Snapchat Sees a 20% Plummet In Revenue Due To Apple’s Privacy Changes!
Snap, the parent company of Snapchat, claimed that recent privacy changes in Apple’s iOS mobile operating system had impacted its company by restricting some advertisers from tracking it. The company stated that while it expected some interruption as a result of the adjustments, the issues for advertising were worse than anticipated.
Snap recorded a stock drop of more than 20% recently, soon after the firm published quarterly results that fell $3 million short of its forecast. Snap’s most recent quarter saw revenue of $1.067 billion, up 57% from the same period the previous year.
According to Snap, advertisers were also hampered in their spending due to the pandemic and supply chain problems.
To accommodate to Apple’s privacy rules, the business said it was developing new technology and measuring solutions for advertising. Snap’s chief executive, Evan Spiegel, gave a statement saying –
“We’re now operating at the scale necessary to navigate significant headwinds, including changes to the iOS platform that impact the way advertising is targeted, measured, and optimized, as well as global supply chain issues and labor shortages impacting our partners.”
Also Read: Power Of Out-Of-Home Advertising In The Middle East And Road Ahead!
InMobi To Acquire Appsumer, A Performance Insights Platform
Appsumer, a performance insights platform for mobile app advertisers, has been acquired by InMobi, one of the top producers of content, monetization, and marketing technology. Appsumer is a London-based company that gives a 360-degree perspective of marketing spend across channels. This enables marketers to transform complex data into actionable insights.
Shumel Lais, the CEO, and Founder of Appsumer has joined InMobi and will continue to oversee the division in terms of product development and growth. The entire Appsumer team will join InMobi to assure client service continuity and to develop and support InMobi’s analytics and automation offerings. Appsumer will continue to operate as a separate entity under the InMobi corporate structure.
Interesting Read: LinkedIn Rolls Out New Features – All Marketers Assemble!
The Co-Founder of InMobi Group and CEO of InMobi Marketing Solutions, Abhay Singhal said-
“Appsumer brings a next-generation approach for advertisers to better understand the efficacy of their marketing efforts across multiple channels that growth marketing teams employ daily. The solution makes it easy to map all mobile performance media investments to business outcomes”
He also added –
“Shumel and his team are well-known industry leaders and visionaries in their field and will play an instrumental role in driving InMobi’s next wave of growth and innovation”
InMobi And Appsumer: How Will This Acquisition Help Marketers?
Appsumer’s self-serve technology platform, intellectual property, and the team will complement InMobi’s end-to-end content, monetization, and marketing stack, allowing marketers to track and evaluate their marketing expenditure in one place.
With third-party identifiers losing their power, making measurement and attribution more difficult, marketers need a clear picture of how their marketing channels are functioning now more than ever.
Appsumer’s platform provides marketers with no-code interfaces with over 100 marketing channels, and custom dashboards for clients to build and track goals and KPIs. It also empowers them with daily marketing data processing for more precise measurement and informed decision-making.
Interesting Read: FoxPush Launches The First Middle East Supply-Side Platform
Appsumer customers use the platform more than five times per week on average, making it a critical component of their performance marketing strategy. Furthermore, customers can use Appsumer’s workspace to measure performance, analyze results, and use that information to build more effective campaigns.
InMobi and Appsumer plan to collaborate to create an operating system that makes it easier to understand user acquisition channels by incorporating artificial intelligence (AI) into the platform to help marketers experiment and iterate more quickly to improve the results of their user acquisition strategies.
Also Read: All You Need To Know About The Rise Of DOOH Advertising
Trade Desk Doubles The Revenue, CTV Drives Earnings
The digital advertising firm Trade Desk reported revenues of $280 million for Q2, representing a growth rate of 101% Y-O-Y. The growth rate is driven by strong growth in Connected TV (CTV). Its revenues were a major piece of the gain. In an earnings call on Monday, Jeff Green, founder, and CEO of The Trade Desk said:
“We have nearly 10,000 CTV advertisers on our platform, up over 50% compared to last year.”
He further added that through the first half of 2021, brands spending more than $1 million in CTV on their platform have already doubled year-over-year. CTV is the fastest-growing channel and growing as a percentage of overall revenue. It is completely driven by customers in the form of content subscriptions. Its supply hit the roof during the pandemic. Green said,
“One thing we constantly say to advertisers is that whatever you thought you knew about the scale and reach in CTV six months ago has changed dramatically.”
The advertisers growing demand in the Connected TV space especially for premium ad inventory led to the company’s strong revenues. The shift in the behavior of the advertisers is disrupting the traditional TV buying ads- where brands commit in advance to spend on TV ad inventory even before the commercial releases. There is a paradigm shift of advertisers transitioning to digital TV which offers flexibility and data for ad targeting. The ad tech company is acting as a clearinghouse for CTV platforms to funnel ad inventory to digital buyers and is in direct competition with YouTube, Hulu, Roku, and more. Trade Desk is grabbing ad dollars from brands like Mondeléz and Ford. Green also mentioned a food giant brand that shifted a quarter budget of linear TV to CTV.
“We are seeing many brands shift TV budgets to the data-driven precision of CTV.”
On the other hand, Trade Desk is positioning itself as an alternative to the walled gardens and launched the new ad-buying interface Solimar recently. The Trade Desk is trying to develop an open programmatic approach that lets the advertisers access audience ID and export data to their own database. At the same time, walled gardens don’t allow to extract data and restrict data sharing across platforms.
Many broadcast companies are early adopters of the Unified ID 2.0 (UID2) standard, a replacement for third-party cookies. In recent weeks, as reported by Adweek, Interpublic Group joined the list to support UID2 along with Omnicom Media Group and Publicis Groupe. Green is bullish on consumers’ readiness to exchange data for more information from brands.
On the call, Trade Desk emphasized two key drivers that determine future growth – the rise of CTV and its data policies. It is just beginning to witness advertisers moving as much as one-quarter of media budgets to CTV to minimize waste.
Trade Desk expects third-quarter revenues of at least $282 million.
At $1.25B Valuation For News Link Recommendations, Outbrain Raises $160M
The New York-based firm, Outbrain, which delivers recommended online links at the bottom of news items, raised $160 million in its first public offering today, valued at $1.25 billion.
It sold 8 million shares of common stock on Nasdaq for $20 each, and the price surged to $20.99 on the first day of trading before falling down to $20.15 at the end of the day. The stock is traded under the stock symbol “OB.”
Outbrain, started in 2006 and launched with its first publisher in 2008, is a widget that appears at the bottom of media stories, such as those on CNN, and suggests further links to click on.
Some have referred to this as clickbait, but the business claims that it is quite successful, with many users willingly clicking on Outbrain’s recommendations for additional stories.
Advertisers can add their ads, and Outbrain will split a portion of the revenue with them.
The co-CEO of Outbrain, Yaron Galai, said in an interview –
So much that has changed and evolved, as we started before mobile even existed in a real way. The thing I’m proud of most is the vision for this market has remained remarkably consistent
He added –
And that was to solve two things. First, the user experience for people to help them discover what’s next. And the second is to create a sustainable source of revenue for media owners, for publishers and newspapers
Galai also said that the arrival of mobile was a game-changer for Outbrain. The user experience of a newsfeed on a mobile phone has evolved into a natural sort of experience, with users on social networks and other sites just acclimated to thumbing through a tailored feed of recommendations.
Over the years, Outbrain has completed five acquisitions. With 900 workers globally, the firm employs 300 individuals in two research and development facilities in Israel and Slovenia.
Galai also commented –
The results we see in the growth of the company generating a run rate of about a billion dollars in revenue is all based on engagement. Advertisers only pay us for actual engaged consumers. And so the growth is proof of that
Aleph Acquires 86% Of Connect Ads In A Quest For Global Expansion!
Aleph Holding, a worldwide partner to the world’s largest digital media companies, has acquired 86 percent of Connect Ads in a cash and stock swap, the company said today.
Aleph Holding now has a presence in the Middle East and North Africa, as part of its global expansion and penetration into new markets.
Aleph’s complementary portfolio of digital media service firms, includes Httpool, Internet Media Services, and Wise, Blue, Social Snack, and AdDynamo, which gives top digital platforms like Facebook and many others access to new regions and under-served areas.
Through Connect Ads’ more than 14 other exclusive media agreements with global and top digital media companies including Twitter, TikTok, Verizon Media, Spotify, Adobe Advertising Cloud, Huawei Ads, Bigo Ads, and others, Aleph’s services are now available across the MENA region.
Aleph expects to produce $1 billion in revenue by 2021, thanks to an increased network that now includes over 90 regions. The acquisition is a significant step forward in this quest.
Gastón Taratuta, Founder & CEO of Aleph Holding said that building throughout MENA has significant value, both in terms of serving current partners and clients and in terms of expanding on existing ties in other regions of the world.
He further added –
We have been following Connect Ads’ growth and geographical expansion over the last five years and I am excited to welcome them to the Aleph family. We will work together with Connect Ads and A15 to make this a successful partnership
Karim Beshara, General Partner of A15 also commented –
A15 is happy with the phenomenal results, value, and growth that Connect Ads created over the years; it validates A15’s venture-building strategy in creating outliers
He also said that his team is enthralled to continue its partnership with Aleph and Connect Ads and contribute to a worldwide digital dynamo. Furthermore, he also expressed his excitement regarding the future growth prospects and possible profits that this transaction will provide.
Mohamed El Mehairy, CEO of Connect Ads went on record to say that it is an eventful time because of the commonality in the vision and goals that they share here. He added –
We see this as a giant leap in the right direction for Connect Ads and all our stakeholders, including our teams, partners, and clients. Being a part of Aleph, this truly global structure will give us more leverage in managing our business as well as global exposure and potential that goes far beyond MENA and EMEA
Tech Giants ‘Amazon,Google, Apple, Facebook’ Beats Q3 Estimates
Key Points:
- Big Tech Quartet- Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, and Facebook reported their third-quarter earnings en masse last week.
- The tech giants exceeded Wall Street estimates maintaining the momentum from the previous quarter shows how the pandemic has driven online business.
- Their earnings soar despite antitrust issues and seemingly endless coronavirus pandemic.
- Google and Amazon enjoyed a strong third quarter whereas Facebook and Apple just managed to beat the estimates.
- The combined profit of the tech giants totaled $38.08 billion compared to $29 billion last quarter.
The Big Tech giants are just getting bigger amidst a global pandemic, economic malaise, and anti-trust scrutiny. Alphabet, Apple, Amazon, and Facebook collectively exceeded Wall Street expectations reporting a combined quarterly net profit of $38.08 billion. The tech companies are under unprecedented scrutiny from US lawmakers on their dominant positions in the marketplace. The four companies’ combined worth is about $5.3 trillion.
Apart from the growing profit and revenue, the stocks of three of the companies had mixed performance after trading hours as the forecast issues didn’t go well with the investors: Facebook’s edgy outlook, Apple’s no forecast, and Amazon’s huge Covid-19 spending projections. Google crushed market expectations but didn’t provide forecasts after tremendous gains.
Here’s A Quick Glance At The Tech Giants’ Earnings:
1. The Next Big Thing For Apple Is iPhone 12
Apple narrowly exceeded market expectations despite the later-than-usual launch of its iPhones. The net sales grew by 1% Y-o-Y in its fiscal fourth quarter. The increase mainly reflected strong growth in Mac- up by 29% and iPad – up by 46% as millions of people were remote working and schooling during the pandemic.
Apple is the bellwether for the smartphone business but iPhone sales slumped 21% as the tech giant delayed the launch of iPhone 12 from late September to October which means the result of the new iPhone will be seen in the company’s January report. Apple also witnessed a 28% decline in revenue in China because of the lack of a new iPhone launch. This resulted in a 7% drop in net income to below $13 billion. The company also did not offer revenue guidance for the current quarter that disappointed the investors. However, CEO Tim Cook tried to paint a positive picture in a statement,
“Despite the ongoing impacts of COVID-19, Apple is in the midst of our most prolific product introduction period ever, and the early response to all our new products, led by our first 5G-enabled iPhone lineup, has been tremendously positive.”
Key Numbers (Analyst estimates are based on Bloomberg Consensus data)
- Revenue: $64.7 billion compared to $63.48 billion expected.
- iPhone Revenue: $26.4 billion compared to $27.06 billion expected. The Q4 2019 iPhone revenue was $33.36 billion.
- Services revenue: $14.5 billion compared to $13.87 billion expected.
- Wearables revenue: $7.8 billion compared to $7.35 billion
2. Alphabet Sales Surges On Resurgence Of Ad Sales
Google’s parent company Alphabet topped Wall Street expectations revealing a mammoth 14% revenue jump. The growth is led by Google’s search business, an increase in advertising spend on Google and Youtube as well as continued strength in Google Cloud and Play. The company will be more transparent about its Google Cloud business and break out the operating income beginning next quarter. This will give an insight into its profitability of online advertising operations, which accounts for the lion’s share of Google’s revenue.
CEO Sundar Pichai described Q3 as “a strong quarter, consistent with the broader online environment.”
“It’s also a testament to the deep investments we’ve made in AI and other technologies, to deliver services that people turn to for help, in moments big and small.”
He also addressed the antitrust suit by the Justice Department and said,
“We believe that our products are creating significant consumer benefits, and we’ll confidently make our case.”
Key Numbers (Analyst estimates are based on Bloomberg Consensus data)
- Revenue: $38.01 billion (minus traffic acquisition cost) compared to $35.3 billion expected.
- Google Cloud revenue: $3.44 billion compared to $3.31 billion expected.
- YouTube Ad Revenue: $5.04 billion compared to $4.52 billion expected
3. The Most Profitable Year For Amazon
The pandemic boosted online shopping that pushed Amazon to a record for sales and profit this quarter. It blew past Wall Street expectation as the sales grew 37% and net profit roughly tripled to $6.33 billion. The lucrative Amazon Web Services sales up by 29% Y-o-Y as the company continue their shift to cloud computing.
Amid the pandemic surge, Amazon has already surpassed 2019 annual profit of $11.59 billion ahead of the fourth quarter with the holiday yet to come. CEO Jeff Bezos said,
“We’re seeing more customers than ever shopping early for than ever shopping early for their holiday gifts, which is just one of the signs that this is going to be an unprecedented holiday season.”
The eCommerce giant expanded its fulfillment infrastructure by 50 percent and pushed its workforce to more than 1 million mark this year. Amazon saw higher Prime membership renewals and Prime member growth rate and streaming Prime video content rose more than 80% annually in Q3. The online grocery sales growth also accelerated in Q3 with no delivery charges for Prime members. Other revenue which is mostly ad-related is up 49% from the same period last year to $5.4 billion.
However, growth has not come without cost. The company has spent billions during the pandemic in areas like social distancing, the addition of new facilities, new hires, cleaning, supplies, and testing. It expects the cost to rise to $4 billion next quarter and it will not recur once the pandemic ends.
Key Numbers (Analyst estimates are based on Bloomberg Consensus data)
- Revenue: $96.1 billion compared to $92.7 billion expected
- Amazon Web Services Revenue: $11.6 billion up from $9 billion a year ago.
4. Undaunted Ad-Revenues And E-commerce Boom For Facebook
Facebook earnings were better than expected despite a torrent of criticism that included a summer boycott by many large advertisers in July. The revenue jumped 22% to $21.47 billion from $17.65 billion a year ago. Facebook witnessed strong revenue and user growth, The revenues grew with new advertisers coming on board in search of new ways to reach customers.
Monthly Active Users is a key barometer to advertisers and the owner of Whatsapp and Instagram reported a whopping 2.74 billion MAU’s, up by 12% Y-o-Y. However, the company reported a rare decline in monthly and daily users in the U.S and Canada, down to 196 million from 198 million in the previous quarter. But the social media giant saw an increase in revenue- per-user for the region. More than 2.54 billion people daily use at least one of Facebook’s family of apps — Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, or Facebook — up 15 % Y-o-Y.
The social media platform plans to integrate all its family app messaging services and make it “one connected interoperable system” that will particularly be helpful in the U.S. The tech giant is hoping that the use of interoperability will lead its messaging platforms to interact with businesses. CEO Mark Zuckerberg noting the recently launched Facebook Shops said,
“I think the goal is to build out a commerce platform around messaging.”
“We’re building out a number of tools around business messaging, so that way people can follow up and complete transactions and get support through messaging, and then [for] payments so that people can complete transactions, too.”
It also believes that the Virtual Reality (VR) business is “self-sustaining” as the user base will be huge and economical for developers. They can prepare content for Facebook’s Oculus platform over alternative gaming platforms.
Key Numbers (Analyst estimates are based on Bloomberg Consensus data)
- Revenue: $21.47 billion compared to $19.84 expected.
- Daily active users (DAUs): 1.82 billion compared to 1.78 billion expectation
- Monthly active users (MAUs): 2.74 billion compared to 2.7 billion expectations.
The numbers of tech giants show how resilient these companies are and their services and products are in demand during the pandemic. Even though the investors are wary of the forecast numbers but with record profits and sales in the past three months, these heavyweights are unstoppable.
Go Deeper: Everything the Q2 2020 Financial Results of Tech Giants Have to Say
ArabyAds Acquires Advertising Platform AdFalcon
ArabyAds, a leading advertising and marketing intelligence platform in the MENA region acquires the advertising and data platform and former technology hub of Noqoush Media Group.
The acquisition is a part of the young mobile media company ArabyAds’ vision to revolutionize the AdTech space in the MENA region. This is a natural progression to take technology to another level.
The acquired technology suite includes AdFalcon’s Demand Manager (DSP), Bridge Technology, and Ad Network. These solutions will include support for various ad formats, flexible targeting options, and various pricing models, and allow clients to reach the targeted audience by way of programmatic buying. ArabyAds intends to adopt these technologies beyond mobile.
As reported by Campaign Middle East, CEO of ArabyAds Mahmoud Fathy said,
Our vision to become the region’s first AdTech platform can only be realized by such strategic strides. We see this opportunity as the first of many to aid us in our endeavour’. He continues, ‘More than anything we are excited to have the brilliant team behind AdFalcon’s technology join our family. We are thrilled to see what we will achieve together
About ArabyAds
ArabyAds is the leading advertising and marketing intelligence platform that offers comprehensive marketing solutions to clients across the MENA region. It is a one-stop-shop advertising intelligence firm that covers the business needs of clients with measurable results to enhance their spending. It is headquartered in Dubai. For more details, visit https://www.arabyads.com.
About Ad Falcon:
AdFalcon is the first mobile advertising network in the Middle East that provides specialized mobile advertising experience to advertisers, publishers, developers, and mobile users across the region. The technology, targeting mechanism, and diversified mobile ads maximize the campaign’s return on investment (ROI) and deliver satisfying results for the brands and businesses. For more details, visit https://www.adfalcon.com
Narrative Raises $8.5 Millions To Support The Growth Of Data Streaming Platform
Narrative, the software company is launching a new product design that will simplify the process of buying and selling data. The company has raised a new round of funding of $8.5m Series A, to support the launch of a new category: Data Streaming, replacing the data broker model industry with a transformation solution.
Narrative unveiled the new Data Streams Marketplace which is the industry’s first-ever e-Commerce solution for buying data. It would make the process of buying and selling much simpler, not much different from Amazon.
The new Marketplace offers data acquisition via an interface the firm says will be ‘familiar to anyone who has shopped online’: The new offerings enable users to browse and purchase the data they need ‘in minutes’ without the need for extensive training, ‘legal wrangling and red tape’. The marketplace provided comprehensive solutions for data discovery, onboarding, enrichment, identity resolution, and privacy and compliance.
As reported by TechCrunch, Jordan showed how a marketer can search and browse for different types of data. If a marketer wants to buy (say, the mobile IDs of people who have the Uber Driver app installed on their phones, or the Zoom app) at a price they are willing to pay (via subscription), they can add data to the cart, enter card information for payment, accept the terms and conditions, and check out.
“The premise is make it as easy to buy data as it is to buy stuff online.”
This approach has become enticing in recent months as companies need more data quickly. For instance, Jordan shared with Tech Crunch that large companies invest millions of dollars in advertising and “need a way to find and buy the data almost programmatically and have the whole thing take five minutes instead of five months — those are the orders of magnitude we’re talking about here.”
Founder and CEO Nick Jordan comments,
“As sales and services companies, data brokers have become intermediaries who are doing what they want with data in ways you don’t know. With a data broker, you get what they send to you. That’s how they make money. This is sub-par; it’s not agile – and you can’t optimize it. We have shortened the data supply chain by going direct – cutting out the broker, and making data liquid and transparent.”
The new round was led by G20 Ventures, with additional funding from existing investors Glasswing Ventures, NathCapital, Revel Partners, Tuhave Venture Partners, and XSeed Capital. The funds will allow the company to hire in areas like product engineering, sales, and marketing from across North America. Their focus is on hiring and outreach.
Bob Hower, Co-Founder & Partner, G20 Ventures said,
“With data being the lifeblood of every organization, Nick and his seasoned team of data experts have presented the industry with a different point of view.”
“They have become the Amazon for data, delivering a vital solution to a global problem: ensuring transparency, control, and quality when it comes to data acquisition. Narrative’s Data Streaming Platform simplifies what has been a complex process that typically takes months and delivers it in seconds on demand.”
About Narrative:
Narrative is a platform for Data Streaming, Data Acquisition, and Data Monetization. It is the world’s first leading data streaming platform. Leading companies use Narrative to fuel cutting-edge data strategies, monetize valuable data assets, and power innovation and growth. Narrative’s innovative approach to buying and selling data eliminates the inefficiencies in data transactions that cost money and exposure to undue risk. Narrative Data Stream marketplace gets the data needed instantly. It is fast and easy to find, buy, and activate first-party data from over 40 suppliers with just a few clicks. It’s online shopping—but for data instead of dog treats. The privately-held firm was founded in 2016 and is headquartered in New York City. Learn more at https://www.narrative.io/
Read More: Your Ultimate Guide to Understanding the Customer Data Platform
Everything the Q2 2020 Financial Results of Tech Giants Have to Say
Big Tech giants have revealed their quarter financial performance in these turbulent times. Here are the Q 2 financial performance, insights, and earnings details:
Alphabet
Google’s parent company Alphabet beat the expectations for its Q 2 earnings despite a dip in the advertising. However, it marked its first year-over-year revenue decline in its history as the pandemic slowed the economic activity and advertisers pulled back their spending. Though there is a slowdown in the advertising growth, Google pointed to newer long-term opportunities in cloud computing and artificial intelligence, YouTube, and shopping. For the rest of the year, in anticipation of slowdown, the company has cut marketing spend by half and also freezes hiring.
Google is also facing antitrust investigations of its search and Android business and is expected to result in a legal action that could cover issues from search to digital advertising space in the coming months.
By the numbers:
- $2.6 billion declines in year-on-year advertising revenue.
- Google’s total quarterly revenue $29.9 billion of $38.3 billion is from advertising.
- YouTube ad revenue increased 6% to $3.8 billion.
- Google Cloud sales grew 43% to $3 billion.
- Total Net income reported $6.96 billion compared to $9.95 billion in the year-ago quarter.
Response:
Though there is a slowdown in the advertising growth, Google pointed to newer long-term opportunities in cloud computing and artificial intelligence, YouTube, and shopping.
For the rest of the year, in anticipation of slowdown, the company has cut marketing spend by half and also freezes hiring. Ruth Porat, Chief Financial Officer of Alphabet and Google said,
“We continue to navigate through a difficult global economic environment.”
Consumers are returning to more commercial search queries and advertisers are gradually increasing their search spending towards the end of the quarter. However, Ruth Porat cautioned,
“We believe it is premature to gauge the durability of recent trends, given the obvious uncertainty of the global macro environment.”
Google is also facing antitrust investigations of its search and Android business and is expected to result in a legal action that could cover issues from search to digital advertising space in the coming months.
Amazon
The e-commerce giant delivered some eye-popping numbers during Q2 beating earnings expectations and reported a double-digit revenue year over year. With the flurry of online orders amid the coronavirus pandemic, sales soared by 40%. The online grocery sales tripled Y-o-Y and the grocery delivery capacity by more than 160%. The demand for online shopping sky-rocketed and to fulfill the demand, it hired 175,000 more people in the period.
By The Numbers:
- Revenue reported is $88.91 billion vs. $81.56 billion expected, the strongest and unexpected annual growth in years.
- Amazon spent $4 billion on coronavirus related measures as promised in Q1 and expects to spend another $2 billion during Q3 towards COVID-19 mitigation efforts.
- Amazon Web Services (AWS), its cloud computing service grew 29% compared to 33% in Q1.
- Amazon’s Other’ category that primarily consists of the advertising business ( a small slice of Amazon’s total revenues) was up 41% Y-o-Y and subscription services that include revenues from Prime membership also up 29%.
Response:
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said in a statement,
“This was another highly unusual quarter, and I couldn’t be more proud of and grateful to our employees around the globe.”
As reported by CNBC, Amazon CFO Brian Olsavsky said consumer demand in the pandemic shifted from consumables and groceries to categories “not so profitable” and normal mix of products. He said,“Amazon could ship a lot more.”
Amazon will conduct a Prime Day shopping event in the fourth quarter.
Despite the Congress probe, pandemic, and an anti-hate boycott from advertisers, Facebook beats all market expectations, revenue grew by 11%. This speaks volumes about the strength of the company’s appeal to marketers despite serious challenges. The top 100 advertisers’ that boycotted Facebook over its hate speech and misinformation policies constituted less than 20% of Facebook’s ad revenue. However, the boycott by large advertisers couldn’t rally small businesses who are reliant on Facebook.
By The Numbers:
- 3.14 billion monthly users across all apps(Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, and Whatsapp), compared to 2.99 billion in the previous quarter.
- 1.79 billion Daily Active Users on Facebook, up 12% year on year
- 2.7 billion Monthly Active Users on Facebook, up 12% year on year.
- Revenue: $18.7 billion, up 11% year on year.
- It has more than 9 million active advertisers.
Response:
The company said in a statement,
“We are seeing signs of normalization in user growth and engagement as shelter-in-place measures have eased around the world, particularly in developed markets where Facebook’s penetration is higher.”
Mark Zuckerberg said on a call with investors,
“Some also seem to wrongly assume that our business is dependent on a few large advertisers. The biggest part of our business is serving small businesses.”
Two new initiatives were announced for small businesses- Facebook Shops and in-messenger commerce.
“This really is primarily focused on small businesses, individual entrepreneurs. Small businesses are the biggest part of our business, not large businesses.”
The company forecasts its revenue growth rate for Q3 of about 10%. while taking into account ongoing headwinds including macroeconomic uncertainty, ad boycott (formally began in July, after Q2 ended), regulations around ad targetting, and measurement.
Pinterest revenue grew 4% on user growth and advertisement. Users who started using Pinterest during Covid-19 continued to have engagement even after lockdown restrictions eased out at a few places. It reached a milestone of crossing more than 400 million monthly users, witnessing a strong growth from users under 25 who grew twice as fast as users over 25. The total advertising growth accelerated year over year in Q2 and small and medium-sized advertisers emerged as a key driver that made up nearly half of its revenue. New features like Shop Tab and the ability to shop from boards are worked upon to make content search easy for the Pinners.
ByThe Numbers:
- Total daily video views (organic+ paid) grew over 150% year over year.
- Catalog from business increased in Q2 by more than 350% from Q1.
- Revenue from conversion optimization or oCPM, shopping ads, and auto bids continues to grow faster than overall revenue, and attributed conversions grew 2.7x year over year. 80% of CPC revenue is going through the auto bid.
- Users visiting shopping only surfaces grew more than 50% in the first half of 2020 and product only searches grew 8x.
Response:
As per CNBC, the company said,
“People needed Pinterest in Q2. They needed a service that helped them adjust to radically changed circumstances — one that inspired them to cook at home, build vegetable gardens, plan activities for their kids and set up remote offices and home gyms, to name just a few typical COVID-19-related use cases we saw during the quarter.”
Advertisers have increased budgets on Pinterest because of its strong commercial intent where advertisers get their traction without displaying ads with any controversial content.
Omnicom Group
Omnicom revenues decline 23% due to a decline in spending by the clients. In order to offset the decline in revenue 6,100 jobs were cut across its network, froze hiring, eliminated salary increases, implemented voluntary pay cuts across its agencies, and participated in government subsidy programs in 35 markets. It also shed 1 million square feet of real estate space as it terminated leases across markets in order to mitigate the impact of the pandemic. It is expected that these actions will result in the repositioning costs for the quarter of $278 million that will generate approximately $500 million in annualized savings.
Advertising revenue decline as the revenue of the programmatic business decreased where it offered principle-based buying options for clients.
By The Numbers:
- Reported revenue was $2.8 billion, down $854 million organically, or 23% from Q2 2019.
- Advertising business declined 26.6% and Third-party service costs which fluctuate directly with changes in revenue declined by approximately $400 million.
- Revenues declined in all disciplines except healthcare which grew 3.2% organically.
- CRM execution and support include events and field marketing businesses, which declined 27.6%.
- CRM consumer experience declined 25.6%, and PR declined 14%,
Response:
CEO John Wren said on the earnings call,
“The quarter posed extraordinary challenges. he effect of COVID and related lockdowns were unprecedented.”
The main reason for declines in Omnicon’s services was because the client from travel, retail, auto, and other affected verticals paused or cut spending whereas technology and telecom fared better.
After a tough and bad Q2, the company looks forward to the second half. The recovery may not be immediate but the impact will vary regionally and by vertical. Wren said,
“We think the worst is behind us, with Q2 being the worst point for year-over-year revenue declines.”
The company added a few new clients like Air France’s global agency of record account and Clorox’s media business in the United States.
Apple
Apple reports a slow down in revenue growth as the demand and supply was impacted due to the pandemic. However, it had reported a better quarter than Wall Street expected, showing growth across all product lines including iPhones and reflected growth across all geographic segments.
By The Numbers:
- Revenues rose 11% to $59.7 billion against the estimated revenue of $52.6 billion.
- Apple reported iPhone revenue of $26.42 bn, a growth of 1.66%.
- The biggest growth was in iPad revenue at $6.58bn up from $4.48 bn.
- Apple reported service revenue of $13.1 bn against $11.5 bn the same period in the last year.
Response:
Apple CEO Tim Cook during a call said,
“Amid the most challenging global environment in which we’ve ever operated our business we’re proud to say that Apple grew during the quarter.”
The company’s subscription service and Apple Tv+ also performed well as most people watched content under lockdown. Apple did not issue guidance for the third quarter.
Read more on Q1 results: Where Do These Global Companies Stand At The End Of Q1: Performance, Insights, And Statistics
Nisnass Will Be Winding Up Business By July 16
Due to the severe damage done on the retail market by Covid-19, another e-commerce has to shut down its business.
Nisnass, a beauty and fashion venture from Al Tayer Insignia, recently announced that they no longer be operating from Thursday, June 16. Therefore, it is offering a 90% discount on its products.
However, Ounass, the sister company of the Nisnass, will still be fully operational.
Nisnass started its journey in the e-commerce market in the month of January, the year 2018. Nisnass started its user interaction with a mobile application. Therefore, it made sure to provide the users best on-hand experience, in terms of online shopping. Later, it also expanded the market with the help of a desktop website.
They had a brilliant strategy in terms of delivery! They delivered the product within 2-hours if in Dubai. Also, they assured a next day delivery in all over UAE.
Collection on the website offered the best products and services. Their wide variety range of products, extending from men to women and even for kids. The product range also offered beauty products, homewares and clothing.
In an email, Al Tayer announced the closure, stating: “As with many start-ups, we are compelled to continuously review our trajectory and focus our resources towards achieving our mission in the most effective way”.
They further added, “Nisnass has played an instrumental role in our evolutionary journey and has valuably contributed to the maturity of our organisation and the growth of our digital team.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/CBas_GIJeza/?utm_source=ig_embed
Although, they provided no specific reason for the sudden closure.
However, according to Al Tayer, they would be refocussing their “talent, absolute focus and resources into accelerating the successful growth of Ounass as the leader in the Middle East online luxury sphere”.
The news of the closure was sudden, and disheartening for the customers. Earlier, The Modist, Dubai e-tailor had to close its business due to the global crisis. They were operational for 3-years and closed their business, two months ago.