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Shipments of 'white box' tablets overtake iPads
The hottest-selling tablets aren't likely to be iPads or Galaxy Tabs these days -- if anything, they're the cut-rate slabs you see in the back of the drug store. Strategy Analytics estimates that shipments of generic "white box" tablets (which typically run Android) overtook iPads in the first quarter of this year, claiming 28.4 percent of the market versus Apple's 24.3. The analysts largely chalk this up to consistently tepid iPad sales, but they also suggest that small, budget-minded tablet makers are having a field day. That's not totally surprising. Low-cost Android gear also dominates the smartphone market, and a lot of these tiny outfits operate in China, where price is more of a concern. You don't need a $500 slate just to watch video in bed, after all.
Giant phones are finally a big deal in the US
Extra-large phones have been hot stuff in some countries for a long while, but not so much in the US. The country must have had a change of heart in the past few months, however. Kantar Worldpanel estimates that gigantic devices jumped from 6 percent of American smartphone sales in the first quarter of last year to 21 percent in early 2015. Why? If you ask Kantar, the launch of the iPhone 6 Plus was partly responsible -- it racked up 44 percent of all supersized phone sales despite being just a few months old. The analyst group isn't saying much in public how other brands were doing, although it's safe to say that category pioneer Samsung grabbed a large slice of the pie thanks to high-powered behemoths like the Galaxy Note 4.
Tesla's Powerwall is already sold out through middle of 2016
On Tesla's quarterly earnings call, CEO Elon Musk announced "crazy off the hook" demand for its just-announced Powerwall battery product. He said over 38,000 reservations have been received, which should take up the expected production through mid-2016, and demand is high enough to account for all of the Gigafactory's production if they devoted it just to stationary batteries. That includes some 2,500 companies that are interested in the commercial-ready Powerpack (with orders averaging around 10 units each), and Musk said he estimates that commercial interest in Tesla Energy will account for 5-10 more megawatt hours than residential. To clear up one question about the Powerwall, he mentioned that while it doesn't have a DC-to-AC inverter included, it does have a DC-to-DC unit built in. Update: It wasn't mentioned on the call, but Tesla also confirmed its first acquisition today, snatching up Michigan-based part manufacturer Riviera Tool.
GoPro acquired a virtual reality company
GoPro is expanding its horizons... in a very literal sense. The action camera maker has just acquired Kolor, a French outfit that specializes in videos for virtual reality and 360-degree viewers. It doesn't take much divination to figure out what GoPro wants to do with its new team, as you might imagine. The company hopes to develop new ways for "capturing, creating and sharing" spherical media -- it may not take as much effort to cobble together a 360-degree GoPro clip as it does today. As an example of what's possible, GoPro has posted an interactive video (below) showing how multiple cameras can immerse you in sports footage.
Twitter has over 300 million users, but is still losing money
In the fast-moving world of social media, Twitter can be considered something of an old-timer; after all, it just turned nine years old this past March. Yet, in many ways, it's still struggling to find itself. Twitter has just reported its first quarter earnings report -- which was incidentally published early due to an unintentional leak -- and while it shows respectable user growth numbers, the company is still very much under water. The social media firm now boasts 302 million users, which is up 18 percent from this time last year and is a good 14 million increase from the previous quarter. Revenue for Q1 was $436 million, which is a decent 74 percent increase year-over-year, but is still below the $440 million forecast. And yes, the company is still not profitable, recording a net loss of $162 million for the first three months of 2015.
Apple sold 61 million iPhones last quarter thanks to China
Back in January this year, Apple recorded a blockbuster of a quarter thanks to holiday sales of its new, larger-screened handsets. It sold a whopping 74.5 million iPhones in the last three months of 2014, chalking up $74.6 billion in revenue in the process. While today's second quarter results don't quite match that number, Cook & co. still managed to rake in a respectable amount of cash: According to the report, Apple made around $58 billion and sold close to 61 million iPhones in the first three months of 2015 alone. That makes this the most successful March quarter in the company's history. This is in large part due to Apple's rising popularity in China, having brought in $16.8 billion in revenue from the country in the past three months. Indeed, China is now Apple's second-biggest market (Americas is still the first), with Europe falling to third place.
Amazon Web Services is a $5 billion business
Even though Amazon Web Services has taken off in recent years to become the cloud computing solution of choice for businesses, not much was known about how much money it was bringing in. Now, however, we do. In its first quarterly earnings report today, Amazon has reported the financials for its AWS division for the first time, stating that it is a "$5 billion business and growing fast." In Q1 alone, AWS brought in $1.57 billion in revenue, which is up from $1.1 billion this time last year (in previous Amazon reports, this info was simply filed under a mysterious "Other" column). On the whole, AWS seems to be one of a few operations within Amazon that is profitable, with about $265 million in profits in Q1. Despite that, however, the online retail giant still reported a net loss of $57 million overall for the quarter.
Netflix will roll out a new look for its TV apps later this year
This quarter's Netflix earnings report is especially interesting because it's the first one since HBO's online-only Now service launched, so investors and other looking to see how it responds to direct competition. The streaming company just announced that it not only added nearly five million subscribers in the last three months, but it has a new UI coming for its TV apps in the second half of this year. It's described as bringing video playback "forward" into the browsing experience, but there's not much more detail available and Netflix isn't talking yet. We're wondering if Netflix could start pushing live streaming channels like traditional TV, or just video previews that start playing even before you choose what to watch. At CES in January, director of corporate communications and technology Cliff Edwards told us that it's looking to put internet TV on the same footing as cable, and a new way of using its apps could do a lot to help that. As usual, Netflix will broadcast its earnings call live on YouTube at 6PM ET, and the video is embedded below. If there's any news from there, we'll update the post and let you know.
The PC market is shrinking again as companies stop upgrading
It's not a good time to be a PC maker... especially if you cater to the corporate crowd. Both Gartner and IDC estimate that the computer market shrank between 5.2 to 6.7 percent in the first quarter of 2015, in part because many companies stopped upgrading from Windows XP. Simply put, many of the businesses that wanted to modernize already have -- they're not propping up the market like they were for a good chunk of 2014. IDC goes so far as to claim that this was the lowest volume of PC shipments since the start of 2009, which is no mean feat given that the world was still reeling from an economic collapse at the time.
