Thread by @sanguit

#TWEETSTORM: The #Covid19 pandemic seems to have strengthened the #platform economy further. Multiple issues here:
The obvious include: remote work, food delivery, ecommerce.
The less obvious include: value chain shifts (e.g. movies), public-private partnerships, cartels etc.

Let's start with some of the obvious:
1. Remote work tools
Microsoft Teams hit an all-time high of 75M DAUs in April 2019.
Zoom video calls hit a high of 300M DAU in April.
April 2020 stats: 3x YoY growth in enterprise users and 169% growth in revenue.

Also, less obvious but equally important:
# of PDF documents shared using Adobe’s software grew 50% YoY for Q1.
Adobe Sign grew 175% since the start of Adobe's fiscal year.
Docusign is up as well.
Growth in e-sign + payments augurs well for supplier network digitization

This brings us to payments, also on the rise.
2. PAYMENTS
Paypal grew by 7.4M new users in April.
1. Well positioned to grow contactless payments post #covid19
2. PayPal facilitated the transfer of $1bn+ in federal loans.

Venmo is another interesting story:
Pre-covid, it was a millennial thing for settling dinner bills. Post-Covid, parents are sending money to socially distanced kids on Venmo. New customer segment.

3. STREAMING
Netflix added 183m global subscribers by the end of Q1.
Tencent is now at 112M video streamers and 43M music streamers. And, of course, WeChat has hit 1.2bn users.

But the bigger streaming story is how power is shifting from theater chains to streaming sites.

Detailed teardown here: platforms.substack.com/p/covid-19-and…

Studios will get to test success of movie releases on streaming platforms and use that to negotiate post-lockdown. Though theatres won’t go away, their negotiating power certainly will.

Amazon is already signing up content studios directly.

platforms.substack.com/p/covid-19-and…

Meanwhile, theaters are trying to innovate. E.g. Walmart is going in big with this partnership to revive drive-in theaters. theverge.com/2020/7/2/21311…

4. ADVERTISING is seeing an interesting combination of demand-side and supply-side shifts.
Ad budgets (supply side) collapsed but lockdown-driven engagement led to 39% YoY rise in advertising impressions on #Facebook.

5. E-COMMERCE
Online grocery has taken off like never before. #Walmart saw online sales grow 74% during March.
62% growth in new Shopify stores created from March 13 to April 24 than the previous six weeks.
#Shopify meanwhile doubled its valuation and shot past #Ebay

Pinduoduo (China) and MercadoLibre (LatAm) are others that showed dramatic growth.

6. FOOD DELIVERY
Acquisitions have driven (expected) consolidation. But a few other factors worked well for food delivery platforms.

Improved delivery economics:
1. High-end restaurants came on board with lockdown. Average ticket price on Meituan grew 14% in Q1.
2. Delivering to designated spots in apartment buildings saved delivery time and improved overall economics.

platforms.substack.com/p/the-economic…

7. ONLINE GAMING
A record 90M users tried the Xbox Live gaming service in April.
#Nvidia was the hidden beneficiary: Hours spent playing games on Nvidia’s platforms grew 50% during lockdown.

And then there's the less obvious side. We've seen the rise of platform cartels. Google and Apple on contact tracing. Facebook, Twitter, Medium and others on news moderation. platforms.substack.com/p/the-rise-of-…

Traditional cartels coordinate and collude on a range of aspects, most often price and output, but also standards and patent usage.

In the platform economy, cartels coordinate on two specific aspects: data usage and ecosystem governance.

Finally, the relationship between platforms and government has changed massively.
1. Platform regulation activity is much lower than the past 2 years.
2. Bigtech has taken over roles of the government.
platforms.substack.com/p/platforms-in…

To understand Big Tech's relationship with Big Govt, read this:

"We'd like to be regulated to the extent that it makes us more powerful" - The AT&T of yesteryears and the Facebook of today

theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…