Yahoo!, Inc. has Potential Buyers in the Market now

The search engine company's core assets are up for grabs now, lets see who wins the auction.

Talks of Yahoo! Inc.’s core business being on sale has been the talk about the hour. Rumors of tech and telecom giant’s bidding for the search engine company keep surfacing. According to the latest rumor, apparently there were talks of Verizon Communications Inc. bidding for the online search engine giant’s business however the telecommunication company’s executive vice president and chief financial officer cleared out to the investors as well as the analysts at Deutsche Bank that no such talks have happened regarding the bidding process.

Initially, the telecommunication company enlisted AOL’s chief executive Tim Armstrong to looking into bidding for the online search engine’s assets that were for sale, as the company has been considered as one of the most suitable and top companies to go forward with the acquisition. In February, Yahoo!, Inc. finally put itself out there, on sale.

As the CEO of Yahoo, Marissa Mayer did not prove herself to turnaround the fortune of the company, the board had to take drastic measures, as they assigned a committee to analyze strategic options for one of the oldest websites on the internet. The best strategy that the board and committee could offer was to put the organization’s core assets on sale. However, the route that Ms. Mayer took was too initially lay off a number of employees in order to maintain their focus on the business further.

Many a times, the CEO had promised that she was working on a strategy to turn the days around for Yahoo, however it was unable to deliver at every point, which made the investors and the shareholders of the organization upset. A number of people believe that the search engine company has its back against the wall because of the ‘misguided decisions’ of the CEO, on the other hand many are saying that it just delayed the repercussions of a company that was already failing.

As per the recent news, Ken Goldman, the CFO of the business also stated that they were considering selling some of the non-core assets of the company as well which would be worth as much as $1 billion and $3 billion.

A number of high end companies have shown an interest in acquiring the company, some of which include Verizon, Time Inc. and a number of other private equity firms. Currently, it has been receiving a lot of pressure from the shareholders; initially the company had decided to spin off its 15% that it has in the largest e-commerce company Alibaba Group Holding Ltd but due to the pressure it had to drop the idea.

Amazon.com To Enter The Virtual Reality Market; Serious Competitor On Its Way

The retail giant has shown interest in the VR industry, yet to see whether it will launch a VR headset or VR content or even both.

Technology companies all across the world want their hands on the Virtual Reality technology; they want to grab their share of the VR market. With Netflix, Inc. and Hulu already on track, news has surfaced that the retail giant is not too far behind. According to a latest job posting by Amazon.com, the retail company is looking for senior software development manager in the Virtual Reality space.

The latest job posting by the retail giant was identified by UploadVR on Glassdor; currently they are just looking for a senior software development manager so we are yet to find out which segment Jeff Bezos is looking to target in the VR world. However, as per the job posting and the kind of person the company is looking for, it seems that it is definitely something more than the VR experience.

Entering the VR world does not come as a much of a surprise from the e-commerce organization as it has already mentioned plans of entering the market to give competition to the other tech giants in the industry  (apparently Amazon’s always been good at that). This is not the first time the company has showed its interest in the VR industry, last year there was a filing case, according to which the online shopping company was working on making a VR headset however it is still unclear whether it will be working on a VR headset or will introduce VR in videos. Many believe that given Amazon’s enthusiasm, it might be bringing out both, the VR headset as well as VR content.

However, it should be pointed out that Amazon will not be the first company to be bringing out such a technology. Other tech organization including Facebook with its Oculus Rift VR head set, HTC with its Vive and Sony with its PlayStation is already expected to launch their products during the current year. Analysts are further predicting that the VR industry will be worth as much as $30 by the end 2020. At this point in time, all the companies in the tech industry are gearing up to snatch their share of the market in the specific industry.

As all these technology companies plan to enter the VR market, it is going to create a healthy competition hence giving way to a profitable industry. Presently, Amazon Prime who is already in the video content market has major competitors including Netflix, YouTube and Hulu – out of these two, Google’s video streaming website and Hulu are already in the VR business while Netflix has shown major interest in the sector too and will enter the market soon enough as well. It’s yet to find out how and what the retailer will enter the market with.

Presently, Amazon stock is being traded at a share price of $554.97 down by 0.94%.

Facebook Inc. Launches A Similar Feature As Twitter's Moments

The social media giant is launching a Sports Stadium feature just like Twitter's Moments.

Facebook Inc. is hitting Twitter Inc. where it hurt as it launched its very own Sports Stadium which appears to be its own version of Moments by the micro-blogging website and Snapchat’s live stories. This service is launched just in time for the Super Bowl – guess the balls again in Facebook’s court.

This app will be giving live stats, scores and updates to the social media users and further more Facebook users will be able to trash talk with friends and will also follow live commentary from sports experts. The company has called this platform a place that is solely devoted to sports that would give a user a feeling of watching matches with friends even when they are not together.

Twitter Inc. have been the platform that users have always relied on for getting instant updates on matches , instant commentary as well as analysis of the games. Now Facebook will become the official platform for this since it has a bigger user base. In comparison to Tweeting, the social media network allows its users to make longer posts and gives them more room to express themselves.

The social media giant has enough users on its platform that they will at least try the new feature. According to research, out of Facebook’s 1.5 billion monthly active users, 600 million users classify as sports fans while its smaller rival Twitter has about 300 million.

In other news, Facebook will be partnering up with Tor which is considered the best online anonymity tool in the industry through which the service will be able to bounce internet signals globally. Through this feature, the social media website will be viewable to people in restricted regions such as China and Iran. However the company is not opted for this to provide accessibility to those users in restricted areas. Basically with Tor a user can hide its original location.

This service was mostly used by criminals that wanted to dodge law enforcements. The Silicon Valley giant will automatically use Orbot, which is an application for Tor, through which the encryptions would hide the service from network censors.

Currently Facebook stock is being traded at a share price of $94.16 indicating a decrease from its previous trading session of 0.20%. The earnings per share reported by the social media network was 1.00 and the price to earnings ratio is 94.59 – the market capitalization is $265.72 billion.

Amazon Is Giving A Full Refund On All Hoverboard That It Has Sold

The retail giant is offering refund on the all the models of the hoverboard to its customers.

The latest technology of hoverboards has been quite popular with the youth lately, but this device has been blow up and caused a number of injuries due to which Amazon.com has decided to offer full refunds on the devices that have been sold online in the United States as well as Canada. Even though there are number of other supplier of the product, the retail giant wanted to be the first one to give in.

The United States Consumer Product Safety Commission – CPSC has been examining the hoverboards since last year December; on Wednesday the Commission appreciated this decision of Amazon’s and further expected other retails and distributors of the device to do the same as these devices have become a serious safety concern now.

The Commission has been keeping an eye on the performance of the product due to which a number of injuries have been caused as people tend to lose their balance and fall off the hoverboard – the emergency to the hospitals have been increase due to the injuries caused by the product. It stated that these falls might have been caused due to some fault in the design of the boards.

Elliot F. Kaye, the chairman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission stated that falling off of the device seems like a very normal one after observing the service but he believes that the companies should consider that the current design might not take into account that there is a difference in every person’s weights which could be the reason for these falls.

Additionally, this is not the only issue associated with the hoverboard, in over 10 different states 11 cases of the product of being blown up have been reported too. A number of videos have gone viral on social media of celebrities and kids falling off of the device as well; even though those were minor injuries the commission is afraid that some of the falls can be serious and fatal. It has been recommended that the users wear safety gear before getting on the board.

Presently, the commission has been viewing over 39 cases in which the boards have literally blown up into flames; most of the have blown up while being charge. 13 hoverboards made by different manufacturers are under observation now – safety standards are being developed for the device.

The retail giant has already started giving full refunds to people who purchased the device in the United Kingdom. The online shopping company is no longer selling certain models of the hoverboard in the region. Currently, the organization is sending emails to all the customers who purchased the product to offer the refund and also allowing the users to return the device if they want to.

Amazon To Witness Continued Growth in AWS and Retail Expansion in 2016

Amazon has been making quite positive gain lately with high ambitions in 2016 as well.

Year 2015 has proved to be a good year for the e-commerce company Amazon.com, as the stock surged by as much as 110% during the year. Additionally, analyst Shyam Patil from Susquehanna Bank believes that this trend is likely to continue this year as well; he supported this theory by the fact that Amazon and Amazon Web Service (which is the cloud division of the company) will contribute to increase the company’s stock.

Shyam Patil stated when talking about the web cloud service that it has experienced accelerated growth throughout. A 27% year-over-year growth was witnessed in that division during the third quarter of fiscal year 2015 whereas a year-over-year growth of 24% and 20% was witnessed during the second and first quarter for the current fiscal year. In 2015, an overall growth of 78% YoY was seen mainly because over 500 innovative features were introduced to the cloud service.

AWS has contributed a lot to the cloud industry despite the fact that it is still an early stage growing market. The cloud industry has seen a growth of as much as 54% in the third quarter of the fiscal year 2015 in which 21% was contributed by AWS. Many believe that Amazon can see higher growth if it makes the AWS available in more geographical regions. Presently, it is operational and working in over five countries, which indicates a 1% market penetration.

According to recent announcement, the service is expected to establish its hub in Montreal, Canada, which is being established there because it plans to aim markets that have not been target yet. It will be made available in 43 zones across 17 different global regions, which mostly include high enterprise markets, including the United Kingdom, India and South Korea. This expansion initially will result to an increase in capital expenditure due to which the company’s margins might be stressed but in the long run, it will lead to high sustainable future revenue and further growth for the e-commerce company.

On the other hand, the retailer currently dominates the e-commerce market with over 3 million customers added to Amazon Prime during the holiday season last month. Additionally, good news for the company is disclosed, according to which Amazon China has been officially registered with Federal Maritime Commission (FMC). With the news of air cargo last month, it is safe to say that Amazon will be controlling its own global supply chain network now.

Twitter Drops By 5% To Share Price Of $17.94

Ever since the start of the year, the micro-blogging website has been under hot water; now trading below 5%..

Ever since Jack Dorsey took charge, Twitter stock has fallen by as much as 40%, which has made the investor of the stock quite restless and frustrated as they wait for the CEO to apply a major strategic blueprint. Additionally, ever since 2016 has begun, the stock price has managed to drop every trading day. It fell more than 5% to a share price of $18.56 per share, which is its lowest share price.

According to Investor’s Business Daily, Mizuho – retail and corporate banking unit – covered Twitter stock, suggesting a rating of “Neutral” with a target price of $21 per share. An analyst at Business Insider, Alexei Oreskovic, stated that Wall Street was quite bearish on the micro-blogging site’s inability to increase active users when the share price first went below $20 per share.

A decline in the market capitalization was witnessed on Wednesday to $12.78 billion, which was quite below the valuation with which it went public in November 2013, which was $14.2 billion. Currently, Dorsey has been acting as the full time CEO of Twitter and Square – a digital payment that went public quite recently. Working for both companies full-time does not seem feasibly possible but apparently, he has been managing through his famous time management discipline.

According to the people who spoke to Business Insider explained that mornings of the CEO are spent at Twitter while afternoons are spent at Square, and meetings for both the companies are held on Monday with the senior management. Wednesday and Fridays are assigned to a 30-minutes session with middle line managers. This division in responsibility has created a number of hurdles, delay in the processes and important decisions of both the companies.

In other news, Twitter has been made available for the Iranian users, as it was blocked for them for a while now. The only way users in the region were able to gain access to the micro-blogging website was through proxies or virtual private network (VPNs).

The sanctions on the social media website have officially been lifted due to which an increased number of Iranian twitter users have been Tweeting. Following the footsteps of China and North Korea, Iran has also imposed restrictions and bans on the internet for the people of the country.

Twitter stock is at $17.94 indicating a decline of 5.58%. The highest at which the share price was seen during the previous trade price was $18.53 and the lowest was $17.61 respectively.

Petrobras to Present a Revised Five Year Investment Plan

The state-owned oil company is forced to make additional investment changes to its budget due to declining oil prices.

In the coming weeks, Petroleo Brasileiro SA Petrobras will be presenting a five year investment plan which is said to be leaner then the initial $19 billion investment that it had announced earlier in October, 2015, as per the news reported on Thursday in Estado de S. Paulo. As per the news, it is expected to be presented in February; however the source has not been identified.

An increase in the asset divestitures along with the addition of capital expenditure is likely to happen in the coming year. According to the Brazilian newspaper, the main reason as to why these revisions have been made in budget could be because of the declining crude oil prices. On Thursday, the crude oil prices hit an 11-year low because of the weak Chinese economy.

In comparison to the Global benchmark for crude oil, the US benchmark – West Texas Intermediate (WTI) dropped by 2.09% and was selling at a price of $33 per barrel however the Brent Crude had a decline of 1.84% at $33.60 per barrel. It has been a rough two year in a row for Petrobras, during with the Brazil-based company went through a huge corruption scandal which started back in 2014. Since that time, the stock of the petrol company has dropped by 70.96%.

Considering that it is one of the indebted energy companies in the world, the massive corruption scandal was not the only issue it had on its plate. All these issues together did not at all make a good combination that the energy giant had to deal with. All the declining aspects of the market and investment cut have made the stock drop in real-time trading as well. Petrobras stock is close to its 13-year low down by 3.29% at a share price of $3.82. In case the situation of the crude oil market does not improve; it is highly likely that the stock will fall further.

All in all, there is a big possibility that 2016 will not be a good year for the energy company as well as its chief executive officer, Aldemir Bendine. The analysts at Wall Street are predicting that this is not the end of the challenges that will be faced by the CEO which include corruption scandals, constantly low crude oil prices etc. and at this point many believe that he will not be able to handle these challenges too well.

A net loss of $97.3 million was reported by the state-owned oil major in quarter third of fiscal year 2015 while a 37% decline in the stock was witnessed in the last one year.

Netflix, Inc. Ready To launch Its Services In Russia

The expansion spree is not going to be over any time soon as it has to be in over 200 countries by the end of the year.

A report by Izvestia, a Russian Newspaper stated that the United States video streaming media giant is all set to launch its services in Russia later this month. It further stated that initially the service will be accessible through set top boxes and smart television sets. The country has over 97 million internet users which makes it a highly potential market for Netflix, Inc.  

Vitaliy Svistunov, the Smart Television manager for South Korea LG Electronics stated that it was hoped that more licensed content would be available in Russia which will give a sense of consumer subscription in the country. This would allow the users to get used to this subscription model. However, Netflix has not year revealed any information regard the launch of its services in the country.

By the end of 2016, the media streaming organization has promised to be available in over 200 countries. In the previous year, it managed to take over a number of markets including Italy, Japan, Australia and Spain and for the current year its target is to be in Singapore, South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

This week a conference will be held in Las Vegas by the name of Consumer Electronics Show 2016 and according to news the online video streaming business is expected to reveal its launch in India during the conference. However, it has not disclosed any information regarding its entry in India as yet either. The media company is working on extending its original movies and series content so it is highly essential to be in as many countries as possible to capture the right audience.

Furthermore, another announcement suggested that it will increase its production of original shows and movies to more than 30 in 2016 and also will work on providing original content for foreign subscribers. As per the latest earnings report released by Netflix, it current has over 69.2 million users in over 40 countries. Out of these subscribers, 26 million are international subscribers who reside outside of the United States.

In 2015, Netflix stock rose by as much as 134% as per the data from S&P 500 Captial IQ. However, it did not always exceed the earnings expectations and neither did it always report positive revenue but since Reed Hastings, the CEO, managed to acquire an excellent user growth, none of the above things mattered. For the current year, the main goals of the company still revolve around global subscriber growth and large scale production. These goals don’t leave much room for big profits and positive cash flows anyway.

Best Performing Segment Of Verizon Communication For 2015

The telecommunication company has successfully managed to keep its user growth intact in comparison to other market leaders.

Verizon’s FIOS Pay TV segment was the best performing service of year 2015. The success of this segment comes from the increased user growth in a time when better and cheaper alternatives were available for the customers. It has been predicted by many that since cheaper streaming media services have entered the market, it is probable that customers will move towards them and will abandon traditional television, but that has not happened yet.

Verizon Communication, Inc. has three major segments, including pay television, broadband and wireless. In 2015, all these segments faced increased challenges but they managed to perform quite well amidst aggressive competition from other pay television and wireless service providers. The telecommunication organization managed to perform well given that T-Mobile and Sprint gave it a tough competition in terms of pricing strategies. However, despite the increased competition it maintained its market share.

Additionally, even though customers have not started abandoning traditional television entirely yet, the cable industry did lose a number of subscribers in the third three quarters 2015. However, the telecommunication giant managed to gain more customers with time. In the first quarter, FIOS gained 57,000 paying users, in the second quarter of 2015, it had 26,000, and finally in the third quarter it got another 24,000 customers, as per the reports by LRG.

The third quarter, with an increase of 24,000 users, was a surprising one as the holding company’s rival AT&T lost over 91,000 customers in that same quarter. This decrease was mainly because AT&T started moving away from its U-verse TV Service and started focusing on DirecTV Satellite service, its newly acquired segment; therefore, it reported its worst performing quarter.

This was highly surprising as Verizon gained customers in the quarter in which most of the rivals lost their viewer users. People are still to find out as to why it added more customers to its traditional television service at a time when the industry is shrinking. However, it was always easy for the company to attract users mainly because it had flexible packages in comparison to its rivals.

Fran Shammo, the chief financial officer of Verizon, stated that they continue to see interest amongst its users since it offers more choice and control to the viewers at a lower price. He added that it might lead to a pressure in the revenue growth but could be beneficial for the contribution margin. There is a greater chance that cord-cutters will increase in 2016, even though it managed to continue its user growth in 2015, the current year could be a lot different.