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- The Accelerator Conundrum
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- The Future: End of Capitalism
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Technology Stocks
Privacy Debate May Hurt Palantir
According to a report by research firm MarketsandMarkets, the global big data market is projected to grow 26% annually from $14.87 billion this year to $46.34 billion by 2018. The report also estimates that the predictive analytics market is projected to grow 25% annually from $1.7 billion in 2013 to $5.24 billion in 2018.
Online Travel Sites Growing as Usual
According to the U.S. Commerce Department, international travel to the country is projected to grow nearly 4% annually from 2013 through 2017. The fastest growth is expected from visitors from China, Saudi Arabia, and the Russian Federation. The World Travel Monitor expects global travel to grow 2-3% this year, with Asia-Pacific seeing the strongest growth. Online travel companies are expanding their service offerings to ensure that they capture a bigger share of this recovering market.
Still No Sign of Revenue at Snapchat
A recent report published by researcher Ovum, Social Messaging 2014 Trends to Watch, projects the number of messages exchanged on social messaging apps to grow more than 2.5 times next year from 27.5 trillion to 71.5 trillion by the end of 2014. The growth in social messaging will be driven by the adoption and availability of affordable smartphones and mobile broadband penetration in emerging markets.
MercadoLibre Continues to Deliver Strong Growth
According to research by Visa, e-commerce sales in Latin America are projected to be more than $69 billion this year. Sales are projected to grow to more than $100 billion by the end of the next year. Latin America is the fifth largest e-commerce market in the world.
Concur: A Good Model, But Still No Profits
The latest report by Global Business Travel Association (GBTA), estimates worldwide business travel spending to grow 5.4% this year to $1.12 trillion. This growth is expected to increase in the coming years, with the market projected to grow 7.5% annually to $1.50 trillion by 2017. Travel expense management services provider Concur (Nasdaq:CNQR) is also seeing the business travel market grow.
Online Real Estate Sector Update
According to recent S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices, housing prices in the country rose the fastest in August this year since their bubble in 2006. Another report by Zillow, (Nasdaq: Z) also found that the volume of sales has increased. In 2006, the volume of sale transactions for houses had peaked to 7 million. But the volume is now picking up, and analysts expect to end the current year with more than 5 million transactions. Zillow’s report estimates this number to grow to 7 million by 2018. The real estate sector stocks are already witnessing the impact of this growth as stocks of quite a few of them have more than doubled since the beginning of the year.
Baidu and Alibaba: The Chinese Dragons Counting on Mobile for Growth
According to recent data released by the China Internet Network Information Center, 591 million people in the country were using the Internet as of June 2013. That translates to a 44% internet penetration rate. Mobile Internet users are growing fast and account for 420 million Internet users in the country. Most Chinese Internet players are thus focusing on growth through the mobile segment.
Uber Faces Scalability Hurdles
The advancements in mobile and internet technology have helped the growth of some innovative service companies. One such start-up is San Francisco–based Uber, which offers a solution for car transportation and logistics using mobile technology.