleted their GitHub accounts.

In the official announcement, Nadella wrote that developers are responsible for creating a cloud-based world. Since each industry will be disrupted by these new technologies in the future, developers will increase in numbers.

These builders will require a platform where they are able to share codes and solve problems together. Thus, Microsoft, being one of the 28 million developers on Github, will help the software developing company in achieving their goals.

Nadella also added that Microsoft will support the open source ecosystem. Nat Friedman, corporate Vice President of Microsoft, will become the CEO of GitHub. He concluded the post by stating that the company will work hard to empower developers and create a healthy environment.

GitHub Chose Microsoft Over Google

CNBC reported that insiders revealed that Google and Amazon were both interested in acquiring GitHub. According to sources, GitHub chose Microsoft not only because it outbid Google in the auction but also because GitHub’s founder, Chris Wanstrath, knew Nadella. He also appreciated Nadella’s efforts to support open-source platforms.

According to the press release published on Friday, the EU believes that competition between GitHub and Microsoft, and other software companies would continue regardless of the merger.

The commission also believes that GitHub will remain open-source since Microsoft has no motive to change this feature. The statement also added that Microsoft understands that developers can easily turn to other open-source platforms.

Analysts: Microsoft’s Profits Will Surge Past 11% in 2018

Microsoft will publish the next quarter’s earnings on October 25. Analysts predict that the company will see a profit of 11% this year. Even though their stocks fell by 10% last week, the company was able to bounce back slowly.

If analysts are correct, the share prices could end up at $125. Profits are also expected to increase by 16% in 2019 and 18% in 2021.

Featured image by Pixabay.

No one can argue that Tesla doesn’t have ambitious plans. Cars that park themselves and drive along sideroads and freeways with no human help, for example. What Elon Musk’s electronic car manufacturer does lack, however, is an ability to follow through.

Ever since plans were announced of its autonomous features, Tesla cars have had a “Full Self-Driving Capability” option on the car order page. Simply add a few thousand to your purchase and your car will soon be able to drive itself.

However, exactly when that will happen appears to be shrouded in doubt. And, in fact, the option has now been removed completely.

Tesla Cuts the Autonomous Driving Option You Couldn’t Use Anyway

For those of you who wanted to buy into the car of the future, the option is no longer on the order page. If you’re still staunchly determined to buy into Musk’s uncompleted vision, you can order it “off menu” for another week.

According to Elon in a tweet, the option was:

“causing too much confusion.”

 

 

Filling out a checkbox to purchase capabilities a car doesn’t have yet? What could be confusing about that?

Things have been going from bad to worse for Mr. Musk lately, after losing his seat as Tesla’s chair and landing a fine from the SEC. Smoking marijuana in public, making outlandish claims on social media and lowering Telsa stock price.

And it appears the next bump in the road isn’t just over the confusion of offering technology that isn’t available yet. It’s the several lawsuits piling up against Tesla calling out the  “phantom nature” of the self-driving feature and claiming the name Autopilot is misleading customers.

Rather than face more and more outcry from dazed and confused customers, the company decided it would be easier to take the feature off the site for the time being.

True Autonomy Is Close at Hand

Many of Tesla’s shareholders buy into Telsa for its innovation and visionary leader Elon Musk with his futuristic plans of heading to space and producing driverless cars. And to be fair, it’s not all just hot air and daydreams. The SpaceX Falcon 9 lit up the sky earlier this month, and last week and Tesla’s beta self-driving system is already being tested by staff.

Don’t get too excited just yet, though. Whether the technology is ready or not is just the start of the battle. Legislation in most states hasn’t yet approved full autonomy of cars beyond testing. Still, you might not be able to use it, but it’s better than paying for something that doesn’t exist.

Featured image from Tesla.

For those of you lusting after the iPhone XS or XS Max but haven’t quite been able to justify the XS (get it?) price tag, the cheaper version is available for order now. The iPhone XR is available on pre-order at the starting price of $749. That’s the 64GB version. You’ll need to cough up more for the 128GB and 256GB versions, of course.

Is the iPhone XR a Poorman’s Version of the XS?

It’s no secret that the Apple iPhone XS’s price tag has been a sticking point for many would-be buyers. Although sales for the XS and XS Max hit record highs for Apple, it’s not within everyone’s reach. The phone’s improved battery life, faster performance, and sharper camera have all been highly reviewed, however.

The iPhone XR offers a similar experience to both of Apple’s existing phones, with a design that looks almost exactly the same (how Apple of them). It runs the same processor and includes the fingerprint sensor needed for Apple’s Facial Recognition.

The XR also provides consumers with the same 6.1-inch HD display, a 12-megapixel rear camera that lets you take portrait photos, and–something no other iPhone has offered so far–a veritable rainbow of color options, coming in black, white, yellow, blue, coral, and red.

So what does the XR drop to lower the price tag? The OLED display, improved water resistance, and dual-rear cameras.

Don’t be too alarmed if you accidentally splash your coffee on it though. It still comes with a level of water resistance similar to that of the iPhone 8 and iPhone X.

Unlike the massive build-up to the iPhone X release, the pre-order period on the XR is relatively short and you should get your phone fairly quickly, before the month is out, depending on your carrier and color choice.

The official sale date for the iPhone XR is Friday, October 26.

Featured image from Apple.

Procter & Gamble (P&G) stocks have surged by 5% since Friday morning, as reported by CNBC. P&G announced that its beauty products are responsible for driving sales and helping the company in surpassing the expected revenue in the fiscal fourth quarter of 2018.

Wall Street was expecting earnings per share (EPS) to be $1.09 and revenue to be $16.46 billion. However, P&G’s report shows an increase in both these numbers–$1.12 for the former and $16.69 for the latter.

Compared with beauty products, P&G’s fabric and home-care brands sales jumped by 2%, while grooming, health care, baby, feminine, and family care dropped by 1%, 3%, and 3% respectively.

In this year, P&G’s shares slumped by 11%; the company now has a market cap of $202 billion.

Even though P&G faces competition from other rising startups, the company is positive that the current boom in revenue will “hold up.”

On October 16, Nasdaq published a post anticipating the results from the fiscal fourth quarter. The report stated that net sales would rise by 4% due to P&G’s beauty, fabric, and healthcare products. They predicted that Q4’s sales would come from baby, feminine and family care products. However, these categories are the ones that dropped the most in the latest quarter.

P&G Has Some Fierce Competition

P&G’s biggest competitor in the grooming industry is the Dollar Shave Club, which was acquired by Unilever in 2016. In an interview with Cincinnati Business Courier, Jon Moeller, the chief financial officer of P&G, said that grooming and baby products were:

“the two sales growth challenges.”

He added that the company was developing and funding ideas to support Gillette. Moeller also said that the stakes were higher since competitors are now expanding their products into Europe.

An online subscription program called Gillette on Demand was also launched by the company. It offers three different packages compared to the two packages offered by the Dollar Shave Club.

Gillette has been around since the 1980s but Dollar Shave Club has managed to attract more attention due to advanced marketing tactics. Currently, P&G expects its organic sales to fall between 2% to 3%, EPS between 6% to 8% and all-in-sales growth by approximately 3% in fiscal 2018.

Meanwhile, David Taylor, P&G’s CEO, recently launched 2019’s CEO Challenge where students solve various business problems. The finals will take place in May 2019 in Dubai.

Last year’s challenge was won by a group of industrial engineering students from Saudi Arabia. These students were also offered jobs in the company. This year, the real-world business problems students will solve are based on its grooming brand Gillette.

Featured image from Shutterstock.

Mass Mutual and Invesco yesterday, October 18, 2018, announced an acquisition of OppenheimerFunds and merger that will create a combined asset management firm that will become the 13^th largest in the world, with total assets under management (AUM) of $1.2 trillion.

Off the back of the deal, at the time of writing, Invesco shares were up 3.8% to $21.74.

Under the agreement, Invesco Ltd will acquire Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company (MassMutual) affiliate OppenheimerFunds. Shareholders of MassMutual and OppenheimerFunds will receive common and preferred shares, and MassMutual will become a major shareholder in Invesco. MassMutual’s stake in Invesco will be around 15.5 percent and become its largest shareholder.

Benefits for Clients and Investors

The deal will create a new, larger, asset manager opening up additional scaling for clients and shareholders. The range of investment capabilities will enhance Invesco’s ability to meet the demands of its global clients, says the press release. Invesco will become the sixth-largest retail investment manager in the US.

Invesco will also benefit from OppenheimerFunds’ high performing investments, its strong international and emerging markets equity franchise, and its US third-party distribution platform. Invesco will continue to lever its diversified portfolio and global presence as well as its technology-enabled client services.

Martin L. Flanagan, President and CEO of Invesco said the deal would accelerate Invesco’s growth and that:

“This is a compelling, highly strategic and accretive transaction for Invesco that will help us achieve a number of objectives: enhance our leadership in the US and global markets, deliver the outcomes clients seek, broaden our relevance among top clients, deliver strong financial results and continue attracting the best talent in the industry.”

OppenheimerFunds’ picks many international investment stocks and bonds for its portfolio. In an interview with LiveMint today, Flanagan said that despite investors appearing to choose index tracking over active investment funds:

“Investors are looking for a broad range of ways to have us meet their outcomes—it is high-conviction active management, it is passive, and it is alternatives.”

The acquisition and merger are expected to increase Invesco’s earnings per share by around 18% in 2019 and around 27% in 2020. These predictions may have been fuelling the demand for Invesco’s shares.  The deal will be finalized in the second-quarter of 2019 subject to regulatory and third-party approvals.

Featured image from Shutterstock.

The Chinese company Tencent expects a 20% drop in revenue for Q3 of 2018, as China’s repression on computer games licenses could last until next year. The news comes after the company has already lost 40% of its market value, crashing from $578 billion in January to $380 billion now.

The huge decline drove Tencent out of the top 10 largest companies. Before the Chinese government stopped approving licenses, Tencent was the fifth largest company in the world, ranking higher than Facebook and JPMorgan Chase. Now, it has slipped to position 11.

Ceased Sales for Monster Hunter in August

Problems started in August when the Chinese authorities canceled the operating license for Tencent’s Monster Hunter: World. The company had to cease sales a day after the launch of the new video game and offer refunds for over 1 million pre-orders.

It wasn’t the first time the rigid Chinese regulations put the breaks on Tencent’s revenue and valuation. In 2017, the company had to limit the time children were spending playing Honor of Kings, which cost Tencent a $15 billion loss in market value.

Less than 2,000 Games Approved in China in 2018

The government crackdown on online gaming was expected to last a month, but it may take a lot longer before companies have permission to launch new games for monetization. A director of the games unit of one of China’s biggest tech companies stated for the Financial Times that:

“there won’t be approvals this year.”

Beijing is trying to temper online gaming in China, which is by far the largest market in the world. Authorities are worried about children being “addicted” to video-games and want to limit the effects of gaming on children’s vision, according to officials.

This year, the Chinese government approved 1,931 video games, compared to 9,000 games last year.

Tencent Growth Prospects

Analysts believe that Tencent has “strong long-term growth prospects” thanks to its ability to make money despite the game licensing freeze. Karen Chan, equity analyst at Jefferies Hong Kong, for China Daily said:

“We believe Tencent remains the most resilient online game player with huge monetization potential in advertising and content. Although the game approval resumption timeline remains uncertain, Tencent’s 15 mobile games in the pipeline with secured monetization licenses should provide some buffer.”

The Chinese tech giant makes more than 40% of its revenue from video games, being the most important player in the Chinese gaming market. However, the company doesn’t rely entirely on gaming, as one of the most valuable tech companies in China.

Tencent also owns the WeChat messaging app (which has around 1 billion users), the WeChat Pay payment services (800 million users), and Tencent Music, which is China’s largest streaming service with 800 million users.

Featured image Tencent.