Alibaba Fails to Deliver – Yet Again

Last week, Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) announced rather disappointing second quarter results. Growth has slowed down significantly and the stock has already fallen more than 35% since its post IPO peak. Alibaba is investing into several growth strategies, hoping one of them will pay off.

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Apple Music Threatens Spotify and Pandora

According to an IFPI report on the global music industry, the digital music industry is estimated to have grown 7% over the year to $6.9 billion in 2014. Digital music accounted for 46% of all global music sales. Another report by TechNavio estimates the digital music streaming market to grow 12% over the next four years. Given the high growth rates for the industry, it is little wonder that the giants are stepping into the game. >>>

Billion Dollar Unicorns: Etsy Continues to Fumble

I have repeatedly spoken about Billion Dollar Unicorns who have entered the club due to the frenzied investments by VCs who partake in initial funding rounds at spectacular valuations. Some of these companies are not able to address the expectation of a public company and implode when listed on the stock exchanges. One such instance is that of niche e-commerce player Etsy (NASDAQ: ETSY), which appears to be stuck in a bit of a rut. Recent disappointing quarterly results accompanied with continuing absence of profits had sent the stock tumbling to below list price levels. As competition in the niche space increases, Etsy will have tougher battles to fight in the next few months.

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End of the Rough Patch for Zillow?

The online realty sector has seen significant consolidation over the past year with Zillow acquiring Trulia and Move acquired by News Corp. With the Trulia acquisition running into delays over the anti-trust violation probe, Zillow looked gloomy. The company recently recorded a better-than expected quarter and encouraging progress on the Trulia integration. >>>

Billion Dollar Unicorns: Zulily Attempts to Make a Turnaround

Billion Dollar Unicorn club member and online niche flash sales site Zulily (Nasdaq: ZU) appears to be making a slow turnaround according to recent quarter results. The stock’s performance has been rather weak of late and it had entered the list of the Wall Street’s worst performing stocks for 2015 after having dropped 47% during the year. Their recent moves suggest that things may improve in the future.

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Billion Dollar Unicorns: Zendesk and Freshdesk in Expansion Mode

According to a recent Gartner report, the global customer relationship management (CRM) software market is estimated to have grown to $23.2 billion in 2014, up 13.3% from $20.4 billion in 2013. SaaS accounted for almost 47% of the market driven by organizations of all sizes looking for easier-to-deploy and faster-ROI alternatives to modernizing legacy systems, implementing new applications, or providing alternative complementary functionality. Billion Dollar Unicorn club member Zendesk as well as rival Freshdesk are the new generation players riding on this trend. >>>

Billion Dollar Unicorns: Expect Acquisitions From ServiceNow

According to Gartner, the IT operations management (ITOM) software market grew 7% to reach nearly $21 billion in 2014. The ITOM landscape is undergoing transformation as legacy multi-segment players give way to a new generation of suppliers that are growing more rapidly than the market average. Billion Dollar Unicorn club member ServiceNow (NYSE: NOW) is one such new player in the IT Services Management (ITSM) segment of the ITOM market. >>>

LinkedIn Stock Tumbles

After delivering some strong quarterly results, LinkedIn (NYSE: LNKD) seems to be struggling in growing their core business. While overall results and projections were better than expectations, the market was not so happy considering that a bulk of that improvement is attributed to LinkedIn’s earlier acquisition of Lynda.com. Post announcement of the results, the stock fell 10%. I still believe that LinkedIn is one of the smartest companies around today and I am confident their moves will prove the same in time.

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