Groupon Sinks to 52-Week Low Figures

Online daily deals site Groupon (Nasdaq: GRPN) does not seem to be recovering at all. Earlier this week, they announced quarterly results that managed to exceed market projections. But despite their performance, a weak industry outlook and rising company costs sent the stock tumbling to 52-week low figures. According to a report by IBISWorld, the daily deals industry in 2013 was pegged to be worth $3.3 billion in revenues, recording a 15% growth over the year. But growth is expected to slow down significantly this year, when the industry is projected to grow a comparatively meager 3.5% to $3.4 billion. The research report estimates growth to remain at 4% levels till 2018 when the industry will be worth $4 billion in revenues.

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Atlassian Software’s Skyrocketing Valuations

According to a recent Gartner report, Worldwide IT spending is projected to grow 3.1% over the year to $3.8 trillion this year. Growth in the market will be driven by the Enterprise Software segment which is projected to increase 6.8% this year to $320 billion.

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ServiceNow Focuses on Growth Instead of Profitability

TechNavio’s Global IT Service Management (ITSM) forecasts the ITSM market to grow annually at 7.3% over the four year period 2012-2016. The growth is driven by the increasing adoption of the services by SMEs and due to implementation of policies like bring-your-own-device in most organizations.

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Amazon Continues On Without Profits

According to market reports, online retail giant Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) accounts for nearly 2% of global retail sales. However, while they may continue to rake in revenues, Amazon is still struggling with turning profitable. Amazon envisions profitability only by the end of the decade. Till then, they are operating on narrow margins while investing in services to garner higher market share.

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Twitter Is Growing Up

eMarketer’s latest report on mobile advertising projects global mobile ad spend to increase 75% this year to $31.45 billion. Mobile advertising is expected to be a $94.9 billion market by the year 2018. Google remains the leader in the segment with a 49% market share. But as social media networks up their mobile advertising efforts, Google will see their advertising share slip. eMarketer projects Google’s share to slip to 46.8% this year while Facebook will see their market share improve from 17.5% to 21.7%. Meanwhile, social media site Twitter is also expected to report a modest increase in market share from 2.4% in 2013 to 2.6% this year. Here is an interesting infographic on the movement of the advertising shares, courtesy eMarketer.

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Why Did eBay Repatriate $9 Billion Foreign Cash?

Earlier this week, online retailer eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY) announced their quarterly results. Their results exceeded market expectations, but the big surprise was the announcement of repatriating $9 billion in cash and paying $3 billion in taxes on these funds. eBay wants to use these funds to drive further growth.

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Facebook Riding High on Mobile

According to eMarketer, social giant Facebook’s worldwide mobile ad share during the current year is projected to rise to 21.7% compared with 17.5% a year ago.  The company is eating into Google’s share as it is projected to slip slowly from 49.3% a year ago to 46.8% this year. Overall, Facebook accounted for 7% share of the digital ad share in the US last year. eMarketer expects their share to climb to 8% this year. Google, meanwhile, is expected to remain relatively flat at 40% market share.

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Microsoft Completes Nokia Acquisition

IDC’s recently released quarterly worldwide PC shipment tracker reports a 4.4% decline over the year in PC shipments to 73.4 million units. Analysts were pleased by the results as they were anticipating a 5.3% decline in the market. During the recent quarter, Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) announced the end of Windows XP support. Analysts believe that this move has spurred sales on account of PC refresh.

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Zynga Still Struggling to Find its Footing

According to Digi-Capital, the total digital and video game industry is projected to be worth $100 billion by the year 2017. Of this, nearly $60 billion will consist of online and mobile game sales and the remaining $40 billion will be for gaming hardware, console software, and PC.

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Emerging Markets Contribute to Apple’s Growth

According to IDC, worldwide smartphone shipments are projected to grow 18% annually over the period 2013 through 2017 to 1.7 billion units. Growth will be driven by the emerging markets of Asia Pacific and Latin America both of which are projected to grow more than 23% annually during this period. By 2017, Asia Pacific markets will account for 58.5% of the market share at 986 million units compared with 52.3% share in 2013. Europe will be the second largest market with 15.5% of the market and growing 11% annually. North America will account for 11% of the market and grow a comparatively modest 7.8% annually.

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