Hello everybody!
I must have not messed things up when I took over the newsletter a few weeks back because Tom asked me to do it again! I’m delighted to be here. I’ll try not to move too many things around and confuse Tom when he comes home from his travels. But I just might eat all his ice cream while he’s gone. Don’t tell him.
Yes, today is Halloween. To celebrate, I’ve dressed up as a newsletter full of tech news! If you aren’t a fan of earnings, then you might not love my costume. I won’t take offense, I know it’s not personal.
Jason Howell
The Big Story
Meta Reports Third Quarter 2024 Results - fb.com
Meta AI has more than 500 million users - engadget.com
Meta’s Next Llama AI Models Are Training on a GPU Cluster ‘Bigger Than Anything’ Else - wired.com
Meta Reports Record Revenue, Slower Digital Advertising Growth - wsj.com
Meta announced its third quarter earnings for 2024 and it looks like its bets on Artificial Intelligence are paying off. Of course, that comes with a cost as the company plans to significantly increase its investments in that area. Meta’s strong third quarter saw a net income of $15.89 billion, up from $11.58 billion from the same quarter last year. Meta saw its revenue increase 19% from this point last year to the tune of $40.59 billion. But user growth has slowed across it’s family of apps, applying more pressure on the company to squeeze even more revenue out of existing users. Per usual, advertising takes the cake accounting for 96% of the company’s revenue this quarter.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg shared that in less than one year, Meta AI has passed 500 million monthly active users. This is all made possible by how Meta has placed its AI chatbot inside its major platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger. Its AI enhancements have increased time spent on Facebook to the tune of 8% and on Instagram with a 5% increase. Not only that, Meta has recently announced expansions of its Meta AI into more countries including the U.K. and Brazil. Once the rollout is complete, Meta AI will be available in 43 countries and 12 languages.
Threads is doing well according to Zuckerberg, having now reached “almost 275 million” monthly users. However, Zuckerberg did share that the company doesn’t expect meaningful revenue from the platform as we enter into 2025. But the platform is seeing more than one million sign-ups per day. Not too shabby.
More Stories
Microsoft Cloud Strength Drives First Quarter Results - microsoft.com
Microsoft says AI is on pace to be a $10 billion-a-year business - axios.com
Microsoft dips on weak guidance after beating on earnings - cnbc.com
Microsoft reported record earnings for the quarter with a net income of $24.7 billion and $65.6 billion in revenue, both exceeding analyst expectations. CEO Satya Nadella announced that the company’s AI business is expected to be the fastest product in its history to reach a $10 billion annual run rate showing just how much of a boost AI is bringing to the table. The quarterly filing also detailed that Microsoft has made “total funding commitments of $13 billion” to OpenAI, confirming the size and scope of its investments in the powerhouse AI company.
The stock market responded with a sharp 6% drop at the time of this newsletter, amounting to the worst day on Wall Street since October 2022. So why the strong negative reaction in Wall Street? Namely, lower-than-expected revenue guidance for the following quarter. The company forecasted revenue between $68.1 billion to $69.1 billion which fell short of analyst expectations of $69.83 billion. You just can’t keep them happy, can you?
Samsung says it is making headway in AI chip supply after disappointing results - reuters.com
Samsung Profit Beats Expectations but Chip Business Sags - morningstar.com
Samsung could launch its 'extended reality' wearable device next year - engadget.com
Samsung Electronics also reported its Q3 2024 financial results and it looks like its chips business has seen better days. The company marginally beat estimates with 9.2 trillion won in profit for the quarter, while the chip division saw a 40% drop in profit from Q2 landing at 3.9 trillion won. Its mobile devices business also saw a drop from 3.3 trillion won one year ago to 2.8 trillion won for the quarter. Earlier this month, Samsung had released an apology in advance to investors where it acknowledged delays in shipping its memory products to AI-chip makers like Nvidia, so the earnings weren’t a complete surprise.
Regarding its hardware portfolio, the company did reveal it’s intentions to “improve connectivity among products, including upcoming XR devices, to further elevate user experiences in the Galaxy ecosystem." Also mentioned was development of a more affordable foldable phone in the future.
Comcast Sales, Profit Beat Estimates After Olympics Boost - bloomberg.com
Comcast reported third-quarter sale and profit that exceeded analyst’s expectations with a revenue boost of 6.5% to $32.1 billion. While the company gained 319,000 new wireless phone plan customers, it saw 365,000 cable TV customers wave goodbye as well as 87,000 internet customers, many of whom responding to the end of the Affordable Connectivity Program.
The Summer Olympics brought in $1.4 billion in ad revenue for NBCUniversal. Peacock saw 3 million new customers for the quarter as well, brining the total up to 36 million. Still, that division is losing money with a $436 million loss in the quarter.
Roku forecasts fourth-quarter core profit below estimates; shares drop - reuters.com
OK, last earnings report, I promise: Roku reported its financial forecast while beating analyst expectations with revenue of $1.06 billion for the quarter. Roku’s platform revenue, its biggest source, grew for the quarter by 15% to reach $908 million. It’s forecast, however, isn’t as rosy falling short of analyst’s estimations at $30 million which could be attributed to high operational costs in plans to increase headcount in the coming year. Wall Street responded with a 10% drop in share value during extended trading after the report.
Apple updates the MacBook Pro with M4 Pro and M4 Max chips - theverge.com
OK! We made it! Let’s talk about non-earnings stuff. Apple is rounding out its Mac Week refresh with the announcement of three new MacBook Pros with M4 Pro and M4 Max chips. The entry level 14-inch model gets a handful of upgrades, with the M4 chip, another Thunderbolt port, a Space Black colorway, and 16GB of RAM at minimum. That laptop starts at $1,599.
The 14-inch and 16-inch M4 Pro/Max models bring the base RAM up to 24GB and include, for the first time, Thunderbolt 5 ports. These Pros start at $1,999 for the 14-inch and $2,499 for the 16-inch.
All new MacBook Pros have the option of being configured with a new nano-texture display for reduced glare and reflections along with up to 1600nits of peak brightness.
They are available for pre-order now with availability on November 8.
OpenAI Brings Search Features to ChatGPT in Challenge to Google - bloomberg.com
OpenAI is officially rolling search capabilities into its flagship product, ChatGPT. The new option, called ChatGPT Search, allows users to search for up to the minute information from news publishers and other online data sources with in-line attribution added. Based on the GPT4o model, responses can be interacted with in the same way that users have come to expect from LLMs like ChatGPT including summaries of events and conversational Q&A. The output can show maps for location-based queries and display previews of the sources themselves when appropriate.
OpenAI has secured a number of licensing deals to make this happen, including News Corp., Time Magazine, Axel Springer SE, and Le Monde. Any website or publisher can also choose to appear in ChatGPT Search beyond those partnered companies.
ChatGPT Plus and Team users can begin to use the new search product today on mobile and web with OpenAI’s enterprise and educational customers receiving the update sometime in the next few months.
OnePlus 13 arrives with Snapdragon 8 Elite and 6,000 mAh battery - gsmarena.com
OnePlus officially announced its next flagship after weeks of slow-dripping news. The OnePlus 13 is powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite processor, has a revised vapor cooling system, and a massive 6,000mAh silicon carbon battery which means better battery efficiency while keeping the device thin. OnePlus also transitioned away from its optical fingerprint sensor to a new ultrasonic sensor under the display for better unlocking performance with wet fingers and in low light conditions. The OnePlus 13 will be available in China in November with a global release sometime in the following months.
Temu to be investigated by EU tech regulators over sale of illegal products - reuters.com
The European Union has opened a formal proceeding against Temu, the Chinese low-cost ecommerce platform. The EU is concerned with the sale of illegal products that can potentially be harmful and out of compliance with EU standards. The EU is also concerned with the gamification of shopping within the app and its impact on mental wellbeing. Temu stated that it takes the Digital Services Act obligations seriously and will cooperate fully with regulators.
South Korea’s chip Production Falls for First Time in 14 Months - bloomberg.com
Children with Android phones will be able to use Google Wallet’s tap-to-pay next year - engadget.com
Tap-to-pay is coming to the kids. Google Wallet will bring this capability to children’s phones via Google’s Family Link service. This comes after the feature was brought to Fitbit Ace LTE devices to positive response. When installed on a child’s phone, they would be required to authenticate in order to make a purchase. It will support gift cards and event tickets once it launches sometime next year.
Interesting Reads
Nintendo made a music streaming app for Switch Online subscribers - theverge.com
South Korea’s chip Production Falls for First Time in 14 Months - bloomberg.com
Spooky Scary Earnings Calls