📊The biggest week in earnings season
And it doesn't look good for tech
👋 Welcome to FWIW by David Tvrdon, your weekly tech, media & audio digest.
In this edition
Q1 results: Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, Spotify, Twitter
What media thinks about Elon buying Twitter
Snap introduced an autonomous mini drone called Pixy
What do this week’s earnings reports tell us about the state of tech?
TL;DR …
Apple beat expectations for revenue (best Q1 quarter), but the supply constraints are hurting the company and it warned of a possible $8bn hit which sent the stock down. iPhone 13 is selling well as the mobile business grew. M1 computer sales and services revenue is booming. Apple said it now has 785 million subscriptions to its various services (including iCloud, Apple Music, Apple TV+), up by 165 million from a year before. [CNBC]
Amazon’s growth rates are at their slowest since the dotcom bust in 2001. Advertising did not meet expectations and the company was hit by a $7.6bn loss on its Rivian investment after shares in the electric vehicle company lost more than half their value in the quarter. [The Verge]
Microsoft had a pretty good Q1 with a booming cloud and well-performing gaming business. More than 10 million people have streamed games over Xbox Cloud Gaming. [CNBC]
Alpbabet Q1 results were up 23% year-over-year, yet investors weren’t happy. The company’s profits dropped by more than $1bn compared with 2021. YouTube advertising revenue was also up, reaching $6.86bn, but showed slower growth than it has over the past couple of years during the pandemic. [The Verge]
Meta’s revenue was up 7% year-over-year, which was the first time Facebook’s revenue growth has sunk into the single digits. Zuckerberg said there’s a focus on short-term videos, which is a “drag on revenue,” because they don’t monetize as well as its traditional ad services. Still, he plans to continue investing billions into the metaverse. [CNBC]
Twitter missed analyst revenue estimates, but active users grew to 229 million. International growth has been bigger than in the US. [CNBC]
Spotify ended the quarter with 182 million paid subscribers, which is up 15% year-over-year but falls below its original forecast of 183 million. The company said exiting Russia led to a loss of 1.5 million subscribers. There are now 4 million podcasts on its platform, up from 3.6 million last quarter. [Variety]
In the NY Times, Shira Ovide asks whether tech companies have reached all the easily reachable people they can:
We’re entering a period in which the easy growth is gone for many successful internet companies. To keep reaching more people, they may need to think differently about the billions who have yet to be connected.
That, for sure, is one of the questions on the minds of tech CEOs and investors. There seems to be only one player that is currently able to grow unprecedently.
TikTok was the most downloaded app globally in Q1 2022. The app has surpassed 10 million downloads in the past nine quarters now. No app has had more downloads than TikTok since the beginning of 2018.
Slow growth and weak outlooks seem to hint at the continuing trend from last year and in February the war in Ukraine put even more pressure on companies.
I predict the age of unprecedented growth is over. On one hand, there is the coming regulation from the EU (DSA and DMA), on the other hand, the global supply chain problem - and, if you are not Apple and you operate your business first via your app and ads, the App Tracking Transparency (ATT) is making your life much harder.
TECH
👋 Apple's iPhone 14 lineup is going to be different, no 14 mini. Instead, Apple is going to introduce a 6.7-inch iPhone 14 Max, so a big phone without the Pro features, big display and a slightly bigger price tag. If you ask me, this is going to be Apple’s next best seller - people just want bigger displays. [Bloomberg]
⌚️ There are now pictures of Google’s Pixel Watch. It will have a circular design and could be introduced at Google’s I/O conference in May. [The Verge]
🇪🇺 The EU agreed on the Digital Services Act (DSA), next it will to go to the final vote. DSA will introduce a couple of rules for platforms (big and small) on how to regulate harmful content, it lists protections for users, and will require data and algorithm transparency - and that’s not all. We don’t have the final text and details may still change but it is a big step towards making offline and online behaviour play by the same rules. [The Verge]
🤔 Ukrainian officials have called for limiting the use of Chinese-made DJI drones due to concerns of sabotage. In Ukraine, small drones from US startups are being used, like the Seattle-based BRINC Drones Inc. and Silicon Valley’s Skydio Inc. DJI is still dominant in the civilian drone market worldwide. DJI denies allegations it is aiding Russia’s assault or meddling with Ukraine’s products. [WSJ]
😳 Elon Musk is buying Twitter, the deal should be closed around September to October. Musk will owe Twitter $1bn if his funding doesn’t come through, according to an SEC filing. Here is more information and some headlines (I’m sure you heard the news because it was everywhere, so I won’t go into detail here).
Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover sets him on a collision course with Europe, namely because of the rules of the bloc’s new Digital Services Act. [CNBC]
The problem with Elon Musk’s plan to open-source the Twitter algorithm is that it could introduce new security risks while doing little to boost transparency. [MIT Tech Review]
Jeff Bezos thinks Musk’s ties to China are “interesting” and is publicly pointing it out. [Bloomberg]
This one’s fun: Musk still can't tweet whatever he wants - after a 2018 settlement with SEC, he needs to have a Twitter-sitter (a lawyer approving his tweets). [Protocol]
Musk reading your DMs on Twitter is a possibility even though unlikely. [Bloomberg]
Elon Musk attacked Twitter’s top lawyer His tweets criticizing her triggered a wave of racist abuse. [Washington Post]
Mastodon, the open-source, decentralized alternative to Twitter is exploding, tens of thousands of users seem not to trust Musk. [Engadget]
Twitter reassures advertisers that Musk won’t make the platform more of a toxic hell-hole than it already is. [The Verge]
Musk doesn’t seem to have a vision for Twitter and according to his recent behaviour he wants to settle old scores, and he plans to do it in the most personal way possible. [Platformer]
🇪🇺➡️🇺🇸 The European Union is planning to open a San Francisco office. Why, you ask? Well, of course, to engage with Silicon Valley tech giants under close scrutiny from the new digital rule. [Politico]
👓 A Chinese start-up Nreal is launching its augmented reality glasses in the UK this spring. Nreal’s glasses allow users to watch movies or play games on large virtual displays. Users can do so by connecting the glasses to their smartphones through a cable. They’re designed to look like sunglasses, similar to Snap’s Spectacles line of smart glasses. [CNBC]
🔊 MIT engineers have developed a paper-thin loudspeaker that can turn any surface into an active audio source. This thin-film loudspeaker produces sound with minimal distortion while using a fraction of the energy required by a traditional loudspeaker. It could provide active noise cancellation in clamorous environments, such as an aeroplane cockpit, by generating the sound of the same amplitude but opposite phase - the two sounds cancel each other out. The flexible device could also be used for immersive entertainment. The energy-efficient device is 10 times more efficient than an average home speaker. [MIT]
🛸 Snap introduced an autonomous mini drone called Pixy. It’s shaped like a yellow puck, big as an average hand and even takes off from your palm. It is able to follow you around and captures videos that can be sent back to Snapchat. Pixy is available online for $229 in the US and France (Snapchat is quite popular there). I know what I want for Christmas. [The Verge]
MEDIA
🤦♂️ False TikTok videos draw millions of views. Unlike some of its rivals, TikTok does not provide transparency or analytics tools to academics, researchers and journalists. Fake live streams have drawn some of the highest numbers of views on TikTok. [BBC]
🗣 WTF is SEO chats with Claudio Cabrera of The Athletic. He talks about thinking about news coverage like a tree, predicting reader interest and how to pitch effectively to the newsroom. [WTF is SEO]
🤷♂️ Why does Gen Z pay for news? To receive unrivalled expertise and information. For a Gen Z consumer, the authenticity of journalists remains a priority. [Twipe]
💁♂️ YouTube’s tipping feature - Super Thanks - is now available to more creators. It is available to all eligible creators across 68 locations in the YouTube Partner Program, tips can range from $2 to $50. [The Verge, YouTube blog]
🔎 Dean Baquet will lead a new local investigative journalism fellowship at The New York Times. The year-long fellowship will produce investigative projects focused on the state and local levels, where deeply reported accountability journalism is most needed. [NYT Co]
🧐 YouTube is testing ads on Shorts, its short-form video feature that competes with TikTok and Instagram. [Bloomberg]
👀 G/O Media, owner of Gizmodo and Deadspin, acquired Quartz, the business site. Quartz recently dropped its paywall. Zach Seward, a co-founder and the chief executive of Quartz, will stay on at the company as Quartz’s editor-in-chief and general manager. [NY Times]
FROM THE FIX
2️⃣ How Ukraine’s Toronto TV produces “news with comedy approach” during the war
3️⃣ How much fuel is left in the tank?
4️⃣ No, subscriptions aren’t doomed. Despite what Netflix and CNN+ signal to the industry
5️⃣ “A new dimension to our brand”: How BBC Gardeners’ World Magazine achieved 1M podcast downloads
[ 📬 Get The Fix newsletter delivered to your inbox every week with the latest insights, news, and analysis about the European media market. Sign up here > ]
AUDIO
🤓 Creators enrolled in the Apple Podcasters Program can now apply to receive personalized subscription reports. [Apple]
😲 For the first time, pre-roll podcast ads outperformed mid-roll ads. That's what a new Podsights Benchmark report has published. Also, there is still a lack of diversification in podcast ads and listeners are repeatedly exposed to the same ones, more than six times on average. Yet, Podsights claims with less frequent exposure they see higher conversions. [Podsights]
❓ Poll: Are you a fan of the TikTok-style videos on FB, Instagram and YouTube?
🙌 Thanks. I used HandyPolls to create this poll (instructions).
Last poll results: Have you started shopping more in shops instead of online shopping? 63% answered no, 20% weren’t sure and 18% said yes.
🙏 And big thanks to Celine Bijleveld who helped me edit this newsletter. You can follow her on Substack here.