Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Alphabet.
Mega Thread on Trends, their businesses & how they are dealing with Covid. One by One.
"Accelerating Microsoft Teams innovation, adding new capabilities each week, and now support meetings of all sizes, meetings that scale from 250 active participants, to live events for up to 100,000 attendees, to streaming broadcasts."
75m+ daily active users.
Windows 10 has >1B monthly active devices, up 30% YoY.
Office 365 has 258m Paid seats.
Usage of Windows Virtual Desktop tripled this quarter as organizations deploy virtual desktops to enable secure remote work.
WFH trend. Who benefits?
Power Platform: 3.4m+ citizen developers
Create no/low-code apps and workflows in hours or days.
Accelerating Automation.
"If you can use Excel sheets, you can create an app, build a virtual agent, automate workflows, analyze data and share insights in real-time."
Dynamics 365: Remote every part of the operation:
~Manufacturing
~Supply chain management
~Sales and Customer service
Incl. of new scenarios like curbside pickup, contactless shopping, fraud protection (Mastercard: customer), remote customer assistance and operations.
LinkedIn: 690m+ Professionals
Learning on the app went 50% increase MoM in March. LinkedIn live streaming went up 158% MoM.
LinkedIn Sales Navigator+ Dynamics 365 gives sales professional tools for more effective remote selling.
Xbox Live: 90m+ monthly active users
Xbox game pass has 10m+ buyers including Increased monetisation of in-game content & services.
Project xCloud gaming service is launched across 7 countries, 8 more new countries soon: Future of Gaming.
Cloud Business: Azure
Highest no. of datacentre regions among cloud providers, new regions in Mexico & Spain announced.
Built-in AI capabilities: direct to consumer experiences.
Bots are being used by call centres to healthcare institutions to address needs.
Covid effects:
- The supply chain in China returned to more normal operations at a faster pace than we had anticipated
- Significant reduction in advertising spend
- Slowdown in our transactional business across segments, but particularly in small and medium businesses.
Continued Investment in Apple TV (Netflix is losing billions every year on this), Services like facetime & iMessage hit an all-time high usage.
Compensating the retail employees normally despite store closures. Can attest to that as I have been in contact with some.
"While we felt some temporary supply constraints in February, our operations team, suppliers and manufacturing partners have been safely returning to work and production was back at typical levels toward the end of March."
Supply Chain Management is top-notch.
Wearables, Home and Accessories established a new March quarter record, with revenue of $6.3 billion, up 23% YoY.
Apple watch is gobbling up the market share as 75% of the people purchasing it this quarter, were new to the product. (As big as a Fortune 140 company)
Enterprise market: Remote deployments of iPads & Macs & maintaining Security.
"Some of our largest customers offering Mac to employees have been able to easily set up and secure their devices from home, benefiting from Apple Business Manager and zero-touch deployment."
“From online shopping to AWS to Prime Video and Fire TV, the current crisis is demonstrating the adaptability and durability of Amazon’s business as never before, but it’s also the hardest time we’ve ever faced” ~Jeff Bezos.
+stocking and delivery of essential items.
In early March, Experienced a major surge in customer demand, particularly for household staples, health and personal care, groceries and even home office supplies.
Lower demand for discretionary items such as apparel, shoes, and wireless products.
+Supply Disruptions.
Reaction: Heath.
6-foot social distancing +100 million masks, tens of millions of gloves, & other cleaning supplies.
Temperature checks across our operations network+ plexiglass between cashier & customers (whole foods)+ Raised wages & overtime premiums for employees.
"I worry the reopening in certain places to quickly before infection rates have been reduced to very minimal levels, will almost guarantee future outbreaks and worse, longer-term health and economic outcomes." ~Mark Zuckerberg
+Limiting the spread of misinformation.
>3B people actively using Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp or Messenger each month.
Messaging, Voice & Video calling had a surge.
Top Priority: Stability+ Reliability.
Doubling the size of WhatsApp (Most popular end-to-end encrypted calling service) video calls from 4 to 8.
Helping Small businesses & Entrepreneurs directly sell items & services from FB: Bye Bye most Indian Startups
Digital Presence= Primary Storefront
This was in line with the investment in Jio Platforms: an initiative to connect millions of shops across India with WhatsApp.
Sheryl on Small Businesses
"There are 140 million of them, as well as the 8 million who are our advertisers and the funnel between those. That's the nuts and bolts of our business. We're continuing to work on it everyday through this crisis and we'll continue beyond that."
"Newer technologies like AI, Bluetooth exposure notifications, and 3D printing are being used to help fight the disease head-on. It's clear that once the emergency has passed, the world will not look the same" ~Sundar Pichai
ReInvention of business models on the way
Ad business: Major slowdown in March. (Correlation with virus affected zones)
"Announced that merchants can list products in Google Shopping for free. It's been widely rolled out in the U.S. with more countries to come."
If Google enters your biz, you better change it.
Previewed Android 11: Includes seamless 5G connectivity and a smarter keyboard with a faster messaging experience (the current culture drives updates)
2.5B+ monthly active Play devices worldwide.
Youtube Subscriptions at an all-time high.
Biggest costs associated with data centres (Youtube monetisation?)
Content acquisition costs primarily for YouTube's advertising-supported content
+ content costs for YouTube TV (Netflix is a great business)
Youtube advertising revenue up 33% YoY helped.