Uber Dominating the British Cab Industry

The American app based cab service is leading the UK taxi industry and challenging Black Cabs

The success of Uber has driven growth in private hire and British conventional cab industry  to a halt, with many drivers trading domestic taxi companies for the biggest start-up in the Silicon Valley. Despite of the record making figures of drivers , new corporate data demonstrates the decline in the figure of new cab companies by 97% in the initial 4 months of this year amidst signs the disruptive impact of the American application based cab service provider  is spreading beyond London.

The ride sharing organization has brought upheaval in almost any market it has rolled out in, causing huge-scale cab strikes in capital cities such as Brussels as well as Paris as well as plummeting values for cab licenses in Chicago as well as New York. As the organization has grown across the globe- it now runs its operations in 68 states- regulatory bodies have been also dealing with what kind of requirements to place on drivers of the company, making efforts to balance the demand of users for the facility with its effect on current cab organizations.

The organization states its fairness as well as flexibility is luring drivers from established organizations. Gladys Mapanda, who used to work for 3 mini taxi companies in the British capital before turning into a Uber driver 12 months ago stated the experience has been  “a liberation” for her as a lady used to “boys club” mini taxi businesses. The transporter has noted that more than 66.66% of new cab drivers  are referred by current operators. But British trade unions fear the organization is compelling its rivals by keeping prices artificially low.

Faced with alike disruption, some Chinese cities are aiming to cut down the daily charges paid by drivers to let them battle with the California based company, while many cities in the United States have reacted by imposing taxes on Uber rides and using money earned for improving infrastructure. In the popular “ Knowledge” exam of London cab industry, Uber driving partners in London are required to give basic geography and English tests.

The organization also has provided an olive branch to black cabs by including a hansom option inside its application, although comparatively few black taxi drivers have logged for the facility. The concessions provided by Uber seem to have a little impact. .The cumulative figure of new cab service provider listed in the last year was 65% lower than that of 2 years ago, the first decline since 2008. Since the beginning of its operations in UK last year, the organization has extended its British operations from 4 to one and a half dozen areas.

Alibaba Pictures Group Receives $260 Million Funding

Alibaba Pictures, the film and television subsidiary, has received a massive $260 million series A funding from Ant Financial and Sina.com

The film and television subsidiary of Alibaba Group Holding Limited, Alibaba Pictures, has been growing in the region at a significant pace. According to the Wall Street Journal, the subsidiary recently received a massive $260 million (1.7 billion RMB) in Series A funding to improve Taobao Movie, its online ticketing platform. The latest funding gives it a new valuation of over $2.1 billion (13.7 billion RMB) which is a huge jump in the market.

Sources suggest that there were a few investors including Ant Financial Services Group (the financial affiliate of Alibaba Group), Sina.com (a web portal), and CDH Investments who led the funding round for Alibaba Pictures. There were other investors as well whose names were disclosed in the list however they will be working as strategic partners for its online ticketing platform, Taobao Movie. The strategic partners include BONA Film, Hehe Pictures, and Huace Media.

It is believed that the operation was given a valuation of $266 million by an independent appraiser when Alibaba Pictures decided to buy this business from its parent company, Alibaba Group Holding, for a value of $473 million. That also included Yulebao, a crowdfunding platform for movies and TV shows. The company says sales through its service have grown rapidly over the past year.

However despite of receiving such a massive investment, Alibaba Picture would have much time on its hands to celebrate it as it has to focus and engage with other tech giants in China and throughout the world to get an early lead in the Online to Offline (O2O) services. It is known that Alibaba is taking positive steps towards the O2O market and it has made several deals and acquisitions as well that will prove in improving its market presence in this sector.

The tech giants in China are working very hard to come up with offline services that would provide online customers with food delivery, groceries, laundry, coupons, and movies etc. Taobao Movie has not yet become a profitable business for Alibaba Pictures and still trails the market rivals Baidu, Meituan Dianping, and Tencent Holdings in terms of market share. It is important to know that the Chinese tech giant recently sold the leading O2O player Meituan Dianping which owns the leading movie ticketing website called Maoyan.

Alibaba Pictures Group said in its disclosure, “Taobao Movie’s Series A will be used to sustain its operations and further strengthen its market position in a competitive and fast developing business segment.”

Facebook's Bots List Is At Standstill

The social networking giant may not be ready to deal with the flood of bots submission, according to publisher developers

When Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that, according to him, the solution to the overburdened apps is “chatbots,”then it seemed that the newly announced technology will be the next big thing however the situation isn’t nearly as expected.

Last month, the product was launched by the social networking giant through its Messenger app which gave it a considerate boost. The product was released through the partnership of the giants including Poncho –a weather service, CNN, and The Wall Street Journal. Subsequently, the launch triggered others –who had initially not taken part in the initial rollout –and they announced of integrating the technology in their businesses to interact with their users.

However, after the initial excitement, the new technology is now at a standstill. The list of bots hasn’t had any expansion except the handfuls of brands and publishers that were earlier available at launch. According to several publisher developers, the reason for this lack of expansion in the bot list is the inability of Facebook to prepare for the bombardment of bot submissions. One of the developers on the basis of anonymity cited, “Facebook isn’t quite ready to accept all the submissions and approve them.”

Also, the Menlo Park, Calif. firm hasn’t carried out much promotion for the latest technology ahead of the F8 announcement. Their visibility is limited to quite a handful of the people. CEO of Betaworks –developers of Poncho –John Borthwick, relating to the promotion of the bots said, “Facebook is just starting to figure out how to roll it out and promote it.”

The development of the bots is not a big issue as according to one of the officials of NBC News, the company was able to build a basic bot in mere four days. However, the lack of resources can be a restraint. Also, building bots can add up confliction to the company’s other priorities including video.

Founder of Bustle, Bryan Goldberg has said: “[A Messenger bot] sounds like something fun with which to experiment –but it will not immediately change our core focus at the moment. Facebook Live is a massive initiative that is going to require substantial resources and focus on the part of digital publishers. Such media companies would be wise to focus almost entirely on their core publishing operations and Facebook Live. Other initiatives are not distractions by any means, but focus can only divide itself so many ways.”

Having said that, there have been several other developers who see great potential in being among the few people to integrate the technology and they look forward to making the most of it. Bot is fairly good platform for the publishers as the content shared on the bot can easily be linked to the publishers’ parent site. It is quite contrary to the limitation which the content is exposed to in closed systems such as Snapchat and Facebook Instant Articles.

The technology still is in phase of infancy and a lot of time is needed to come up with proper results and see how the financial of the company is affected. As of now, at the market which closed on Wednesday, Facebook Inc.’s stock stood at a price of $118.06.

Is Tesla's stock peak temporary?

Analysis do believe that Tesla's stock is likely to lose its shine amidst lousy earnings of the company

Since February, Tesla stock had a modest momentum and the stock soared following the news that the highly anticipated electric car Model 3 has garnered the reservation of around 400,000 units. But, several analysts believe that the stock’s peak was temporary and slowly it will lose its shine.

Model 3 has come along the tagline of “affordable.” Marked at a price of $35,000 the electric car is reasonably affordable for everyone save Tesla.

For every Model S sedan, the Palo Alto Calif. firm loses over $4,000 and the model cost ranges between $70k and $108k. Therefore, it can be easily assumed that the Model 3 $35,000 price tag is not likely to solve the company’s financial deficit.

The income statement of the auto-tech giant has revealed that the company’s cash has been draining away at a very fast pace. Also, according to TheStreet Ratings, the company has net profit margin of -26.38% and a quick ratio of 0.49 –meaning that for every current liability of $1, the company has the ability to pay back only 49 cents.

Keeping aside the deepening worse side of Tesla’s cash flow and earnings, the automaker is significantly overvalued as compared to its competitors. The market cap on the Silicon-Valley auto-tech giant is over $30 billion which is substantially higher than Ferrari’s $8 billion and Fiat Chrysler’s $10 billion. To be valued at least thrice the value of FCAU –which is more profitable and established company –seems unreasonable and a bit exaggerated. The annual sales of FCAU close at $130 billion whereas the Palo Alto, Calif. firm generates revenue of mere $4 billion.

Moreover, the luxury electric car maker’s market capitalization is approximately two-thirds of General Motors’. This is regardless of the fact that historically German Motors sell 10 million cars annually at a profit while Tesla, last year, sold below 100,000 cars and that too at a loss.

Bob Lutz, former GM executive expressed the following in an interview with CNBC, “[Tesla] costs have always been higher than their revenue… They always have to get more capital. Then they burn through it.”

Mr. Lutz pointed out that since the fall in the oil prices, the demand for electric vehicles have slowed down a bit. Additionally, the competition in the electric car market has been growing rapidly with many established manufacturers entering into the domain of electric cars. In the next few years, Apple might reveal its long awaited electric car. Moreover, in the current year, rival GM’s Chevy Bolt is expected to come out.

Therefore, Tesla’s stock is likely to lose its ability to stand at top. As of now, at the market which closed on Tuesday, Tesla Motors Inc. stock stood at a price of $232.32.

Amazon Shipment Jumps At Colossal Rate

The e-commerce giant has garnered an increase of 5421.7% in its tablets' shipments

In the first quarter of the year, Amazon.com, Inc. posted a colossal 5421.7% in its tablet shipments, according to a new study. The results are incredible as the tablet market has been amidst an acute decline.

International Data Corporation (IDC) –an analysis firm –compiled that during the first quarter, the e-commerce giant has shipped around 2.2 million tablets          which is substantially higher than the 40,000 tablets shipped in the year-ago same period. The firm, in a press release on Thursday, cited that the Amazon’s low cost Fire tablet is not something revolutionary or novel however its humungous success endorse the strong dominance which the company has as a distribution powerhouse which has also make it to be a household name. However there is one chief limitation.

The research firm has said: “Though the year-over-year growth is an astronomical 5421.7%, it is important to note that Amazon’s 1Q15 lineup featured a 6 inch tablet which was not counted by IDC as it did not meet the requirements of our taxonomy.” The subject Amazon Fire HD 6 is a six inch tablet which didn’t meet IDC’s requirement of a “tablet.”

On a whole, the global shipment of the tablet declined by 14.7% and stood at 39.6 million. In the first quarter of 2015, the global shipment came at 46.4 million. The infamous “slate tablets” continued the trend of decline but accounted for 87.6% of all shipments. According to IDC, the highlight for the company was that its 2-in-1 tablets or those which like Apple’s iPad Pro came with detachable keyboards undergone triple-digit year-over-year growth –a record high for a calendar year’s first quarter –with shipments of more than 4.9 million units.    

The 2-in-1 space has strong competition. Microsoft –who has been the pioneer in innovating the gadget has recently launched the Surface Book while the Cupertino, Calif. tech giant, Apple Inc. has released its iPad Pro last year. China based tech companies including Huawei and Lenovo also have similar products in the category.

IDC has said that Microsoft is being beaten by the most valuable company in its own game. In a press release, senior research analyst of IDC, Jitesh Ubrani, “With the PC industry in decline, the detachable market stands to benefit as consumers and enterprises seek to replace their aging PCs with detachables.”

At the market which closed on Friday, Amazon.com, Inc.’s stock stood at a price of impressive $659.59. The 52 week range of the stock is $414 to $669.

Alphabet Inc. In Talks With Renowned Automaker

In order to gain better results the tech giant has been in talks with one of the biggest automakers of the world

Sources privy to the matter has told that Alphabet Inc.’s self-driving car division and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV are at the last stages of the talk relating to the technology partnerships, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The source, who spoke on anonymity, told that the talks had been going on for several months. Google’s parent Alphabet Inc. has been searching for a strong collaboration with world’s one of the biggest automakers in order to close a deal which relates to the sale of the self-driving car technology, that for a long time has been under development, to the automaker.

The company’s efforts in the development of the self-driving car are often knotted to the Google’s autonomous vehicles which are being tested in several U.S. states including California, the company is aiming to be the auto supplier. The Internet search giant’s executives supervising the car development has said that they won’t build the car.

Meanwhile, the Chief Executive Officer of Fiat Chrysler, Sergio Marchionne has been searching industry partnership to get assistance in curbing development and production costs, or to merge. He said that in order to gain better return on the capital which has been invested, the industry players ought to build more scale. The CEO has signaled the company’s readiness to team up with the tech giants including Apple Inc. or Alphabet to offset their exorbitant production and development costs.

Last year, the second most valuable company of the earth hired John Krafcik to head and supervise its division of self-driving cars. The new head has been working tirelessly to go into partnerships with the automakers. He has made this a priority and point of focus for 2016.

For the past six years, the Mountain View, Calif. firm has been working tirelessly for the development of its autonomous vehicle technology. In real-world testing, the vehicle has also covered a distance over 1.5 million miles.

An industry blog, AutoExtremist.com, was the first source to publish about the rumored talks between Alphabet Inc. and Fiat Chrysler.

A partnership between the two companies would be beneficial for both parties as it is hard for the tech company to develop a car on its own without having appropriate expertise of building a car. Similarly, if the auto maker collaborates with a tech company, it could easily launch a vehicle based on the latest technological innovations. The synergy of the expertise of both the entities will help in creating a better product for the end consumers.

Alphabet Inc. has recently announced its quarterly earnings which has been disappointing in comparison with the expectations and projections of the analysts. At the market which closed on Thursday, Alphabet Inc. stock stood at a price of $705.06. The 52 week range of the stock is $532 to $810.