q42015
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Twitter is going to 'fix' how you @
Earlier today, Twitter announced that it would be implementing an optional algorithmic feed that would put the most "important" tweets that you missed at the top of your timeline. Now it seems there are more changes in the works. According to Twitter's Q4 and Fiscal 2015 letter to its shareholders, it is now going to fix how its @name and @reply syntax works. This @reply mechanism, Twitter says, is confusing and is known to "inhibit usage and drive people away."
HTC burned another $101 million in the last three months
Much as we'd like to sugarcoat it, the unfortunate truth is that HTC is in trouble, and the situation is only getting worse. The phone maker has posted a third consecutive loss-making quarter, eating around $101 million (£69.6 million) in the last three months. A side-by-side comparison of the same period last year is even more doom-laden, since when it was generating a profit, it was only squeaking a meager $5.6 million. Last year, we asked if HTC was going to be the first really big Android manufacturer to slide into the sea. On this evidence, there's very little that's going to change our mind.
Detachable tablet sales are taking off
The tablet market might be tanking as a whole, but there's apparently one major bright spot: tablets with detachable keyboards. While IDC estimates that slate shipments were down almost 14 percent year-over-year in the fourth quarter, shipments of detachables more than doubled to 8.1 million. That's about 12 percent of the entire space, folks. Analysts suspect that many people want to treat tablets as PC replacements, and they're willing to pay a premium to make that happen.
Facebook's growth is apparently unstoppable
Facebook continues its upward trajectory with a very successful fourth quarter last year. Today, the social network reported that it had a revenue of $5.84 billion and had about 1.59 billion monthly active users in last quarter alone. This is a decent increase over the previous quarter, where it had 1.55 billion users, and an impressive 14 percent increase over this time last year. And that $5.84 billion? It's a whopping 52 percent increase year-over-year. Taken as a whole, that means Facebook had a revenue of $17.93 billion in 2015, which is a 44 percent increase from 2014.
Netflix reminds us that its price hike to $10 is coming
Now that Netflix is worldwide, how are things going with its business? The company announced its quarterly earnings today (PDF), and noted that its number of subscribers has reached nearly 45 million in the US, and nearly 75 million worldwide. It also reminded us of an important milestone that's coming up soon, and might affect how much you pay for streaming. It announced a pair of price hikes over the last couple of years, but grandfathered existing users in at the old rates of $8 or $9. That price hold will start expiring in a few months, but the company notes that if $10 per month is just too much to pay, users can drop down to the "basic" $8 package -- if they can live without HD.
GoPro cuts jobs after a big drop in action camera sales
It's tough times for GoPro's fledgling empire. The action camera maker is cutting the jobs of about 7 percent of its workforce (roughly 105 people) after poor sales during the fourth quarter, particularly in the first half. It doesn't have a detailed explanation for the drop, but it recently slashed the price of the notoriously expensive Hero4 Session -- clearly, it misjudged how much people were willing to pay for the tiny cube cam.
PC shipments see their steepest drop ever
Windows 10 might be pretty popular, but it wasn't popular enough to rescue the PC business. IDC estimates that computer shipments actually fell 10.6 percent in the fourth quarter of 2015, making it the steepest year-over-year drop in history. In fact, shipments were scarcely any better than they were in the summer, when sales are supposed to be slower. Gartner's figures are slightly better, although the 8.3 percent drop is nothing to write home about.
Lenovo sold 60 million PCs in a year, but probably won't again
Lenovo's basement full of accountants has released the company's financial report for the last 12 months, and it's all smiles and dollar signs. After all, it increased the cash coming in through the front door, spent big to buy buy Motorola and IBM's server business and still made a $100 million quarterly profit. Even better, the outfit has now been the world's largest PC maker for two straight years, selling 60 million computers in the last 12 months alone.
