Puneet Sikka

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

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Verizon’s service revenue growth rate declined consistently over the past few quarters. Verizon’s year-over-year (or YoY) growth rate declined from 8.4% in 3Q13 to 4.8% in 3Q14.

Google Express works directly with local retailers, while Amazon maintains its own warehouses and has a much larger selection of items to choose from.

Twitter’s MAU growth rate has slowed down considerably to a quarter-over-quarter rate of 1.4%.

It seems that Apple’s (AAPL) recent launch of its Apple Music subscription service hasn’t gone over well with antitrust authorities.

According to a Wall Street Journal report, China’s cloud computing player 21Vianet Group, a Microsoft partner, will set up a joint venture with Tsinghua Unigroup.

Google has long enjoyed dominance in the video advertising market. In 2013, YouTube generated about $850 million in revenues from video ads in the U.S.

The key to unlocking success is for Blue Apron to convince consumers that the food items the company delivers are just as fresh as items bought in person from a supermarket.

Samsung’s problems could continue even in the later part of the year, when Apple (AAPL) announces its new iPhone, the iPhone 6, and Lenovo (LNVGY) makes use of Motorola’s operations.

Android Lollipop has a number of updates and new features. Also, consumers in India who bought Android One OS devices can upgrade to Android Lollipop.

In this series, we’ll discuss the main drivers behind AT&T’s wireline business. AT&T’s wireline business is as important for the company as its wireless business.

A few months ago, Apple and IBM (IBM) forged a partnership. IBM’s “big data” and analytics capabilities would help Apple analyze the data collected from Apple’s devices.

Google has started to take the mobile search business seriously. Google’s growth is also coming from smaller but fast-growing businesses like YouTube and Google Play.

Twitter’s management changes came after its disastrous 1Q15 earnings. Twitter missed its own revenue growth estimate for 1Q15 and even lowered its outlook.

According to a recent report from Taiwan’s Economic Daily News, iPhone 6 may be introduced in August this year.

Google’s expected to announce its 3Q14 earnings on October 16. Its earnings are often a barometer of the Internet industry’s health, so we should keenly watch Google’s results.

App Store is one of Apple’s (AAPL) fastest growing businesses. For reporting purposes, Apple combines the iTunes business with App Store under the category iTunes, Software, and Services.

During the company’s conference call to announce its Q2 2014 earnings, Adobe’s management mentioned that a separate cloud offering of Photoshop continues to attract photographers and hobbyists.

Apple must sort out its production issues quickly and make iPhones available in emerging markets sooner rather than later. The potential demand for the iPhone 6 Plus in Asian countries such as India, China, and Japan is huge.

In December 2014, the success of iPhone 6 and Plus helped Apple beat Google’s Android-based smartphones in terms of market share in the US.

Spotify now plans to enter the video streaming market, according to a May 7 Wall Street Journal report.

For example, Amazon (AMZN) recently launched a credit card reader. Merchants can use it to conduct payments through a smartphone or tablet.

Customers benefit from installment plans as they get the flexibility to pay for their smartphones in equal monthly installments and to trade in or upgrade to a new smartphone. Installment plans are also beneficial to telecom companies.

Apple takes a 30% cut from developers selling via the App Store. So Apple would have earned about $4.3 billion from the App Store in 2014.

An April 16 press release from Yahoo (YHOO) announced that Yahoo and Microsoft (MSFT) have amended their search relationship.

iPhone contributed about 57% of Apple’s revenues in fiscal 2014, up from 55% in fiscal 2013. This could increase when Apple announces its 1Q15 results.

BlackBerry has been reduced to a niche smartphone player. Its recently released smartphones were introduced specifically with enterprises in mind.

An important factor driving iPhone revenues was the increase in iPhone’s ASP. iPhone’s ASP of $603 in fiscal 4Q14 increased by $42 sequentially and $26 on a YoY basis.

Yahoo now has more than 430 million monthly mobile users—30% growth year-over-year—and more than half of Yahoo’s total monthly audience is on mobile.

In 2Q15, Google’s cost discipline efforts have started to show their effect. Google’s operating margins continued to increase.

eBay (EBAY) provided new details in securities filings last week. Both eBay and Paypal will have to abide by certain rules even after the split.

Apple (AAPL) has started to take a few baby steps to initiate growth in emerging markets. The company recently signed a multi-year distribution agreement with China Mobile (CHL).

This move will also help Google know how ads convert to actual sales by examining users’ shopping habits. Google will gain access to this precious data.

Alibaba’s EBITDA margins declined from 57% in fiscal 4Q14 to 49% in fiscal 4Q15.

According to a report from eMarketer, and as the chart above shows, Google has about a 31% share in the worldwide digital advertising market, followed by Facebook at ~8%.