Benefitfocus – A Successful SaaS IPO

An IBISWorld report published for the previous year estimates the human resources benefits administration market in the U.S. to be worth more than $59 billion last year. Researcher Gartner estimates that last year, the U.S. insurance industry spent more than $55 billion on software and related services. Recently listed Benefitfocus is a provider of cloud-based benefits software solutions.

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LivingSocial Is Burning Through Its Cash

Last year, the rise in the daily deals market prompted the market leader, Groupon, to list its IPO. Competitor LivingSocial, was expected to list as well. But since then, the market has taken a tumble. Driven by increased competition and waning consumer interest, both Groupon and LivingSocial have tried to restructure their business offering. But they have yet to come up with the winning formula.

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Shutterfly’s Growth Strategy

Recent market reports suggest that consumers are shifting from printing photos to sharing them electronically. According to market reports, more than 22 billion photos will be shared through electronic media by 2015. The trend now is to create personalized products like mugs and totes instead of ordinary photo prints.

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Jive Trading Near 52-Week Lows

An IDC report published earlier this year projects the worldwide enterprise social software market to grow from $1 billion in 2012 to $2.7 billion by the year 2017, translating to an annualized growth rate of 22%. Last year, IBM remained the leader with a 14% market share. Jive Software (Nasdaq:JIVE) came in second with a 10% market share.

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Zynga’s Revamped Mobile Strategy

Social gaming player Zynga (Nasdaq:ZNGA), has not had a good run since it went public. Earlier this year, CEO and founder Mark Pincus renounced his position hoping to let new management drive the company to greater success. But social games are played as a fad and do not attract serious gamers, which has caused many social games companies to struggle with slow growth in user metrics. In the recent quarter, despite a declining user base, Zynga managed to exceed financial expectations, instilling investors with some confidence in its future.

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Groupon Still Struggling to Change Its Luck

Daily deals market leader Groupon (Nasdaq:GRPN) just can’t seem to catch a break. The company tried to turn its luck by firing the founder and CEO, but that hasn’t seemed to help much. Recent inbox changes by Gmail and growing lack of interest among users to buy into daily deals are also not welcome news.

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IBM Continues to Push Growth Through Acquisitions

According to IDC’s United States Black Book 4Q12 report, total enterprise spending on hardware, software, and IT services is projected to grow 6% this year to $474 billion. The researcher believes that growth is impacted by continuing economic concerns across the globe. Analysts believe that most IT budgets will be focused on big data and analytics, cloud computing, and mobility.

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Nokia’s Surprising Profitable Quarter

Gartner’s latest quarterly report on worldwide mobile phone sales saw phone sales grow 3.6% over the year to 435 million units in the second quarter of this year. During the same period, worldwide smartphone sales grew 47% to 225 million units, while sales of feature phones fell 21% to 210 million units. The report revealed that due to the declining feature phone demand, sales of Nokia (NYSE:NOK) phones fell to 61 million units from 83 million units last year. But Nokia’s smartphones are helping the company out as Nokia’s Lumia sales grew 112.7% over the year. The phone manufacturer is still facing stiff competition from Android devices and the lower cost phones manufactured by regional and Chinese manufacturers.

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Facebook Scouting for More Acquisitions

eMarketer’s report on mobile advertising estimates Facebook’s (Nasdaq:FB) mobile advertising efforts to deliver strong results. According to their research, Facebook’s share of global mobile internet ad revenues is projected to grow to 15.8% this year. This is significant growth from the 5.35% market share Facebook had last year when it began mobile advertising operations. Despite its gains, Facebook is still significantly behind Google’s share of 53% for 2013.

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LinkedIn Continues to Improve Monetization

Researcher eMarketer expects social media player LinkedIn (Nasdaq:LNKD) to deliver strong ad revenue growth in the coming years. The researcher estimates LinkedIn’s advertising revenues to grow 47% this year to $376 million. By 2015, LinkedIn is estimated to generate $763 million from online advertising. Another comScore report published this spring showed that LinkedIn has become the second largest social network in the world based on the number of unique visitors, surpassing Twitter. The company’s financials have been impressive as well.

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