Year: 2020

The quarantine lockdown is driving a record number of users to Facebook’s products. On a conference call, CEO Mark Zuckerberg disclosed a number of new metrics highlighting a significant bump in Facebook usage during the broader quarantine lockdown.

In the past month, more than 3 billion internet users logged onto a Facebook service including its central app, Instagram, Messenger or WhatsApp, Zuckerberg disclosed. This number constitutes roughly 2/3 of the world’s total internet users. This was a record for the platform which reported average monthly active users of 2.60 billion in Q1.

The company’s communications tools saw major surges in the past several weeks with Zuckerberg also disclosing more granular metrics that voice and video calling usage had doubled, views on Facebook and Instagram Live videos had doubled and the amount of time on group video calling had surged 1000% in recent weeks.

The company predicted that usage would settle down once shelter-in-place was discontinued, though Zuckerberg highlighted opportunities Facebook could realize during the lockdown. “When the world changes quickly, people have new needs and that means that there are more things to build,” he said.

Facebook reported its Q1 earnings Wednesday, sharing they had earned revenues of $17.74 billion during the quarter. While the company shared that usage of certain services had surged, they also disclosed that the company had seen a “significant reduction” in the demand for ads at the end of the quarter, sharing that they had seen flat year-over-year growth in the first few weeks of April.

Tesla reported Wednesday that it earned $16 million and generated $5.985 billion in revenue in the first quarter, results buoyed by improved automotive margins and reductions in operating expenses.

Tesla’s first quarter earnings were lower than the previous period as the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted operations and dampened sales. But the company still managed to squeeze in a profit, its third consecutive quarter of profitability, despite the COVID-19 related disruption.

Its automotive gross margins grew to 25.5% in the first quarter up from 20.2% in the same period last year. Tesla includes regulatory credits in its automotive revenues, which figure into its gross margins. Regulatory credits in the first quarter were $354 million, a 64% increase from the first quarter of 2019.  Revenue from credits dropped after the first quarter of last year, hovering between $111 million and $134 million, before popping again in this latest quarter.

Tesla’s $5.985 billion in revenue was 19% lower than the fourth quarter when it generated $7.38 billion. However, its first quarter revenue is 32% higher than the $4.5 billion it generated in the same period last year.

Tesla earned $16 million, or 9 cents a share in the first quarter, 85% lower than the fourth period when it earned $105 million in net income, or or 56 cents a diluted share. Tesla’s first quarter earnings were wildly ahead of the same period last year when it posted a $702 million loss.

When adjusted for one-time items, Tesla earned $227 million, or $1.24 a share in the first quarter.

The first quarter was full of milestones for Tesla. It was the first full quarter that its Shanghai factory was at volume production. It’s also the first quarter that the automaker began producing and delivering the Model Y.

Tesla also appeared remained committed to its earlier sales outlook for 2020, noting that it has capacity installed to exceed 500,000 vehicle deliveries this year, despite announced production interruptions.

“For our US factories, it remains uncertain how quickly we and our suppliers will be able to ramp production after resuming operations. We are coordinating closely with each supplier and associated government,” the company said in its shareholder letter.

Tesla reported its first quarter earnings a day after CEO Elon Musk sent out a FREE AMERICA NOW tweet to his 33.4 million followers in response to the seven Bay Area counties extending a stay-at-home order through the end of May. Tesla is headquartered in Palo Alto and its main factory as well as several other related facilities are located in Fremont, Calif. and are subject to the order.

The company suspended production at the factory March 24. It had planned to bring it back online May 4. The company’s other U.S. operations have also been temporarily shut down, including its factory in Sparks, Nevada and its solar facility in Buffalo, New York.

Earlier this month, Tesla reported that it delivered 88,400 vehicles in the first quarter, beating most analysts expectations despite a 21% decrease from the previous quarter as the COVID-19 pandemic put downward pressure on demand and created logistical challenges.

Tesla produced 103,000 electric vehicles in the first quarter, about 2% lower than the previous period.

TikTok, the widely popular video sharing app developed by one of the world’s most valued startup (ByteDance), continues to grow rapidly despite suspicion from the U.S. as more people look for ways to keep themselves entertained amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The global app and its Chinese version, called Douyin, have amassed over 2 billion downloads on Google Play Store and Apple’s App Store, mobile insight firm SensorTower said Wednesday.

TikTok is the first app after Facebook’s marquee app, WhatsApp, Instagram, and Messenger to break past the 2 billion downloads figure since January 1 of 2014, a SensorTower official told TechCrunch. (SensorTower began its app analysis on that date.)

A number of apps from Google, the developer of Android, including Gmail and YouTube have amassed over 5 billion downloads, but they ship pre-installed on most Android smartphones and tables.

TikTok’s 2 billion download milestone, a key metric to assuage an app’s growth, comes five months after it surpassed 1.5 billion downloads.

In the quarter that ended on March 31, TikTok was downloaded 315 million times, surpassing its previous best of 205.7 million downloads in Q4 2018. Facebook’s WhatsApp, the second most popular app by volume of downloads, amassed nearly 250 million downloads in Q1 this year, SensorTower told TechCrunch.

As the app gains popularity, it is also clocking more revenue. Users have spent about $456.7 million on TikTok to date, up from $175 million five months ago. Much of these spends — about 72.3% — has happened in China. Users in the United States have spent about $86.5 million on the app, making the nation the second most important market for TikTok from revenue standpoint.

Craig Chapple, a strategist at SensorTower, said that not all the downloads are organic as TikTok, which launched outside of China in 2017, has engaged in a “large user acquisition campaign.” But he attributed some of the surge in downloads to the COVID-19 outbreak that has driven more people than ever to look for new apps.

India, TikTok’s largest international market, accounts for the app’s 30.3% downloads, according to SensorTower. The app has been downloaded 611 million times in the world’s second largest internet market.

From a platform’s stand point, 75.5% of all of TikTok’s downloads have occurred through Google Play Store. But the vast majority of spendings have come from users on Apple’s ecosystem ($435.3 million of $456 million).

If you think that action movies generally suffer from an excess of characterization, then “Extraction” is the movie for you.

Almost everything about the film that’s not an action scene is dealt with in a perfunctory way, starting from the sketchy characterization of our hero Tyler Rake (played by Chris Hemsworth) — he’s muscular, competent, has a vague tragedy in his past … and that’s about it.

We actually know more about Rake than virtually any other character in the film. There’s even less to say about the kidnapped son of a Mumbai drug lord (though actor Rudhraksh Jaiswal gives him an affecting vulnerability), or the rival drug lord responsible for the kidnapping, or the various soldiers/goons who either assist Rake in his rescue mission or (briefly, foolishly) try to stop him.

On the bright side, this minimalist approach to scripting leaves plenty of room for impressive action scenes, particularly a 12-minute chase that’s designed to look like it was shot in a single take. To be clear, the film is just as much a fantasy as any of the Marvel movies directed by brothers Anthony and Joe Russo (who took on writing and producing duties here), but the action scenes are very different, with a stunning brutality and kineticism.

Whether that’s enough to make for a satisfying film will probably differ from viewer to viewer. Among your Original Content podcast hosts, Darrell and Anthony enjoyed the film, while Jordan was decidedly underwhelmed.

To decide whether “Extraction” is a movie for you, you can listen to our review in the player below, subscribe using Apple Podcasts or find us in your podcast player of choice. If you like the show, please let us know by leaving a review on Apple. You can also send us feedback directly. (Or suggest shows and movies for us to review!)

And if you’d like to skip ahead, here’s how the episode breaks down:
0:00 Intro
0:20 “Extraction” review
18:31 “Extraction” spoiler discussion

I wrote about Joue back in January, right before the company participated in (and won) our CES pitch off. The company was one of a handful of crowfunded musical instrument startups at the show that were really worth getting excited about.

This week, the French startup is launch the campaign for Play, a more user-friendly version of the company’s self-titled modular MIDI controller. As I noted in the earlier piece, the system operates similarly to Sensel’s Morph system, with silicone pads that slip on top of a touch interface to mimic a variety of different instruments, including a drum pad, piano, guitar and an electronic musical interface.

The new version of the instrument aims to lower the bar with a connected mobile app that works as follows,

• The instruments are gathered in a circle in the middle
• The timeline shows successive musical events simply and clearly
• The mixer lets you adjust the volume of each instrument
• Recording is accessible directly from the Pads, for maximum reactivity 

In addition to the companion iOS/Mac/Windows app, the Play is also more than $100 cheaper than its its predecessor (at least it is currently on Joue’s Kickstarter page). That price includes the board and five different silicone pads.

It’s a clever product and one designed for a broader audience than the original — which went over fairly well in its own right. Sensel ultimately wasn’t able to ride the Morph beyond the initial wave of excitement, but Joue’s focus on music and the refinement of its hardware looks to be taking the company further.

Unfortunately, the device won’t be available while we’re all still cooped up inside. It’s currently projected to launch in October.

After a quarter in which eBay, tussling with an activist investor, completed the sell-off of its ticketing business StubHub for $4 billion and saw appointed a new CEO after its previous one departed, while also weathering waves of surging demand and dodgy supply resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, today the e-commerce company reported its Q1 earnings after the close of markets.

The company reported revenues of $2.374 billion, down 2% on a year ago, with earnings per share of $0.64 on a GAAP basis and $0.77 non-GAAP, on a continuing operations basis.

This was a mixed result. Analysts on average were expecting $2.38 billion in revenues on earnings per share of $0.72. Ebay itself was expecting sales of between $2.31 billion and $2.36 billion with an EPS range of $0.72 to $0.75. In other words, eBay missed on sales in terms of analyst average projections, beat their expectations on EPS, and beat both of its own internal targets.

At the time of writing, eBay’s stock was down 7 cents in after-hours trading.

“During these unprecedented times, I am extremely proud of how our team has come together to support one another, our buyers and sellers, our communities and the business,” said Scott Schenkel, eBay’s interim CEO, in the earnings statement. “As we look at Q1, I am pleased that we delivered on all of our commitments for the quarter, with key metrics such as Buyers, GMV and Revenue performing at or better than our expectations. Over the past several months, we have remained focused and clear-eyed about the strategic direction of the company and have driven substantial changes to position the business for sustainable and profitable long-term growth.”

“I appreciate the team’s hard work in the first quarter and their efforts to maintain focus amid so many factors affecting the business and the industry,” said Jamie Iannone, the new permanent CEO that it headhunted from Walmart, in a separate statement. “I’m thrilled to return to eBay this week as CEO and I look forward to building on the positive momentum in the business, continuing to evolve the Company’s strategy and maximizing value for our shareholders.”

As expected, the company — like other e-commerce giants — has seen a boost in buyer demand from the throngs of consumers who are currently being ordered to stay at home, but who still need to buy things, and specifically try to source items that they’re finding a challenge to find in more local stores. eBay noted that active buyers are up by 2% and now total 174 million global active buyers.

Despite that, however, gross merchandise volume (GMV, or total sales volume before any cuts are taken) was $21.3 billion, down 1% on an as-reported basis. We might assume that the decline might have been significantly steeper without the current climate, or that it has at least offset other kinds of declines.

Within that, its Marketplace generated $2.1 billion of revenue, down 1%, while Classifieds saw $248 million of revenue, down 3%. That Classifieds business is on the block as part of the company’s wider efforts to restructure. “eBay continues to explore potential value-creating alternatives for its Classifieds business, is holding active discussions with multiple parties, and anticipates having an update by the middle of the year,” the company noted. 

There is a cloud hanging over many e-commerce businesses, even those that are seeing strong demand. The reason for this is that the economy is very shaky right now, and we don’t fully know what the coming months will hold, in terms of public health, government rules on how we can move, whether we will have jobs and money to spend. And all of that is playing into how companies like eBay will perform under its new CEO and continuing pressure from its activist investors.

With all that in mind, Ebay also updated its guidance for the next quarter and reiterated figures for the full year. Q2, it expects, will have revenues of between $2.38 billion and $2.48 billion, with GAAP earnings per diluted share from continuing operations in the range of $0.50 – $0.57 and non-GAAP earnings per diluted share from continuing operations in the range of $0.73 – $0.80.

The full-year figures are unchanged at between $9.56 billion and $9.76 billion, with GAAP earnings per diluted share from continuing operations in the range of $2.20 – $2.30 and non-GAAP earnings per diluted share from continuing operations in the range of $3.00 – $3.10.

“Given the dynamic environment, we are not revising our full year revenue and EPS estimates,” the company notes. “This guidance reflects management’s expectations for operational performance and the impacts seen in both of our Marketplaces and Classifieds platforms to date, but given the uncertainty surrounding the extent and duration of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is difficult to predict what may result as shelter-in-place guidelines are eased and lifted and how global consumer demand, the effects of COVID-19 on the general economy, seller inventory and advertising spending may evolve over time.”

More to come.

The coronavirus pandemic is significantly slowing the growth of Facebook’s ads business, but investors seems pleased with the company’s performance in Q1 after Facebook released its earnings report Wednesday.

The company beat Wall Street expectations on revenues, sharing that they had made $17.74 billion on while follow short on earnings per share at $1.71. The company also shared that monthly active users had swollen to 2.6 billion users, beating expectations of 2.55 billion.

The company’s shares rose upwards of 10% after-hours following the report’s release.

While Facebook’s ad revenues in Q1 showcased 17% year-over-year growth, but Facebook used its earnings announcements to hedge expectations for Q2. The digital ads market has taken a major hit in the past several weeks in light of the pandemic crisis, in its release, Facebook said they had seen a “a significant reduction in the demand for advertising, as well as a related decline in the pricing of our ads, over the last three weeks of the first quarter of 2020.”

Flat growth is far from the doomsday drop-off investors had feared. The company said they would not be providing guidance for Q2 of fill-year 2020, instead indicating that the first three weeks of April indicated flat year-over-year growth in the the company’s outsized ads business. Facebook’s ad revenues for Q4 2019 indicated 25% year-over-year growth by comparison.

Updating

Today Microsoft reported its third-quarter, fiscal 2020 quarter earnings, the period of time corresponding to Q1 2020 on the regular calendar.

The technology giant generated $35 billion in revenue, up 15% from the year-ago period. That top line led to $13 billion in operating income (+25% YoY), and $10.8 billion in net income (+22% YoY). Microsoft saw $1.40 in earnings per share in the quarter.

Investors had expected the company to report $1.26 in per-share profit off of revenue of $33.66 billion, according to Yahoo Finance. Right after reporting its results, Microsoft shares were up around 1.5%. The firm rallied 4.5% during regular trading hours on the back of a strong day of trading for technology equities.

Other headlines from the company’s earnings report include Azure (its AWS competitor) growing 59% from its year-ago result, 25% growth in Office 365 commercial incomes, LinkedIn top line growing 21% from the year-ago period, and roughly flat results from its Xbox, search, and Surface businesses.

However, calendar Q1 (Q3 F2020 for Microsoft) only included a portion of the world’s COVID-19 response. The results reflected that, with the company noting that “COVID-19 had minimal net impact” on revenue in the quarter, boosting cloud usage, lowering some advertising revenue from LinkedIn, raising gaming engagement, and slowing search advertising top line. The balance of that appears to be largely a wash.

The company will talk more about the future on its earnings call, but the firm did warn in its own report that “the effects of COVID-19 may not be fully reflected in the financial results until future periods.”

More to come.

Face ID was a great idea — until large swathes of the world were forced to wear face masks, rendering it largely useless.

Apple has apparently heard our pain.

Users are reporting a subtle new feature in the latest developer version of iOS 13.5 that will make it easier to unlock your iPhone without having to take off your protective face mask.

Videos shared on Twitter by Robert Petersen and Guilherme Rambo show that Apple devices with Face ID will jump to the backup passcode-entry screen if it detects a mask. That’s not only helpful if you’re unlocking your phone dozens of times a day — which we all do — but it’s also helping to keep people safe by not forcing users to take off their masks and potentially exposing themselves to the virus.

Apple’s new Face ID unlock feature in iOS 13.5 beta. (Source: Guilherme Rambo)

It’s not known if this feature will land in the final version of the software update. But one feature that will be included for sure is a new contact tracing API, built by Apple and Google in partnership, which lets national health authorities build apps that can help users privately and anonymously find out if they’ve been exposed to someone with coronavirus.

iOS 13.5 is expected to land in the coming weeks.

The COVID-19 testing picture in the U.S. is far from easy to understand, given the disparate agencies and public and private health organizations involved. Johns Hopkins, building on its excellent work developing COVID-19 case tracking and basic information resources, has developed a new hub called the COVID-19 Testing Insights Initiative that breaks down what kinds of tests are available, as well as where they’re being administered in the U.S., and in what volume.

The new hub offers answers to commonly asked questions like how COVID-19 is currently diagnosed, what the differences are between the two major types of tests used (molecular and serological) and what is required for testing in terms of both payment and qualifying symptoms/exposure risk.

Crucially, it also provides a state-by-state breakdown of how many tests have been performed, graphed against the total number of confirmed cases and the number of deaths in that state. They also provide a report on the weekly rate of change in positive tests across all states, showing whether there’s been an increase in the namer of positive tests or a decrease on a week-over-week basis, and in either case, by how much.

Johns Hopkins notes that the data may not be consistent, since it’s being pulled from a number of publicly available sources, and it notes further that states themselves are not consistent. The school says it’s doing what it can to account for the irregularities that result from inconsistent reporting, but doesn’t want to misrepresent the data.

The overall picture of how many tests have been completed, as well as where and by who, along with positive results, has been a topic of a lot of confusion and debate. The White House has consistently provided numbers that are out of sync with the reality in terms of numbers reported by states, particularly when it comes to test volume.

The Johns Hopkins hub provides likely the best source yet for a good snapshot of the current state of testing on a state-by-state basis, and the resource will be updated regularly with new info as it becomes available. Widespread testing is a key ingredient in any effective COVID-19 control measures, and this should act as a sort of report card to provide an indicator how how well we’re doing on this front.