Puneet Sikka

Verizon’s wireless business accounts for more than 70% of its revenues. However, the business has recently seen falling revenue growth.

Microsoft launched Microsoft 365 about a year ago, and the company claims that it’s already a multibillion-dollar business.

Amazon’s AWS is a fast-growing business for the company that saw its revenues rise by 55% YoY (year-over-year) to over $3.2 billion in 3Q16.

The year-over-year revenue growth trend for Amazon’s International segment was falling until last quarter.

During the conference call to announce Microsoft’s (MSFT) fiscal Q3 2014 earnings, Microsoft mentioned that it recently launched a new version of SQL database

Cisco is expected to announce its fiscal 3Q15 earnings on May 13. Cisco expects its year-over-year revenue growth to be 3%–5% in the quarter.

Netflix (NFLX) leads the share of Internet traffic on computers and networks in North America. However, the competition is increasing against it.

Last month, for the first time, China applied restrictions on instant messaging services for national security purposes.

A few weeks back, Bloomberg had reported that Microsoft (MSFT) was planning to launch a smaller version of its Surface tablet, popularly known as the “Surface Mini.”

The 1Q14 earnings for Yahoo were slightly better than analysts’ expectations.

eBay’s management noted that eBay Enterprise margins fell by 3.9% during the last quarter compared to a year ago. The increased cost to prepare for the holiday season was blamed for the decline.

A comparative lack of security for Android shows that BlackBerry could do more harm than good to its image as a secure player by adopting Android as its operating system.

Facebook has been concentrating its efforts on video for a long time now. It has ambitions of becoming the number one player in the video ad market.

Sprint cited a number of reasons why its margins have been improving. One of the major reasons was obviously the lower subsidy cost, which declined from $1.48 billion in 2Q13 to $1.05 billion in 2Q14.

Facebook (FB) has been trying to come up with a mobile payment service for WhatsApp in India (EPI) for quite some time.

According to the latest report from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C continued to lead the British smartphone market in May.

Apple believes its partnership with IBM will help it penetrate the enterprise market. Building enterprise apps—and using IBM’s big data and analytics capabilities—is one way to provide better service to enterprises.

AWS and the continued success of the Prime membership program were the main drivers for Amazon in 2015. This will likely continue in 2016 as well.

In the past, Amazon has faced criticism over late delivery that relied on package delivery companies such as United Parcel Service (UPS) and FedEx (FDX).

BlackBerry now plans to launch its next version of the Passport smartphone, Passport Oslo, by the end of this year. The smartphone will have high-end specifications.

Part of the reason Samsung forecast a decline in earnings for Q2 was an increase in operating expenses. Samsung had to incur higher operating expenses.

The quality and variety of the smartphone lineup is an important parameter for any telecom company. For Verizon, it’s even more important, as it’s trying to increase the popularity of its Edge program by attracting customers to upgrade their devices faster.

Facebook’s (FB) advertising revenues increased by a healthy 67%. But its other business, the payments and other fees business, grew from $214 million to $234 million at a growth rate of 9%.

The mobile advertising market is expected to grow at a faster rate than the overall digital advertising market.

Qualcomm earns about half of its revenues from China, making it an important market for the company. It depends heavily on the faster adoption of high-speed LTE technology in emerging markets such as China.

During the recent installment of Asia’s largest computing show, Computex, Microsoft (MSFT) announced that it will start selling smartphones and tablets running its software at below $200.

People consume more data via Wi-Fi because it’s much cheaper than cellular data plans—6.8 GB using Android phones and 8.9 GB using Apple iPhones.

According to a report from Statista and the previous chart, Pandora leads the Internet Radio market with a share of 31%.

Facebook (FB) has become one of the most important players in the Internet industry. Its revenue growth remains strong.

Amazon’s Twitch drives the highest US live video streaming volume with about 44% share. With live video streaming service at 60fps, YouTube aims to give competition to Twitch.

In its press release to announce the Q1 2014 earnings, SAP mentioned that its annual cloud revenue run rate is now approaching $1.5 billion, which is a growth rate of 38% over the same quarter last year.

Intel (INTC) announced its Q2 2014 earnings recently. Its revenue of $13.83 billion and earnings per share of 55 cents beat analysts’ estimates.

Walmart, Target, Amazon, and Lowe’s were the four retailers in the United States that spent the most on YouTube video ads last year.

Reducing oil prices are good news for e-commerce players. Oil prices have declined by about 60% over the past six months.

On November 9, Cisco and Ericsson announced a major partnership where both companies would develop new products. Both face competition from nokia and Huawei.

Apple Watch, Apple Pay, Apple TV, and iPad Pro are niche businesses for Apple (AAPL). But these still have the potential to become big in the future.

Seeing the success of local inventory ads, Google has expanded them to all major economies outside the United States, including the United Kingdom (EWU), France, Germany, Japan, and Australia.

Twitter’s monthly active users or MAUs increased from 255 million in Q2 2013 to 271 million in Q2 2014. These are the users who log in to Twitter through its website either from desktop or mobile devices.

Google, Inc. has taken clear forward strides in the mobile devices market. Android should gain up to a 52% share by 2015.

From this earning announcement, investors will also keenly watch for the outlook that Apple provides for fiscal 1Q16, the holiday quarter this year.

Apple announced the release of iOS 9, upgrading its operating system for the iPhone and iPad. iOS 9 allows improved multitasking functionality for the iPad.

The technology sector in general is facing headwinds because the U.S. dollar is strengthening. Facebook earned about 54% of its revenues from international markets in the last quarter. As a result, a strengthening U.S. dollar impacts its revenues and margins.

Late in 2015, Google launched its Customer Match product, which allows advertisers to provide Google with a list of customer email addresses. Google matches these customers with signed-in customers on Google Search, YouTube, or Gmail.

Recently, Intex announced the introduction of its first smartphone in India, named Cloud FX. This smartphone will be based on the Mozilla Firefox operating system and will be priced pretty low, at $33.

During the third quarter, Amazon made a major acquisition of Twitch for $970 million. Twitch is a popular website for video game enthusiasts who want to broadcast their video games to other people or watch other people play video games in real time.

Apple (AAPL) is expected to announce its fiscal 1Q15 earnings on January 27. We believe Apple will once again beat analysts’ consensus estimates.

Qualcomm’s improved EPS guidance is mainly because of the continued adoption of LTE technology by Chinese telecommunication providers such as China Mobile (CHL), China Telecom (CHA), and China Unicom (CHU).

Although the 60-day exclusivity period with AT&T (T) for selling the PRIV has already ended, BlackBerry hasn’t yet started selling the PRIV on the T-Mobile (TMUS) and Verizon (VZ) networks.

Sprint’s price cuts are clearly aimed at gaining net subscribers at the expense of its competitors. Sprint is the only major US telecom company that kept losing subscribers.

Audience Network benefits not just Facebook, but developers too. By helping developers manage ad inventories, apps can be more readily monetized.

On December 20, Symantec announced that its Cloud Workload Protection (or CWP) product won the “product of the year” award in the cloud security category.

Other telecom companies have also started luring customers with attractive family plans—AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile among them.

The Apple Watch is the biggest threat to Fitbit despite its being released only recently. In April, Apple released the Watch in nine countries.

Apple (AAPL) is all set to release its Watch on April 24. The product will launch in nine countries, which include the United States and the United Kingdom.

Facebook and Google have moved far ahead of AOL in the display ad market. After acquiring AOL, Verizon could possibly strengthen its position in this market.

Netflix expects 2.15 million net subscriber additions in the fourth quarter. This growth is faster than what Netflix experienced in the U.S.

Yahoo acquired Tumblr for $1.1 billion in 2013. David Karp founded Tumblr. He had been leading the business at Yahoo as well. Now, he will report to Simon Khalaf.

The online travel market is consolidating. Expedia’s market share will rise to 75% with its acquisitions of Orbitz and Travelocity.

AT&T will sell the Passport exclusively for $200 with a two-year contract. The device otherwise sells for $650 without a contract.

In July 2014, Verizon introduced an innovative service called Speed Match, which allows customers to receive upload speeds that match their download speeds.

Lower churn rates help companies save cost that they would otherwise incur acquiring new customers. So it’s an important parameter in the telecom industry.

Google will need to continue to innovate in the mobile advertising market so it can compete with mobile apps. The mobile ad market has huge growth potential.

eBay’s PayPal will acquire online money transfer company Xoom for $890 million. PayPal will pay Xoom $25 per share.

App Store revenues were up 29% in fiscal 2Q15 from 2Q14. In Europe, the App Store’s success helped generate $7.5 billion for European developers since 2008.

Compared to the traditional subsidy model, the Next program provides more flexibility to customers who like to frequently upgrade their devices.

Apple iPad sales have been declining for the last few quarters now. And unless Apple does something revolutionary, it’s unlikely to revive them.

Microsoft will need to beef up its sales force to sell its search ads. Microsoft’s Bing is ranked third in the global search ad market.

Management mentioned that the network for LTE multicast has been ready since August. VZ expects the complete ramp up of compatible devices to be in the market by next year.

In April, Amazon had launched its new travel and hotel service, called Amazon Destinations.

Morgan Stanley rationalizes that if only 10% of the 300 million people who carry iPhones buy an Apple Watch, 30 million units could be sold this year.

eBay (EBAY) announced better-than-expected 1Q15 earnings last week. The company’s overall revenues increased by 4% to $4.45 billion year-over-year.

Google’s DoubleClick is the go-to tool for marketers and agencies. And the number of ads impressions from DoubleClick has doubled year-over-year.

Apple is no longer the top-selling smartphone player with the Verizon (VZ) and Sprint (S) networks, where Samsung (SSNLF) has held on to its top position.

Last week, LinkedIn announced that it agreed to acquire lynda.com—a leading training video site—for $1.5 billion. LinkedIn needs more user engagement.

Apple has tried its best to popularize the Apple Watch. A couple of months ago, Apple and IBM (IBM) added three new apps for Apple Watch.

According to a May 6 report from TechCrunch, Indian e-commerce logistics startup Delhivery raised $85 million in funding a few months after it raised $35 million.

According to Google, more users aged 18–49 access YouTube on their mobile devices than they access any cable network in the United States.

We discussed how Facebook (FB) and Google (GOOG)(GOOGL) are the most preferred social networks for the purpose of social login. But Instagram has emerged as the most popular social network among teens in the U.S.

Amazon (AMZN) stock has been one of the best performers in 2018.

Twitter (TWTR) continues to produce robust revenue growth. Twitter even raised its guidance for 4Q14 revenue as well as its adjusted EBITDA.

Cisco’s Data Center business continues to have strong growth. Its Data Center business had a YoY revenue growth rate of 21%—the highest among its other segments.

Average revenue per account (or ARPA) is an important metric for Verizon. It gives an idea of how well it’s able to monetize its users’ accounts. Verizon increases ARPA consistently.

Spotify earns the bulk of its revenues from subscriptions and only a small amount from advertising. Investors prefer the subscription model.

Amazon credits the Prime program’s popularity for the growth in its operating profits in 1Q15—Amazon’s best results in the US for the last few quarters.

China’s telecom providers, China Mobile (CHL), China Unicom (CHU), and China Telecom (CHA), had started to sell the iPhone 5S at a subsidized price. However, it seems the Chinese government wants to nip this trend in the bud itself.

Netflix (NFLX) stock rose 3.7% on June 10 on news that the company is pursuing a stock split. It would increase the number of shares 30 times, from 170 million to 5 billion.

Amazon (AMZN) acquired Twitch a few months back for a valuation of around $1 billion. Twitch is a popular website for video game enthusiasts.

In spite of the competition, Apple will have ample opportunities to grow its music streaming service. It will quickly expand its service to countries where competition is less.

Although the Mobile Share accounts for AT&T have tripled from 4.8 million in 2Q13 to 14.6 million in 2Q14, 10 GB or larger data plans have increased by more than five times, from 1.4 million to 7.2 million, during the same period.

This is a tool to connect people with important public moments and personalities on Facebook. This is an attempt by Facebook to draw on features of Twitter Inc (TWTR)—where people are comfortable sharing their views with everyone.

BlackBerry’s software and technology licensing revenues grew 18% year-over-year, mainly due to the company’s BES12 solution.

On April 27, Facebook added the video calling feature to Messenger, according to Facebook’s press release. This feature makes Messenger an attractive app.

Recently, AT&T announced that its GigaPower service has exceeded expectations in Austin and will soon start deploying in Dallas and North Carolina.

FiOS Quantum provides high Internet speeds ranging from 50 to 500 Mbps. To date, 57% of FiOS customers have adopted the Quantum

Although Samsung managed to increase its share in the worldwide smartphone market in 2013, it could face a tough 2014.

On September 9, Apple launched the iPhone 6, measuring 4.7 inches, and the iPhone 6 Plus, measuring 5.5 inches. On the same day, Apple also released its smartwatch called the Apple Watch.

A recent report from the Wall Street Journal suggests that investors might be overvaluing Spotify. The company could now be a risky investment.

U-Verse and strategic business services have been the main growth areas for AT&T’s wireline business, offset by the declines in legacy voice and data products. AT&T’s U-Verse broadband and TV business both are showing strong growth.

AT&T has also been able to grow its U-Verse TV subscriber base. AT&T’s subscriber base has increased from 5.0 million in 2Q13 to 5.9 million in 2Q14.

Apple could disrupt the business of established players PayPal and Square in the person-to-person payment-processing market.