Lot’s of news from last week!
What happens in an internet minute? Excelacom published a great chat here with stats like 2.4M searches, 51,000 app downloads, 20.8M WhatsApp messages and a whole lot more. Charts like this are always useful for client presentations
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The biggest news of the week was Facebook’s quarterly results (Slideshare) announcement. Unlike the rest of the industry that disappointed Wall Street, Facebook posted Q1 revenue of $5.38B which is a 52% increase year on year and 82% of which came from mobile. Total monthly active users now sits at 1.65B. Facebook stock was up 10% in after hours trading.
In the other corner twitter had some upbeat news (PDF), but not enough to satisfy the markets. User growth was up 3%(compared to flat last quarter), revenue was also up 36% to $595M. One of the more interesting stats was that direct (private) messages was up 50% and the algorithmic timeline opt-out was only 2% – meaning the evolution to more of a messaging/Facebook like experience might be working. Unfortunately, the share price dropped 12% in after hours trading.
Have we reached peak iPhone? Apple’s financial results were an impressive $50.6B in revenues, but for the first time in 13 years this was an actual revenue decline. iPhone and iPad sales were down 18% and 19% respectively. Shares fell 7% in after hours trading and the question of “what’s next?” for Apple continues to swirl including everything from a special 10th anniversary iPhone to electric cars..
Not everything last week was about financial results. Spotify made an interesting acquisition of a company called CrowdAlbum which is a platform for sharing concert photos. Periscope added the ability to draw on livestreams. Meanwhile over at Pinterest, they released featured collections, which is a curated environment kind of like trending topics you see on social platforms. Something to keep an eye on as it will create some good advertising opportunities. Finally, YouTube announced mobile-only non-skippable 6 second ads called “bumper ads” which will be available to buy from May. I’ll share more detail on all of these offerings as they come to hand.
Joshua