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Amazon says Cyber Monday was its biggest shopping day ever
Amazon claims Cyber Monday was its biggest shopping day ever -- it previously said Prime Day in July this year was its largest shopping event. Over the five days from Thanksgiving to Monday, Amazon customers bought more than 180 million items from its online store as they took advantage of cut-price deals.
Global smartphone sales fell by 6 percent last quarter
It's not a secret that smartphone sales have been dropping around the world, but a new report gives us an idea of just how bad it's getting. Manufacturers shipped just 355.2 million units last quarter, a decline of 6.0 percent over last year, according to data firm IDC. Samsung caused much of that pain because it shipped 13.4 percent fewer smartphones last quarter and it accounts for 20.3 percent of the global smartphone market.
Amazon is the latest $1 trillion tech company
Apple's status as the only public trillion-dollar company didn't last long. Amazon has been flirting with a $1 trillion market cap throughout trading on September 4th, passing the symbolic milestone in the morning. It reached the figure through a relatively recent surge, CNBC pointed out. While Apple reached $900 billion eight months earlier, Amazon's stock price has been climbing steadily throughout most of 2018 and has thrived since a record-setting Prime Day in July.
Sony's PSVR still going strong as sales hit 3 million
Sony announced that it has sold 3 million PlayStation VR (PSVR) headsets as of the end of July, showing that its popularity has declined little since the fall 2016 launch. At the end of 2017, Sony had sold 2 million units, meaning it has sold another million in just the last eight months. On top of that, it has shipped 21.9 million PSVR games and experiences, an impressive figure considering some negative press around virtual reality of late.
Limited edition PS4 celebrates 500 million PlayStation consoles sold
Sony revealed that it has sold over 525 million PlayStation systems worldwide since the console first launched 24 years ago, and that it's doing something special to commemorate it. It unveiled the "500 Million Limited Edition PS4 Pro" with a dark blue translucent shell, complete with a matching DualShock 4 controller, PlayStation Camera, vertical stand and mono headset.
Apple is now a $1 trillion company
Apple's success hit a new milestone today: It's the first publicly traded trillion-dollar American company. Yesterday the firm announced an adjusted (higher) share count, and by this morning the stock price was rising with news that the company had almost hit the trillion-dollar mark. As spotted by 9to5Mac, the iOS Stocks app (pulling from Yahoo Finance) declared it had crossed the threshold this morning, but Google Finance didn't agree. The stock price was hovering around $205 per share earlier today and has steadily rose as the trading hours pass, with CNBC reporting that stock price temporarily hit the $207.05 per-share needed to hit the record-setting market cap before falling back.
Huawei supplants Apple as the second largest smartphone seller
While Huawei was already a smartphone giant, analyst numbers released today show that in the last quarter it pumped out more smartphones than any company in the world other than Samsung. IDC and Strategy Analytics found that smartphone sales slowed overall, a trend that hit Samsung the hardest of the big companies with its numbers dropping off by more than 10 percent from last year. In its earnings report yesterday, Samsung said it's moved the Galaxy Note 9 launch up as a result of lackluster Galaxy S9 sales, and it's planning new devices based on foldable OLED technology. Meanwhile, for Huawei a healthy reception for the P20 Series (we called the Pro version "the best smartphone you'll never buy") and the popularity of its midrange Nova devices delivered shipments of 54.2 million units. That beat their projections for Apple by more than 10 million and snagged 15 percent of the worldwide market. Both analysts found that while Apple's smartphone shipments grew, they aren't growing as fast as Huawei and its fellow Chinese company Xiaomi. It could look to pick up the pace with the new iPhones it launches this fall, particularly if they have features coveted in international markets like support for dual SIM cards.
Business and gaming boost PC shipments for the first time since 2012
Supposing you've followed the PC's steady downward spiral over the last few years, the following news might surprise you: Between April and June worldwide PC shipments marked a 1.4 percent increase compared to the same timeframe last year. Market analysis firms Gartner and IDC agree that it's largely due to business customers upgrading to Windows 10 laptops, desktops and workstations. But the latter asserts that shipments totaled 62.3 million units (representing a 2.7 increase) while the former reports shipments jumped by 62.1 million units (a 1.4 percent increase). The biggest areas of growth? Premium models and entry-level machines.
HTC's June sales highlight the need for its recent layoffs
HTC can't catch a break. The company has announced that in June its sales fell "nearly 68 percent," according to Reuters. Earlier this week, the company revealed it would cull some 1,500 employees from its Taiwan manufacturing division in its chase for profitability. The last several years haven't been kind to the company, rife with reorganizations (including one earlier this year), key staff members resigning and desperate efforts to put money in the bank by seemingly any means possible -- including selling its Pixel team to Google for $1.1 billion. Recently, the company combined its virtual reality and mobile divisions in an effort to refocus. Given this week's news, and the Pixel sale as evidence, it wouldn't be surprising if, in a last-ditch effort to return to profitability, HTC sold its Vive team to Valve. The two worked closely on the device, and it's not like Valve's coffers will run dry anytime soon. Where would that leave HTC though, like BlackBerry? Vive is the company's last stand, from the looks of it, and selling it off sounds like a Hail Mary. More than that, pulling a BlackBerry only works if the handsets HTC produces capture the market, something that hasn't happened in years. And unlike BlackBerry's keyboards, HTC doesn't have one defining feature, let alone two (a reputation for enterprise-grade security). The new reduction in headcount probably won't have the same financial benefits of the Pixel sale, but we'll have to wait for HTC's next earnings report to know for sure.
BlackBerry calls 2017 a success amid reports of soft sales
TCL unveiled the Blackberry KEYOne at MWC 2017 and now, a year later, we have an idea of how well it sold as well as a glimpse into the company's outlook going forward. IDC's Francisco Jeronimo says that just 850,000 BlackBerry devices shipped last year, a very low number that's well behind those of companies like Apple and Samsung. But according to The Verge, who spoke to two members of the BlackBerry Mobile team, the company considers last year's sales a success.
IDC: Essential shipped less than 90,000 phones in 2017
Andy Rubin's Essential Phone found its way into our best-of lists this holiday season and had a couple of great price drops, including a $399 Cyber Monday deal. Still, the phone doesn't seem to be doing very well. According to a tweet from IDC research director Francisco Jeronimo, the phone sold less than 90,000 units in the first six months after it launched.
GoPro faces uncertain future as holiday sales disappoint
The holidays were not kind to GoPro. The action camera company had already issued an earnings warning in January, dropping its projected Q4 revenues from $470 million to $340 million, that's a 37 percent year-over-year decline. The holidays were so dreadful, in fact, that GoPro has since decided to abandon its drone pursuits and a fifth of its workforce, roughly 300 positions. That said, the company did earn $1.18 billion in 2017, flat year-over-year, and the staff reductions did help drop GoPro's operating expenses by 30 percent, which left the company with $247 million in cash and marketable securities at the end of the year. That's $50 million more than it had on hand at the end of Q3.
Nintendo's Switch is the fastest-selling US console ever
The Switch has broken the US record for the fastest selling console ever, with 4.8 million units sold in just 10 months, Nintendo says. That shatters the previous record of 4 million US sales in the same time, also held by Nintendo with the Wii. Switch sales first opened on March 3rd, 2017, and it looks like strong holiday sales pushed the Switch over the top.
Nintendo has already sold over 10 million Switches
That didn't take long: Nintendo has already sold over 10 million of its hybrid home/portable console, the Switch. If you're keeping track at home, that's roughly one million consoles sold every month since March. By comparison, Sony's PlayStation 4 took around ten months to hit that number back in 2014. "This December in Japan we are planning to ship more units than ever before so that even more consumers can purchase and enjoy Nintendo Switch," Nintendo said in a press release.
Sony sold 2 million PSVR units in just over a year
Sony's PlayStation 4 has continued to sell well, and just broke 70 million consoles sold. That shouldn't be a big surprise given its market trajectory, moving past 60 million systems in June and 50 million a year ago. More importantly, it shows that Microsoft's cheaper Xbox One S and supercharged Xbox One X released last month haven't noticeably diminished Sony's console sales. But more notable is news about the PSVR, which has moved 2 million units since it launched in fall 2016.
LG replaces mobile chief to reverse its smartphone fortunes
LG's mobile sales are a not only a drag on its other businesses, but an embarrassment next to its nemesis, Samsung. To address that, the company has made a "sweeping realignment" of its businesses, naming Hwang Jeong-hwan as president and CEO of LG Mobile in the place of current chief Juno Cho. It also named former Harman CTO and current software head Park Il-pyung as its new chief technology officer (rival Samsung acquired Harman last year for $8 billion). The moves are aimed at "enhancing competitiveness," LG said.
Spotify sells cosmetics now
Spotify is extending its merchandising partnership with Merchbar not just to include t-shirts from your favorite artists, but the makeup that they're using to look on-point this season. The first entry in this new business is a tie-up with beauty brand Pat McGrath Labs, which is selling a collection exclusively through the music service. McGrath is the makeup provider of choice for singer-songwriter Maggie Lindemann, and the pairing will offer lipsticks and lip pencils, as well as eye pallets and pencils. All users need to do is head over to Lindemann's artist page, and scroll down to her Merchbar to find what's on offer.
Nintendo reportedly plans to ramp up Switch production in 2018
The Switch, Nintendo's latest hybrid console is doing pretty well for the company, which expects it to outdo the Wii U's lifetime sales within a year. The company obviously thinks so, too, according to a new report at The Wall Street Journal, which says that Nintendo plans to ramp up production of the hardware itself, beginning in April 2018.
'Super Mario Odyssey' is selling even faster than 'Zelda'
The Nintendo Switch has been a massive hit since its launch in March, selling more than seven million units worldwide so far, putting it on track to beat Wii U lifetime sales in just a year. But these aren't the only numbers Nintendo gets to flaunt. According to its financial briefing released today, the company estimates sales of Super Mario Odyssey have exceeded two million units in just three days. In other words, since it hit the shelves, the game has sold at a rate of 463 copies a minute (or eight per second).
'Destiny 2' is 2017’s best-selling game after just one month
If you have friends who own video game consoles, chances are you heard a lot about Destiny 2 in the last month. But anecdotal evidence that the game was everywhere just got backed up by some astonishing sales figures. Just one month after launching on PS4 and Xbox One, Destiny 2 is already the best-selling game of 2017, according to an NPD Group report -- which was released a day before the game comes out on PC.
