BlueNile Expands International While WebMD Expands Mobile Apps

According to the latest IDEX report on the US jewelry and watch sales, the country’s total sales in April grew 2.4% over the year to $5.73 billion. Excluding watches, jewelry sales in April grew 2.2% over the year to $2.49 billion. Another report by IBISWorld estimates the global online sales of jewelry and watches to have grown 2.9% over the period 2008 through 2013 to $10 billion.

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MercadoLibre’s Expanding Prowess

According to an eMarketer research, business-to-consumer e-commerce sales in Latin America are projected to grow 20% in 2014 to $57.69 billion from $48.14 billion last year. eMarketer projects Brazil to be the leading market in the region with total e-commerce transactions projected to grow 8.5% and reach $23.05 billion in 2015. The research predicts the number of digital buyers in Brazil to increase from 30.9 million in 2013 to 55.4 million by 2018. Markets of Mexico and Argentina will also see strong growth with users in Mexico growing from 8.4 million in 2013 to 18 million by 2018 and in Argentina from 7.5 million in 2013 to 12 million by 2018.

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MobileIron Goes Public, No Profit Yet

According to a report released by MarketsandMarkets, the global market for Bring Your Own Device and Enterprise Mobility is projected to grow 27% annually from $72 billion this year to $266 billion by 2019. The researcher expects the increased adoption of cloud technology and the continuing reduction in hardware costs to be among the key factors for increased mobile adoption within organizations.

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A10 Networks Goes Public, Losses Narrow

According to a Gartner report, Worldwide IT spending is projected to grow 3.1% over the year to $3.8 trillion in 2014. That is a significant improvement over the 0.4% growth reported in 2013. Within the market, enterprise software spending is projected to be the fastest growth segment with a projected improvement of 6.8% in 2014 to $320 billion.

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TrueCar Has No Profits But Billion Dollar Valuation

According to the National Automobile Dealers Association, last year 15.5 million new cars were sold in the United States. The automotive sector is one of the largest segments in the country. Recently listed, TrueCar is trying to revolutionize the way cars are sold in the country.

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Jive’s Stock Languishes; Is Cisco Going To Acquire Them?

According to an IDC report the global enterprise social software market grew from $968 million in 2012 to $1.24 billion in 2013. The IDC report also found that IBM remained the market leader in the segment with more than 75% of the Fortune 100 companies adopting their solutions. Another IDC report had pegged the enterprise social software market to grow 22% annually over the period 2012 to 2017 to $2.7 billion.

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GoPro Plans to Move Beyond Action Cameras

Wearable technology is projected as the next big thing in the consumer hardware segment. Wearable gadgets range from wrist bands that measure a person’s activity and health statistics to wearable cameras and glasses that track the user’s actions. Analysts believe that it is still too early to accurately forecast the market size of wearable cameras, but some still guess that wearable cameras would account for a $10 billion market in the US alone by the year 2016.

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Online Lending Sector Heats Up

According to PayNet Small Business Lending Index, the volume of financing to small businesses in the country grew to 121.6 in December last year from 114.6 in November. This was the highest growth recorded by the market since March 2007. Like other retail customers, today small businesses also have the option of securing funding from organizations besides traditional banks. The need for alternate financial organizations has also increased since the economic recession hit the country. After the recession, most banks cut down the approvals of small business loan requests. In October 2012, banks had approved 14.8% of small-business loan requests in comparison with 46% before the economic downturn.

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Prosper Prospers

Today, banks and traditional money lenders are not the only source of credit to individual customers and small businesses. Instead, the Internet has led to the creation of peer-to-peer (P2P) lending that helps match borrowers with lenders through online platforms for small loans. P2P lenders are able to fund smaller debt requirements by being able to stay away from the high costs that are attributed to maintaining a brick-and-mortar bank and to meet the several capital adequacy requirements that govern the bank. According to Foundation Capital partner Charles Moldow, this new generation of lenders will help transact in more than $1 trillion by 2025.

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Zendesk IPO Underscores Momentum in Cloud CRM

A recent report released by Markets and Markets estimates the global cloud computing spend to grow to $121.1 billion by 2015, recording a compounded annual growth rate of 26% over the period 2010 through 2015.  Another report by Market Research Media expects strong growth within cloud computing to continue. The report projects a 30% annual growth rate over the five year period from 2015 with the market expected to be worth $270 billion by 2020.

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