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Amazon Apps Expand to 200 Countries

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By 24/7 Wall St.

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Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), often seen as the most progressive tech company in America, will expand its Appstore so “that developers can now submit their apps for distribution in nearly 200 countries.” Amazon may not have a ready customer base in most of those countries, but the announcement makes its reach seem impressive, even if it is ineffective.

In Amazon’s race to dominate, or at least have a prime position, in the mobile app development business, it finds itself behind Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) and Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG). Apple’s massive distribution channel through its iPad and iPhone products, and the many years it has had its own store, give it a built-in advantage. Google has leverage of its own because of the nearly universal adoption of it Android mobile operating system. Its large share of the mobile OS industry cannot be underestimated as an app distribution network, via Google’s own store. Developers with direct relationship with Google can create products for both Amazon’s Kindle and all other Android products

Amazon Appstore for Android was created to help Amazon steal some of Google’s native app developer network. Why developers would not favor Google’s own developer system and store is a mystery. That means most of Amazon’s success with app distribution will be based on its own Kindle Fire tablet, to a substantial extent:

Developers throughout the world are experiencing strong monetization and user engagement through Kindle Fire and the Amazon Appstore.

As far as anyone can tell, the Amazon Appstore is the e-commerce company’s attempt to help sales of its Kindle products, and nothing more. The risk in that is that the Kindle may be overwhelmed by all the other Android-based tablets that have flooded the market. But in the hope of bolstering its position, the company said:

Amazon.com, Inc. continued the global expansion of its Appstore today by announcing that developers can now submit their apps for distribution in nearly 200 countries, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, India, South Africa, South Korea, and even Papua New Guinea and Vatican City.

Vatican City may not be a big enough market to help Amazon reach its Appstore goals.

Filed under: 24/7 Wall St. Wire, Consumer Electronics, Software Tagged: AAPL, AMZN, featured, GOOG

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From: http://www.dailyfinance.com/2013/04/18/amazon-apps-expand-to-200-countries/

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With 'Home,' Facebook Barges in on Google's Turf

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By The Associated Press

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Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP HTC CEO Peter Chou, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and AT&T Mobility CEO Ralph De La Vega embrace as they show joint products at Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif., on Thursday.

By PETER SVENSSON

NEW YORK — Facebook Home, the new application that takes over the front screen of a smartphone, is a bit of a corporate home invasion. Facebook is essentially moving into Google’s turf, taking advantage of software the search giant and competitor created.

Facebook Home will operate on phones running Google Inc.’s (GOOG) Android software and present Facebook status updates, messages and other content on the home screen, rather than making the user fire up Facebook’s app. The software will be available for users to download on April 12 and will come preloaded on a new phone from HTC Corp., sold by AT&T Inc. in the U.S.

Google gives away Android, the most popular smartphone software in the world, in the hope that it will steer phone users toward Google services, such as Maps and Gmail, and the ads it sells. Compared to ads targeting PC surfers, mobile ads are a small market, but it’s growing quickly. Research firm eMarketer expects U.S. mobile ad spending to grow 77 percent this year to $7.29 billion.

With Home, Facebook is inserting itself between users and Google, diverting them to the social network’s own ads and services. It’s taking advantage of the fact that Google places few restrictions on how phone manufacturers and software developers modify Android. By contrast, Facebook Home would not work on the iPhone without approval from Apple Inc., and close collaboration with the company.

“Facebook Home can only reside on Android because only Google was daft enough to allow it,” said independent phone analyst Horace Dediu, via Twitter.

At the launch event Thursday, Facebook Inc. (FB) CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Google was aware of the project, but Facebook didn’t work them to create Home. Asked if he believed Google could change tactics and restrict apps like Home, he said it was theoretically possible, but highly unlikely for Google to do a “180-degree change” in its stance on Android’s openness.

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It’s not the first time a big Internet company has co-opted Android: Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) has gone much farther with its Kindle Fire tablets. They run a version of Android that strips out all Google services, replacing them with Amazon’s equivalents. Barnes & Noble Inc. does the same thing with its Nook tablets. These devices lie outside the Google system, whereas phones running Facebook Home still come with Google apps like Maps and the Play Store for music, movies and applications.

The Play Store has many examples of downloadable applications that modify the Android home screen — so-called “launchers.” Home, however, represents the first time a major …read more

Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

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Safeway's Prepaid Card Issuer Files for IPO

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By 24/7 Wall St.

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The unit of Safeway Inc. (NYSE: SWY) that issues gift cards and other prepaid and reloadable cards this morning filed a Form S-1 with the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) to raise up to $200 million in an initial public offering. The unit, which will be called Blackhawk Network Holdings Inc., will trade on the Nasdaq Exchange under the ticker symbol HAWK.

Safeway currently owns about 96% of Blackhawk and “will continue to hold shares of Class B common stock representing a significant majority of the combined voting power” of Blackhawk’s outstanding shares after the offering. The lead underwriters for the offering are Goldman Sachs, BofA/Merrill Lynch, Citigroup and Deutsche Bank Securities.

According to the filing, Blackhawk currently counts among its gift-card customers such high-profile companies as Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), Lowe’s Companies Inc. (NYSE: LOW), Macy’s Inc. (NYSE: M), Starbucks Corp. (NASDAQ: SBUX) and Apple Inc.’s (NASDAQ: AAPL) iTunes. The company also serves the three large payment networks: American Express Co. (NYSE: AXP), Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) and Mastercard Inc. (NYSE: MA). Blackhawk also issues reloadable cards for Green Dot Corp. (NYSE: GDOT) among others, including its own PayPower brand.

Blackhawk’s filing indicates that the company will receive none of the net proceeds from the offering. Class A shares will have one vote and Class B shares will have 10 votes on all matters that are put to a shareholder vote.

According to the filing, Blackhawk posted net income of $48.165 million in 2012 on operating revenues of $959.07 million, up from $362 million in revenues and $22.7 million in operating profits in 2001, the year the company was founded.

Filed under: 24/7 Wall St. Wire, Business Services, Financial Stocks, IPOs, Retail Tagged: AAPL, AMZN, AXP, GDOT, LOW, M, MA, SBUX, SWY, V

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

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Price Cut for Kindle Fire Tied to European, Japanese Launch

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By 24/7 Wall St.

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Thanks to today’s launch of the Kindle Fire HD 8.9-inch tablet from Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) in five European countries and Japan, Amazon claims that now “it is able to lower the price” of the devices in the U.S. At least that’s the story according to Amazon.

And while Amazon tries to link the launch of the tablet into new markets to the U.S. price drop, the full story is likely to be that full-size tablets are not selling well if recent survey data is any guide.

One of every two tablets sold in the fourth quarter of 2012 had a screen size smaller than 8-inches. The big reason: cost. Consumers like tablets, but small beats big and cheap beats expensive. Even market leader Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) has experienced heavier demand for its iPad mini that for the larger iPad. Samsung Electronics and Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) have also had more sales for the smaller, cheaper tablets.

The WiFi version of the Kindle Fire HD tablet has now dropped in the U.S. from $299 to $269 and the 4G version has dropped in price from $499 to $399. That points to another feature of customer demand. Tablets with WiFi-only sell better than the pricier 4G-enabled devices, which also require expensive data packages.

Amazon’s 7-inch version of the Kindle Fire was already available in Europe. And because Amazon does not reveal sales figures for its devices, we’ll never know for sure the impact of the launch in European and Japanese markets nor its impact on U.S. sales.

Filed under: 24/7 Wall St. Wire, Consumer Electronics, Hardware, PC Companies, Retail, Technology Companies, Telecom & Wireless Tagged: AAPL, AMZN, GOOG

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

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Media Digest (3/13/2013) Reuters, WSJ, NY Times, Bloomberg

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By 24/7 Wall St.

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Boeing Co. (NYSE: BA) gets permission from the FAA to test fly its troubled 787. (Reuters)

Job openings rose in January, according to the Labor Department. (Reuters)

President Obama will meet with CEOs on the subject of cyber security. (Reuters)

IDC expects sales of Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) Android-powered tablets to pass the Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPad this year. (Reuters)

Dean Metropoulos and Apollo Global Management LLC (NYSE: APO) will buy some of the Hostess brands. (Reuters)

The FTC wants standards for traditional ads to apply to those on Twitter and Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ: FB) sites so that certain disclosures about the marketers are clear. (WSJ)

Samsung spent more than Apple to market smartphones in 2012. (WSJ)

Audi’s sales pace may allow it to challenge BMW and Mercedes for market share. (WSJ)

Regulators approve a deal for T-Mobile to combine with MetroPCS Communications Inc. (NYSE: PCS). (WSJ)

Sudan agrees to begin new shipments of crude oil, which had been suspended recently. (WSJ)

China steel output rose 9.8% last month, largely due to domestic construction. (WSJ)

Discover Financial Services (NYSE: DFS) enters the mortgage business. (WSJ)

Google presses into the cloud computing market now dominated by Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) and Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT). (NYT)

West Texas Intermediate crude nears a two-week high as U.S. supplies drop. (Bloomberg)

The new Samsung Galaxy IV will target sales of Apple’s iPhone. (Bloomberg)

Filed under: 24/7 Wall St. Wire, Press Digest Tagged: AAPL, AMZN, APO, BA, DFS, FB, GOOG, MSFT, PCS

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

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Amazon and Apple Crush Competition in New Mobile Survey

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By 24/7 Wall St.

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Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) and Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) place so high on most customer satisfaction surveys that the repetition has made the conclusions commonplace. Unfortunately for several financially battered retailers, their stumbling has not been helped by their satisfaction grades. The trends, both good and bad, have extended to mobile e-commerce.

Research firm Foresee issued its “ForeSee Mobile Satisfaction Index: Holiday Retail Edition.” The results are not terribly different from the Foresee e-commerce data for the same period. Retailers who do well online also do well with mobile activity. Of the 25 companies included:

Amazon tops the list at 85, with Apple (83), and QVC (83) close behind. Rounding out the top five are NewEgg (80) and Victoria’s Secret (80).

Almost no one has heard of PC hardware and parts company NewEgg. The balance of the companies are well known. Amazon had better be at the top of the list, for its own sake, since it has no physical stores to speak of. QVC does not either, because its other medium for sales is television. Apple and Victoria’s Secret must just try harder, although the popularity of their products may get mobile e-commerce buyers to have positive views of the merchandise under any circumstances.

Retailers that are in steep decline, in general, do not do well in the Foresee results. The Sears division of Sears Holdings Corp. (NASDAQ: SHLD) rates just one spot from the bottom. Also-ran discounter Overstock.com Inc. (NASDAQ: OSTK) also does poorly, and troubled online retailer Gilt does very badly as well.

In the range of merely mediocre are Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) and Target Corp. (NYSE: TGT), each of which have huge traffic and are among the top 50 most visited sites in the United States, according to Comscore. Their volumes of business are such that mid-tier performance in the Foresee survey probably does not hurt them much. Also in the middle of the rankings are Best Buy Co. Inc. (NYSE: BBY) and J.C. Penney Co. Inc. (NYSE: JCP), each of which needs to do better in e-commerce and in physical store activity to keep away from trends that already have caused questions about their viability.

On the whole, the companies that did poorly in the Foresee research cannot afford to.

Methodology: In a survey of more than 6,200 consumers collected during the peak holiday shopping season between Thanksgiving and Christmas, the retail juggernaut scored highest among 25 of the top mobile commerce companies. The report shows that consumer satisfaction with the mobile retail experience is improving, as the Index climbs two points since last holiday season to 78 on a 100-point scale.

mobile-exp-holiday-2013-foresee

Filed under: 24/7 Wall St. Wire, Internet, Retail Tagged: AAPL, AMZN, BBY, JCP, OSTK, SHLD, TGT, WMT

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

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Are E-commerce Sales Really So Good?

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By 24/7 Wall St.

Online Shopping

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Research firm comScore reported about 2012 that:

For the full year, U.S. retail e-commerce sales reached $186.2 billion, an increase of 15 percent — the strongest annual growth rate since before the recession. Q4 2012 sales grew 14 percent year-over-year to $56.8 billion, marking the first ever $50 billion quarter. It also represents the thirteenth consecutive quarter of positive year-over-year growth and ninth consecutive quarter of double-digit growth.

As an aside, it is worth noting that Amazon.com Inc.’s (NASDAQ: AMZN) sales for the past full year were $51.7 billion, up 23%, which colors the national numbers in a way that makes e-commerce sales outside Amazon less positive.

Even without the Amazon-effect, e-commerce has been less successful than many people suppose. Sales per quarter in 2007 averaged $30 billion and grew at a rate of more than 20%. The average sales by quarter in 2012 were about $48 billion on average. The positive change is only 60% over the five years, which is hardly a torrid pace.

E-commerce is supposed to be the salvation of the retail industry, although the salvation has been uneven. Experts says that companies such as Best Buy Co. Inc. (NYSE: BBY) and Barnes & Noble Inc. (NYSE: BKS) have been ruined. Online sales have augmented the advance of other retailers, including Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) and Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL).

E-c0mmerce sales improvement actually may slow considerably in the years ahead. Among the reasons are that bricks-and-mortar retailers have learned the tricks of price matching and free overnight delivery. These retailers always will retain the benefit that some people want to see and feel what they buy before they buy it.

The other enemy of e-commerce is that its success has been so uneven. For every Amazon there is a Best Buy, or worse, a J.C. Penney Co. Inc. (NYSE: JCP) where online sales are actually shrinking. The future of e-commerce can be seen in both its victories and its mediocre, or failed, results.

E-commerce may have been the “next big thing” for a while. It future will be much more mixed.

Filed under: 24/7 Wall St. Wire, Internet, Retail Tagged: AAPL, AMZN, BBY, BKS, JCP, WMT

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

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IVW, QCOM, CMCSA, AMZN: ETF Outflow Alert

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By ETFChannel.com Looking today at week-over-week shares outstanding changes among the universe of ETFs covered at ETF Channel, one standout is the iShares S&P 500 Growth Index Fund (AMEX: IVW) where we have detected an approximate $35.4 million dollar outflow — that’s a 0.5% decrease week over week (from 87,600,000 to 87,150,000). Among the largest underlying components of IVW, in trading today Qualcomm, Inc. (NASD: QCOM) is up about 0.6%, Comcast Corp (NASD: CMCSA) is up about 0.7%, and Amazon.com Inc. (NASD: AMZN) is lower by about 1.2%. For a complete list of holdings, visit the IVW Holdings page »
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Markets

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Notable ETF Inflow Detected – ACWI, SLB, AMZN, DIS

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By ETFChannel.comLooking today at week-over-week shares outstanding changes among the universe of ETFs covered at ETF Channel, one standout is the iShares MSCI ACWI Index Fund (NASD: ACWI) where we have detected an approximate $37.9 million dollar inflow — that’s a 1.2% increase week over week in outstanding units (from 67,600,000 to 68,400,000). Among the largest underlying components of ACWI, in trading today Schlumberger Ltd. (NYSE: SLB) is down about 0.2%, Amazon.com Inc. (NASD: AMZN) is up about 1.1%, and Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS) is lower by about 0.2%. For a complete list of holdings, visit the ACWI Holdings page »
Source: Forbes Markets