Wednesday 27 January 2016

Digital in 2016


Apple's Q1 2016 profit was the largest of any public company in history

"Apple just reported the largest quarterly profit of any public company in history, again.
With profits of $18.4 billion for its first fiscal quarter of 2016, Apple beat the record it set last year by $400 million.
Apple’s profits largely hinge on iPhone sales. The company sold 74.8 million iPhones during the quarter, fewer than analysts expected — predictions had ranged between 75.4 million and 77 million iPhones, depending on who you asked.
Apple missed analysts’ estimates on revenue this quarter, but exceeded expectations on earnings. The company reported $75.9 billion in revenue, on the lower end of its own estimated range of between $75.5 billion and $77.5 billion. On average, Analysts thought Apple would report $76.59 billion in revenue. Analysts also said Apple would report $3.23 in earnings per share for the quarter; it reported earnings of $3.28 per share."

Wednesday 20 January 2016

Netflix accounts for 37% of US peak download internet traffic



Source:  Netflix Q4 2015 resutls, 19th January 2016

Netflix has 75m subscribers, is available to 550m broadband homes

"In the fourth quarter, we added a record 5.59 million members as our big shows such as Narcos and Marvel’s Jessica Jones helped us grow membership to 74.76 million. This 5.59 million compares to a
forecast of 5.15 million and to prior year net additions of 4.33 million. For Q1, we are forecasting 6.10 million net additions vs. prior year of 4.88 million. On earnings, we stayed profitable in Q4 despite foreign exchange headwinds, and delivered operating income of $60m and net income of $43m. We expect similar modest operating income results for Q1, assuming current foreign exchange, as we invest in our international expansion. As a reminder, the guidance we provide is our actual internal forecast at the time we report, and we strive for accuracy in our guidance.
In September, we launched in Japan, followed by Spain, Portugal and Italy in October. We are very
pleased with the first few months of membership growth in these markets. Our international
contribution loss of $109 million in Q4 increased sequentially due to these launches. We anticipate Q1 international losses of about $114 million.
In early January at CES, we announced the availability of Netflix everywhere in the world except China.  Pricing is comparable to our existing plans and we have added support for Korean, Arabic, and Simplified & Traditional Chinese languages. Our move into 130 additional countries broadens our addressable market by 190 million broadband homes, on top of the 360 million we counted at the end of 2015 .
While the opportunity is large, our growth in these new markets will unfold over many years as we
improve our service. We are starting by primarily targeting outward‐looking, affluent consumers with
international credit cards and smartphones. As with every market we’ve launched, our approach is to
listen, learn and improve rapidly, adding more content, additional languages and a better Netflix
experience over time. Our global availability sets us up for continued growth for many years and we
continue to expect material global profits beginning in 2017.
[...]
In the US, we ended 2015 with nearly 45 million members, although our Q4 US net adds were down year over year, as expected (1.56m actual versus 1.90m prior year). Our high penetration in the US seems to be making net additions harder than in the past. Our forecast for Q1 US net additions is 1.75m, against a prior year actual of 2.28m. New credit/debit card rollover continues to be a background issue. In Q2 and Q3, we’ll be releasing a substantial number of our US members from price grandfathering on the HD plan and they will have the option of continuing at $7.99 but now on the SD plan, or continuing on HD at $9.99 a month. Given these members have been with us at least 2 years, we expect only slightly elevated churn. Our 2020 US contribution target remains at 40% and we are already at 34%."
Source:  Netflix Q4 2015 earnings letter, 19th January 2016

Tuesday 19 January 2016

35% of US smartphone owners spend at least an hour a day with social networking apps

"Parks Associates today announced research showing that more than 70% of U.S. smartphone users watch at least one short streaming video clip every day. Parks Associates’ survey 360 View: Mobility & the App Economy shows consumers are embracing many new use cases as their smartphones become more intelligent and multifunctional. Voice calls and texting are still the dominant activities, but 80% of smartphone owners use social networking apps at least once a day and 35% spend an hour or more on this activity."

Monday 18 January 2016

More photos were shared on social media in 2015 than all the pictures ever taken on film

Friday 15 January 2016

The most edited articles on Wikipedia


Data is total number of edits since the page was created
Source:  Wikimedia blog, 14th January 2016

Wednesday 13 January 2016

Music streams - audio & video - doubled Y-o-Y in the US in 2015

"Overall, Americans streamed 317.2 billion tracks last year, up from 164.5 billion songs streamed in 2014.   Leading the pack were the typical suspects: YouTube, Spotify, Tidal, Apple Music, and Google Play Music, but doesn’t include ‘non-interactive’ radio streams like Pandora.  Most of that streaming was free, with YouTube and Spotify still avalanching the space with ad-supported music."

Tesla sold 51,000 cars in 2015

"Tesla announced on Sunday morning that the company shipped 50,580 cars in 2015, hitting the low- to mid-range of its target for the year. The electric car company was hoping to ship between 50,000 and 52,000 cars this year.
Tesla says it shipped 17,192 Model S cars in the fourth quarter of the year, which was 75% more than the company shipped in the same period in 2014, and 48% more than the company shipped in the third quarter of 2015.
Tesla says it made 507 Model X cars in the fourth quarter, and shipped 208. The company says it now expects to be able to produce 238 Model X cars per week."
Source:  Fortune, 3rd January 2016

Huawei sold 108m smartphones in 2015

"Chinese mobile phone giant Huawei disclosed on Wednesday that it shipped 108 million smartphones in 2015. That number is up 44 percent year-on-year, the company said, primarily due to strong sales in China and Europe.
Huawei has had a banner 2015 despite broader trends that saw global smartphone growth slowing over the course of the year. It still has a ways to go before catching Apple, which sold well over 200 million iPhones this year. But it has overtaken domestic competitor Xiaomi, which won the Chinese market in 2014 but apparently had such a disappointing 2015 that the company stopped sharing its sales numbers."

Tuesday 12 January 2016

Home broadband use in the US has plateaued


Source:  Pew Research Center, 21st December 2015

Snapchat users watch 7bn videos a day

"Snapchat users now watch 7 billion video clips every day, a source familiar with the matter told Business Insider, marking a big increase from just two months ago and raising the heat on the competition with Facebook.
The five-year-old mobile messaging service service, which has been valued at $16 billion in the private markets,  has seen a dramatic spike in its video views, thanks in part to the introduction of Snapchat Stories — short video clips shared by users that are viewable for a period of 24 hours.
Snapchat's video views are up sharply from May 2015, when the company was reportedly generating 2 billion daily video views. In November 2015, The Financial Times reported that Snapchat's video views had climbed to 6 billion per day."

Monday 11 January 2016

Didi Kuaidi completed 1.43bn rides in 2015

"Chinese ridesharing and taxi app Didi Kuaidi announced a pretty startling statistic today: the company completed 1.43 billion rides in 2015. That includes 200 million rides completed in December alone. Didi says that its user base now exceeds 250 million, making it “the world’s largest mobile-based transportation platform.”
What about Uber, you might say? Well, Uber just completed its one billionth ride ever. So Uber did a billion trips between 2010 and now. Didi Kuaidi did nearly 1.5 billion in a single year.
Granted, it’s not an entirely fair comparison, as Didi’s 2015 number includes taxi rides booked through the app and bookings of all of its other services, some of which Uber doesn’t offer. But even in private-car ridesharing, data suggests Didi has 83 percent of the Chinese market, giving it a crushing lead over Uber. And since China is now the world’s biggest ridesharing market, maybe it’s no surprise that Didi is posting domestic stats that seem to outstrip Uber’s global stats."

Apple Music has over 10m paying subscribers

"According to the Financial Times, Apple Music has surpassed 10 million paying subscribers.  The milestone comes just 6 months after launch, making Apple Music the world’s second-largest streaming music service behind Spotify.
This is a massive achievement for Apple, and even more impressive when you compare it to Spotify, which took roughly 4 years to reach 10 million.  Spotify is currently miles ahead with over 20 million paying subscribers, but Apple is gaining at a much faster rate.
It’s game on in 2016.  Industry analyst Mark Mulligan has now predicted that Apple Music will pass 20 million paid user by the end of this year.  If Apple Music continues to grow at this pace, it could potentially top Spotify as the largest streaming music service by number of subscribers in 2017, assuming that Spotify maintains its current rate of growth."

Combined music, films and gaming revenues hit a record £6.1bn in the UK in 2015

"Surging digital revenues pushed the UK’s combined games, video and music markets to an all-time high of £6.1 billion (€8.3m) in 2015, shrugging off a decade of decline, according to figures from the Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA) based on data from the Official Charts Company (music, video) and GfK Chart-track (video games).
Entertainment sales reached £6.04 billion in 2004, but that peak was then followed by years of decline, hitting a low point of £5.2 billion in 2012 in the face of the impact of the internet and the closure of High Street names like Woolworths, Our Price and Virgin.
Figures, however, suggest that substantial investment by new digital retailers and services is finally helping the industry turn the corner.
All three entertainment sectors registered growth last year with video up 1.5 per cent, music up 3.5 per cent and games up a striking 10 per cent.
In each sector, it was digital services driving the growth:
– In music, streaming services such as Spotify, Google Play Music, Apple Music, Deezer and Amazon Prime Music increased sales by nearly 50 per cent to £251m over the year;
– In video, digital revenues from services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime and Sky Store exceeded £1 billion for the first time, making it almost certain that video will become a majority-digital business in 2016;
– And in games digital revenues from online and mobile services – which are more than those of music and video put together -grew 17 per cent to £1.9 billion."

Demand for technology to be built into next vehicle in the US



Source:  Parks Associates, 29th December 2015

Alibaba set 9 Guinness world Records on Singles Day 2015

"How big can Alibaba’s annual Single’s Day shopping fest get? Guinness World Records big. This year the Chinese e-commerce giant set nine new records, to be exact, for facilitating the online sale of everything from mobile handsets and TVs to nuts, milk and honey."
Inc most handsets sold, most nuts, sold, most cars sold...

Harrison Ford is the world's highest grossing actor

"Harrison Ford has become the highest-grossing actor in the US after record numbers for his latest film, Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
According to Box Office Mojo, the 73-year-old actor has reclaimed the spot from Samuel L Jackson, with his films now boasting a total US box office of $4.7bn. His career highs have included both Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises, as well as roles in The Fugitive and Air Force One.
Jackson had stolen the title after becoming part of the Marvel cinematic universe, with turns in the Captain America and Iron Man films, on top of a roster of hit films including Jurassic Park and the Star Wars prequels. His total box office is $4.63bn.
Tom Hanks ($4.33bn), Morgan Freeman ($4.32bn) and Eddie Murphy ($3.81bn) round out the top five highest-grossing stars
1. Harrison Ford – $4,699.5
2. Samuel L. Jackson – $4,626.4
3. Tom Hanks – $4,334.8
4. Morgan Freeman – $4,316.2
5. Eddie Murphy – $3,810.4
6. Tom Cruise – $3,587.2
7. Robert Downey, Jr – $3,539.3
8. Johnny Depp – $3,291.6
9. Michael Caine – $3,291.1
10. Gary Oldman – $3,279.3
11. Robin Williams – $3,279.3
12. Bruce Willis – $3,189.4
13. Stellan Skarsg̴rd Р$3,171.9
14. Ian McKellen – $3,150.4
15. Cameron Diaz – $3,031.7
16. Robert DeNiro – $3,026.5
17. Matt Damon – $2,948.8
18. Liam Neeson – $2,941.4
19. Will Smith – $2,841.7
20. Stanley Tucci – $2,824.6"
Source:  The Guardian, 8th January 2016

Friday 8 January 2016

Nearly 550,000 people watched #DrummondPuddleWatch live on Periscope



Note - I'm assuming that this is aggregated over the entire afternoon, not at any one point.

Kim Kardashian's Kimoji app had over 9,000 downloads per second on Apple's app store

"Kim Kardashian’s ‘Kimoji’ Temporarily Crashes Apple’s App Store; 9000 Downloads/Sec
Once her back broke the internet and now reality TV star who recently launched her own range of emojis broke the Apple’s app store as its server could not control the heavy traffic generated out of it"
Source:  Next Big What, 22nd December 2015

Facebook's Messenger has over 800m monthly active users

"The first week of the New Year is always a good moment to look back at the year behind and think about the one ahead. The Messenger team’s mission is to make Messenger the best place to communicate with all the people and businesses in the world. I’m happy to report that we’ve made a good step in that direction, and toward the end of 2015, we crossed the milestone of 800 million people using Messenger each month. It’s a good number, but we believe we have so much more opportunity ahead of us, and these are still the early days of Messenger."
Source:  Facebook Newsroom, 7th January 2016
MAUs

Thursday 7 January 2016

Apple's app store generated revenues of $1.1bn over Christmas 2015

"Apple today announced that customers around the world made this holiday season the biggest ever for the App Store, setting new records during the weeks of Christmas and New Year’s.
In the two weeks ending January 3, customers spent over $1.1 billion on apps and in-app purchases, setting back-to-back weekly records for traffic and purchases. January 1, 2016 marked the biggest day in App Store history with customers spending over $144 million. It broke the previous single-day record set just a week earlier on Christmas Day.
“The App Store had a holiday season for the record books. We are excited that our customers downloaded and enjoyed so many incredible apps for iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and Apple TV, spending over $20 billion on the App Store last year alone,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “We're grateful to all the developers who have created the most innovative and exciting apps in the world for our customers. We can't wait for what's to come in 2016.”
Worldwide, the App Store has brought in nearly $40 billion for developers since 2008, with over one-third generated in the last year alone.
Largely as a result of the App Store’s success, Apple is now responsible for creating and supporting 1.9 million jobs in the U.S. alone. Nearly three-quarters of those jobs — over 1.4 million — are attributable to the community of app creators, software engineers and entrepreneurs building apps for iOS, as well as non-IT jobs supported directly and indirectly through the app economy.*
Apple has previously reported that the iOS app economy has created 1.2 million jobs in Europe and 1.4 million jobs in China."