Jumia has been dubbed the "Amazon of Africa" as Africa's largest e-commerce operator, surpassing Amazon and China's Alibaba, and it's the first African tech start-up to go public on the New York Stock Exchange. Investors had high hopes for Jumia when it went public on April 12. Now, Jumia is adjusting to its new international status, and figuring out what that status means for the African continent.
Sacha Poignonnec and Jeremy Hodara, former McKinsey & Company employees, founded the company in 2012. Like Amazon and Alibaba, Jumia allows customers to buy products like cell phones, shoes, and groceries online. Jumia also offers bill paying, food delivery, and cellular data plans.
China Daily, a Chinese state-run news organization, says that Alibaba serviced 4.2 million African customers through its AliExpress services since it entered the continent.
Jumia serviced 4.3 million users and 81,000 active sellers in 14 countries. Amazon is available in 11 countries on the African continent, but neither Amazon nor Alibaba have had the benefit of getting their start in African countries. Jumia, for example, offers unique features like allowing customers to pay for items upon delivery. CNBC video above published Jun 25, 2019.
Jumia is an e-commerce platform for electronics, fashion, and more. It has partnered with more than 81,000 local African companies and individuals and is a direct competitor to Kilimall in Kenya and Konga in Nigeria. Started in 2012 in Lagos, the company currently has a presence across 12 African countries.
How did direct to consumer startup MeUndies (domain: meundies.com) sell over 10 million pairs of underwear? Founder Jonathan Shokrian talks to CNBC about shock advertising, social media and MeUndies' road to success.
Jonathan Shokrian started MeUndies after a negative experience buying underwear at a department store. He raised $400,000, mostly from friends and family, and launched the millennial-friendlydirect to consumer underwear start-up in 2011.
"Ecommerce is not just Amazon. It’s every online retailer out there, including the tiniest mom-and-pop operations. It’s manufacturers selling directly to consumers. In fact, it’s manufacturers in India or China selling directly to US consumers as third party-vendors on platforms such as Amazon, Alibaba, eBay, and others. The entire world is trying to sell directly to US consumers, bypassing classic middlemen, wholesalers, distribution channels, importers, and of course, brick-and-mortar retailers."--Wolfstreet.com
According to Shokrian, MeUndies has sold over 10 million pairs of underwear and has been profitable in each of the past three years. The company will end 2019 with at least $75 million in annual revenue. How did MeUndies start a successful direct to consumer brand? MeUndies was off to a slow start until it turned to social media and harnessed the power of provocation. CNBC video above published June 7, 2019. Tweets by MeUndies
Global Internet Users 3.8B (51% of world population), Growth Slowing: +6% vs. +7% Y/Y
Top 30 Global Internet Market Capitalization Leaders: USA 18 of 30, China 7 of 30
Top 30 Global Market Capitalization Leaders: USA 23 of 30, technology 9 of 30
USA E-Commerce Growth +12.4% vs. +12.1% (Y/Y – Q1 vs. Q4) USA E-Commerce as % of All Retail Sales: 15% vs. 14% Y/Y
Media Time vs. Advertising Spending: Mobile @ Equilibrium (2018), Desktop (2015)
Internet Ad Revenue Growth Decelerating: +20% vs. +29% at Leading USA Platforms (Y/Y Q1 vs. Q4). Internet Ad Buying: Programmatic Gains vs. Direct, Negatively Impacting Pricing.
USA Digital Media Usage Growth Accelerating: +7% vs. +5% Y/Y; More time spent on Mobile devices than TV.
Usage: Images Increasingly Relevant Way to Communicate, e.g., Twitter: >50% of Tweet Impressions include Images / Video / Other Media.
Interactive Gaming Players Accelerating: 2.4B +6% vs. +5% Y/Y. Interactive Gaming =
Real-Time Play + Talk / Text + Watch… Social in Nearly All Ways.
Freemium Business Evolution Started in Gaming, Evolving / Emerging in Enterprise + Consumer…All In… Just Getting Started.
Cloud Deployment Revenue +58% Y/Y
Digital Payments >50% of Day-to-Day Transactions
Data Collection + Analysis + Utilization Evolving From Humans to Humans / Computers: Data is now fundamental to how people work & the most successful companies have intelligently integrated it into everyone's daily workflow… Data is the new application--Frank Bien, CEO & President, Looker, June, 2019. Consumers + Businesses + Regulators Increasingly Drinking from Data Firehose.
"Problematic" Internet Content: Media Maxim "People Prefer Negative News." World Wide Web v. Webs of Worlds Driven by Local Regulation. Cyber Attacks Sophistication + Scope Continue to Rise, Particularly State Sponsored Global Relative GDP (Current $): China + USA + India Rising, ... Europe Falling
Cross-Border Trade is 29% of Global GDP. USA Consumer Confidence Index High & Rising @ 97 vs. 88 Sixty-Five Year Average
Economy / Employment (USA): Unemployment @ 19 Year Low… Job Openings @ All-Time High and Wages Rising.
ONLINE EDUCATION = BIG NUMBERS + BIG GROWTH Areas prime for innovation in USA: 1. Healthcare; 2. Government.
See also tweets at @bondcap.
Tech Review (TR 2019-05-25)--Domain Mondo's weekly review of tech investing news: Features • 1)The Future of Facial Recognition AI Software, 2) How Amazon Is Fighting Rakuten For E-Commerce In Japan,3)Investing: The Week & Investor Notes: Chinarunning out of runway,4)ICYMI Tech News: Twitter, Amazon, Google, IBM, Red Hat, Huawei, Facebook, T-Mobile, Spacelink, and more.
1)The Future of Facial Recognition AI Software
San Francisco is the first American city to ban facial recognition software used by police and other agencies. Bloomberg QuickTake explains why the technology's advance is so alarming to regulators, the public, and even the people developing it. Bloomberg.com video above published May 16, 2019.
2) How Amazon Is Fighting Rakuten For E-Commerce In Japan
Amazon is involved in around half of all e-commerce transactions in the United States, but in Japan it faces competition from Rakuten(rakuten.com). The Japanese e-commerce giant has a loyalty program and a suite of products including its own credit card, online bank and streaming services. In recent years, Amazon’s superior logistics capabilities and focus on price have allowed the company to capture greater market share. This video shows how the two e-commerce giants are borrowing the most successful parts of each other’s models as they look to the future. CNBC.com video above published Apr 30, 2019.
Investor Notes: China running out of runway in U.S. Trade War. China is running out of options to hit back at the United States without hurting its own interests, as Washington intensifies pressure on Beijing to correct trade imbalances in a challenge to China’s state-led economic model. Even Lloyd Blankfein is now a Trade Warrior.
Trade war can seriously derail China economic development, according to Mohamed El-Erian--China could slip into a middle income trap if trade war persists, but by ending the trade war, El-Erian believes China could regain its economic momentum--scmp.com. Why an economic war with the US blows China up--zerohedge.com.
"The US is willing to take a short-term hit in the form of higher consumer prices, and welcome inflation, from Chinese imports until global supply chains re-adjust and new domestic and international lines open, knowing the long-term damage is limited. Meanwhile, the hit to China is long-term and directly on production, thus right across the economy right at the most difficult phase of economic transition. Chinese economists are talking about a 1-2% hit to GDP. I suspect much more plus increased domestic social and political tension. Xi is in more trouble than we think."--Bill Blain
Eurozone banking at risk of dangerous fragmentation, ECB warns. Euro hits 20, but will it make 30?--dw.com. French Incomes Are Below America's Poorest States... And The Protesters in France Know It.
Brexit: Watch the European election results, particularly from the UK, to be released late Sunday May 26. See also: Why Freedom From Brussels' Tyranny Is Worth A Small Loss Of British GDP, and UK Prime Minister Theresa May resigns after having failed to deliver Brexit. Conservative Party successor in place by late July, without need for a general election, is likely to be Boris Johnson who has indicated that leaving the EU without a deal ("no deal Brexit") is a possibility.
Beware M&A:
Occidental's Big Mistake: Overpaying For Resources In An Age Of Energy Abundance--seekingalpha.com.
Bayer's Acquisition Of Monsanto May Have Sown The Seeds Of Bayer's Own Destruction--seekingalpha.com.
4)ICYMI Tech News:
How Twitter Became Ubiquitous in Japan--a look at Twitter in Japan, its second-largest market, raking in $136M in Q1 revenue, where the service has mass appeal and many users have multiple accounts--bloomberg.com.
E-commerce sales in the U.S., over the past five years have doubled. On a seasonally adjusted basis, e-commerce sales in Q1 2019 hit an all-time high of $137.7 billion. "E-commerce sales" include sales by the online operations of brick-and-mortar retailers Walmart, Home Depot, BestBuy, and Macy’s, which operate the fourth through seventh largest e-commerce websites in the U.S., behind Amazon, eBay, and Apple.--wolfstreet.com.
Out of 50 of the largest companies in the U.S., the highest median employee pay in 2018 was at Texas-based oil giants not Silicon Valley tech giants.--bizjournals.com.
Google has had a huge run, and with financial and potential political challenges looming, now looks like a good time to sell $GOOG, $GOOGL--SeekingAlpha.com.
IBM and Red Hat after IBM's acquisition of Red Hat is complete later this year--zdnet.com.
By 2023, Uber Eats may own 25% of the global food delivery industry worth $191B, but both DoorDash and GrubHub make more sales, and DoorDash is growing fastest--fortune.com.
Huawei: Wi-Fi Alliance, semiconductor standards body JEDEC, and SD Association suspend Huawei's membership, which will limit Huawei's future ability to shape these standards. U.S. Tech Companies Begin to Cut Off Huawei. Experts are skeptical of Huawei's claims that it can ensure a steady components supply without U.S. tech, saying Huawei will struggle to replace chips, lasers, other parts. For example, Huawei relies on chip design software from the American global "gold standard" market leaders Cadence Design Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: CDNS), and Synopsys Inc. (NASDAQ: SNPS), used by manufacturers worldwide. Note also: Google reportedly suspended business with Huawei that requires the transfer of hardware and software products except those covered by open source licenses.
China's tech transfer problem is growing, says EU business group. European firms are reportedly increasingly required to transfer technology in China in order to gain access to the Chinese market.
Facebook has apparently formed a new financial tech firm, Libra Networks LLC, according to a filing on the Geneva Commercial Register.
Google Chrome browser pushes "SameSite" cookie security overhaul--an IETF standard called SameSite (RFC6265bis)--which Google and Mozilla have promoted since 2016 and Google has announced it will start pushing more aggressively in Chrome from version 76 this July--nakedsecurity.sophos.com.
SpaceX launches first satellites for Musk's Starlink internet service (domain: starlink.com). Competitors include Airbus SE-backed OneWeb which launched satellites in February, LeoSat Enterprises (domain: leosat.com), and Canada’s Telesat (domain: telesat.com).
"... we will have eliminated about 7,000 salaried positions or about 10% of our global salaried
workforce. This includes both voluntary and involuntary separations over the past year. Within that
total, and consistent with our goal to reduce bureaucracy, we will have reduced management structure
by close to 20%. This will result in annual savings of about $600 million ..."
Personal tech:
10 best cheap phones: for summer travel, leave your $1,000 iPhone or Galaxy at home. Editor's note: my 'short list'--LG K30 – 16 GB – Unlocked (AT&T/T-Mobile/Verizon) ($139.99) orUnihertz Jelly Pro The Smallest 4G Smartphone in The World, Android 7.0 Nougat Unlocked Smart Phone with 2GB RAM and 16GB ROM ($124.99). Almost everyone could use a second "backup phone" / "emergency phone" / "vacation phone" anyway.
Personal security: hacker steals $1 million using just a phone number--bitcoinist.com.
Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) conference call and LIVE webcastto discuss Amazon's first quarter (Q1) 2019 financial results on April 25, 2019 at 5:30 p.m. EDT. The audio and associated slides will be available for at least three months thereafter at www.amazon.com/ir.
Q1 2019 Earnings Release (pdf)
Amazon reports Q1 2019 revenue of $59.7B, up 17% YoY, operating income of $4.4B, up from $1.9B in Q1 2018, and net income of $3.6B, up from $1.6B in Q1 2018. Amazon's AWS reported Q1 revenue of $7.7B, up 41% YoY and representing 13% of total sales at Amazon, up from 10% in Q4. Editor's note: shares are up in afterhours trading 25 Apr 2019.
Amazon reported a record net income of $10.1 billion in 2018, which was a considerable jump from $3 billion in 2017. CNBC breaks down where exactly the money came from and how Amazon Web Services, advertising and the third-party marketplace are driving Amazon's increased profitability. CNBC.com video above published Feb 18, 2019. Tweets by amazon
Tech Review (TR 2019-01-19)--Domain Mondo's weekly review of tech investing news: Features •1)Why Communist China Has So Many Tech Billionaires,2)Ecommerce: Online Spending Putting Traditional Retailers Under Pressure,3)Investing: The Week; Notes: Why You Can't Trust Most "Financial News" and more,4)ICYMI Tech News: Amazon AWS, Facebook, Tencent, Robotics, 5G, Apple, IBM, Vodafone, and more.
1) Why Communist China Has So Many Tech Billionaires
By one estimate, China mints a new billionaire every two days, far exceeding the rate of countries like the United States. But how did China remain a nominally Communist state while becoming a hotbed for billionaires-in-the-making? Bloomberg QuickTake explains how capitalist compromises and moves begun decades ago have made China the not-quite-Communist country it is today. Featured: Jack Ma, co-founder of Alibaba Group (alibabagroup.com) $BABA. Bloomberg (bloomberg.com) video above published Jan 9, 2019.
2) Online Spending Putting Traditional Retailers Under Pressure
Richard Lim, CEO of Retail Economics (retaileconomics.co.uk), discusses the U.K. retail sector after M&S and John Lewis suffered their worst Christmas sales since the financial crisis. CNBC International TV video above published Jan 10, 2019. #retail #ecommerce #bricknmortar
Ecommerce & Truckers:sinceconsumers now buy online appliances, treadmills, outdoor grills, etc., national trucking companies are buying up local delivery operators.--bloomberg.com.
China signals more stimulus as economic slowdown deepens--reuters.com.
Eurozone:risksbesieging European Bonds spill over into 2019--bloomberg.com.
Germany: German GDP grew 1.5% in 2018, compared with 2.2% in 2017, the weakest growth rate in five years--Federal Statistics Office (Destatis) (flash data).
Why digital strategies fail:for most companies, the pace of disruption is uneven, and they can’t just walk away from existing businesses. They need to digitize their current businesses and innovate new models--mckinsey.com.
WeWork a/k/a WeCompany: "You can’t put lipstick on a property gamble and call it a Tech paradigm shift"--morningporridge.com: "Softbank founder Masayoshi Son was the perfect mark"--Editor's note: We Work was expecting a $16 bln capital injection from Softbank’s Visionfund.
Index funds are dominated by only three asset management firms--Vanguard (Jack Bogle RIP), BlackRock, and State Street Global--marketwatch.com.
Brexit: UK Government's next steps will be tabled on Monday 21 January. It will be debated Tuesday 29 January. Most likely now: renegotiate withdrawal agreement or leave with "no deal" March 29, 2019. More on Brexit here.
4) ICYMI Tech News:
Amazon Web Services announced Jan 16, 2019, AWS Backup, its fully-managed, centralized service for customers to back up their data from across AWS services and on-premises--press.aboutamazon.com.
German antitrust order in the works re Facebookanduser data--reuters.com. FTC (US) commissioners met to discuss imposing a record-setting fine against Facebook for failing to safeguard user privacy, violating 2011 consent decree--TheHill.com.
UK engineers have finished building Quantum, the first fully software-defined communications satellite that can be reprogrammed in orbit, launching this year--bbc.com.
Tencent's Xiaowei, AI voice assistant for WeChat, integrates with Tencent's own services and apps by third-parties such as Meituan or Didi.
Amazon.com, Inc., became the most valuable company (valued by market capitalization) on Wall Street during Monday's (Dec 3) intraday trading, only days after Microsoft Corporation had surpassed long-time leader Apple Inc. However, at the close of trading on Monday, Apple had regained the crown. Click on the graphics or links above for the most recent pricing of shares.
Editor's note: as of midday on Tuesday, Dec 4, 2018, all three companies' shares had declined along with the major stock indexes. Increased volatility, due in part to interest rates, as well as other macroeconomic issues, has impacted market conditions.
a16z.com video above published Nov 16, 2018: In his now annual state-of-innovation talk at the a16z Summit in November 2018, Andreessen Horowitz’ Benedict Evans walks through where we are now in software eating the world... and how things may continue to change over the next 10 years.
What's the state of not just "the world of tech", but tech in the world? The access story is now coming to an end, observes Evans, but the use story is just beginning: Most of the people are now online, but most of the money is still not. If we think we're in a period of disruption right now, how will the next big platform shifts -- like machine learning -- impact huge swathes of retail, manufacturing, marketing, fintech, healthcare, entertainment, and more? Especially as technology begins to tackle bigger problems, in harder markets, at deeper (and more structural) levels?
Amazon.com, Inc.Q3 2018 EarningsLIVE WebcastOctober 25, 2018, 5:30 p.m. EDT. The audio and associated slides will be available for at least three months thereafter at ir.aboutamazon.com.
See also "Amazon's Focus On High Standards - Does It Matter For Investors?"--seekingalpha.com:
It's easy to take for granted how unconventional Jeff Bezos is, but his approach to Amazon's business is worth a closer look. We do a close read of the 2017 shareholder letter he published this April to see if we can better understand the company as a business and as an investment. This also is a prequel for our miniseries on Amazon to come this November. As might be expected, there's a lot to discuss.
Topics covered:
3:00 – Setting the scene – Amazon’s 4-part shareholder letter
5:00 – The intro and the key performance indicators – the unique focus of Amazon’s letter
10:00 – The letter as sign of Bezos’s triumph, and as the changing context of the Amazon story
14:00 – Customer divinity and Amazon’s high standards – investment edge?
20:30 – The meta narrative and the six steps ahead thesis
24:00 – Tackling the quality vs. value narrative again and trying to translate this into the investment case
32:15 – The perfect handstand bit and the value of handstand philosophy
40:30 – Picking apart the 6-page memo process
47:30 - Amazon’s recent milestones, and there are many of ‘em – the all-binding importance of revenue
57:45 – Riding the Treasure Truck
1:01:45 – Singing Internationale about Amazon’s human resources policies, and the Bezosian meta-narrative
1:07:45 – What does all this tell us about Amazon as an investment?
1:11:30 – 2017 vs. 1997 letter Tweets by amazon
"Revenue was RMB80,920 million (US$12,229 million), an increase of 61% year-over-year.
"Mobile MAUs on our China retail marketplaces reached 634 million in June 2018, an increase of 17
million over March 2018.
"Income from operations was RMB8,020 million (US$1,212 million), a decrease of 54% year-over-year
due to a one-time increase in share-based compensation expense related to Ant Financial’s
awards to our employees, which was the result of a significant increase in the valuation of Ant
Financial in its most recent round of equity fundraising (see “Costs and Expenses – Shares-based
Compensation Expense” and “Business and Strategic Updates—Updates on Ant Financial” below).
Excluding Ant Financial-related share-based compensation expense, our income from operations
would have increased by 9%. "
Alibaba Group Holding Limited (NYSE: BABA) had previously announced it would report its unaudited financial results for the quarter ended June 30, 2018 before the U.S. market opens on Thursday, August 23, 2018, and would hold a conference call to discuss the financial results at 7:30 a.m. U.S. EDT (7:30 p.m. Hong Kong Time) the same day.
LIVE webcast of the earnings conference call can be accessed athttps://www.alibabagroup.com/en/ir/earnings. An archived webcast will be available through the same link following the call. A replay of the conference call will be available for one week (dial-in number: +61 2 8199 0299; conference ID: 5096826).
Details of the conference call via phone are as follows:
International: +65 6713 5090
U.S.: +1 845 675 0437
U.K.: +44 203 621 4779
Hong Kong: +852 3018 6771
Conference ID: 5096826
Q2 2018 earnings release excerpts: "Second Quarter Sales up 39% to $52.9 Billion--Operating cash flow increased 22% to $21.8 billion for the trailing twelve months, compared with $17.8 billion for the trailing twelve months ended June 30, 2017. Free cash flow increased to $10.4 billion for the trailing twelve months, compared with $9.6 billion for the trailing twelve months ended June 30, 2017. Free cash flow less lease principal repayments decreased to $4.1 billion for the trailing twelve months, compared with $5.4 billion for the trailing twelve months ended June 30, 2017. Free cash flow less finance lease principal repayments and assets acquired under capital leases decreased to $546 million for the trailing twelve months, compared with $1.4 billion for the trailing twelve months ended June 30, 2017. Common shares outstanding plus shares underlying stock-based awards totaled 506 million on June 30, 2018, compared with 502 million one year ago. Net sales increased 39% to $52.9 billion in the second quarter, compared with $38.0 billion in second quarter 2017. Excluding the $760 million favorable impact from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates throughout the quarter, net sales increased 37% compared with second quarter 2017.Operating income increased to $3.0 billion in the second quarter, compared with operating income of $628 million in second quarter 2017. Net income increased to $2.5 billion in the second quarter, or $5.07 per diluted share, compared with net income of $197 million, or $0.40 per diluted share, in second quarter 2017. “We want customers to be able to use Alexa wherever they are,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and CEO. “There are now tens of thousands of developers across more than 150 countries building new devices using the Alexa Voice Service, and the number of Alexa-enabled devices has more than tripled in the past year. Our partners are creating a wide variety of new Alexa-enabled devices and experiences, including soundbars from Polk and Sonos; headphones from Jabra; smart home devices from ecobee and First Alert; Windows 10 PCs from Acer, HP, and Lenovo; and cars from automakers including BMW, Ford, and Toyota.”
See also: Amazon Earnings Just Proved It's the Most Prolific FANG Stock--thestreet.com: "The e-commerce retailer and cloud services provider smashed Wall Street profit forecasts for the second quarter, posting $5.02 a share vs. estimates for $2.49 a share. Amazon hit all the key notes for the bulls who have sent shares up 50% year to date."
