Xoom Focuses on International Expansion

According to the World Bank, India is the largest market for inward remittances of funds. The country is expected to receive $71 billion in remittances this year. China is the second largest market with inward remittances expected at $60 billion. India’s remittances are projected to grow 9.4% annually to $85 billion by the year 2015.

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Accenture Continues to Grow Through Acquisitions

According to market researcher, Source Information Survey, the U.S. market for management consulting reported growth of 8.5% last year to $39.3 billion. This growth was driven by consulting services for marketing and sales, which grew 26% during this period, followed by operational improvement consulting business, which reported growth of 11.3%. IT consulting services market grew 10.1% during the year.

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For-profit Education Sector Still Under Scrutiny

The for-profit education sector was in the news recently when President Obama mentioned in one of his gatherings [press conferences?] that they were “making out like bandits.” The president has been vocal about how the for-profit industry admits students, gets federal funding but have low graduation rates. He mentioned how the government was going to spend time during the next year to connect with professors, faculty members and students to rate good schools whether they are for-profit or nonprofit.

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Electronic Arts Preparing for Next-Gen Console Market

Gaming aficionados have been waiting for this holiday season when both Microsoft and Sony released their next-gen consoles. XBox One and PS 4 are touted to be the biggest upgrades for the gaming console market and are being called the next-gen consoles. These machines come equipped with higher processing power and memory, making them capable of delivering faster and improved gaming action. But these consoles can be successful only if gaming publishers develop relevant games. For now, publisher Electronic Arts (NASDAQ:EA) seems to be prepared to handle this challenge.

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OpenTable Prepares to Battle Apple

Recently, the restaurant technology market made news when none other than the tech giant Apple filed a patent application with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office for a new ordering and reservation system that could work with their products. Apple’s patent application covers systems, methods, and storage media that will help with making reservations and maintaining a wait list for a resource at a restaurant. Essentially, that is what OpenTable (Nasdaq: OPEN) does for a living and as a reaction, the company’s stock did take a bit of a tumble from the two-year high it had touched after the announcement of its Q3 results.

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Zulily’s Successful IPO

According to the Euromonitor, the North American retail market was worth $3.1 trillion last year with online sales accounting for $183 billion of the retail sales. The researcher estimates that the North American online retail market will grow 14.5% annually to $360 billion by 2017. Within the online retail sales market, flash sales are an upcoming trend, but not all of them are as successful as the mom-focused site, Zulily.

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Adobe Counting on Digital Marketing Growth

In a survey of 253 marketers for U.S.-based companies earning more than $500 million in annual revenues, Gartner found that digital marketing budgets accounted for 2.5% of their revenues. These marketers were looking to increase their digital marketing budgets for this year to 9% of revenues. Digital publishing company Adobe (Nasdaq:ADBE) is focusing on this digital marketing growth.

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Athenahealth Counting on Product Launches

According to a recent report, US EMR Market Outlook to 2017, the electronic medical records (EMR) market is project to grow 15% annually over 2013-2017. Growth will be driven by both private and public players as they continue to invest in services such as the need to adhere to the Meaningful Use Stage 2 (MU2). EMR hardware accounts for 51% of the market, and EMR services and software account for the remaining share. EMR leader athenahealth recently reported healthy quarterly results although guidance was less rosy. >>>