American car maker Ford has said it faced a loss on every EV it sold during the March quarter, while Meta reported billions in losses for its Metaverse arm. JPMorgan Chase CEO rings the alarm bells on geopolitical tensions —all this and more in the April 25 edition of World Street.
Ford Stalls
Ford Motor's net revenue for the first quarter fell over 24 percent, as the auto maker's combustion engine vehicle arm's revenue and sales declined. The car maker reported a revenue of $1.33 billion against $1.76 billion in the year-ago quarter. The auto player also reported a loss on every EV it sold, dragging revenue.
TikTok presses stop
TikTok scrapped its rewards programme which paid users to watch and engage with videos every day as EU raised concerns. TikTok Lite shelled out a small amount per user in "coins" for watching, liking or commenting on videos. These coins could be redeemed for Amazon vouchers or PayPal gift cards. The rewards amount to around 36 euro cents an hour.
Dimon's Caution
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said that while many Americans are fiscally sound, there are some geopolitical and economic threats that could act as pitfalls. “The geopolitical situation is probably the most complicated and dangerous since World War II," he said.
Dimon said he foresaw the potential of a soft-landing but was a little cautious about the outcome. However, the American consumers are in good shape, he said, even if a recession hits.
Crash To Reality
Mark Zuckerberg's rebrand of Facebook to Meta in 2021 has continued to cost the social-media giant billions of dollars. Meta's Reality Labs division, which heads its VR and research businesses, posted a loss of $3.8 billion for the March quarter. Despite pivoting to an AI-first approach, progress on the Metaverse is ongoing.
IMB Acquires HashiCorp
IBM shares sank nine percent in the after-trading session as the tech giant reported first-quarter revenue which came in lower than expected at $14.46 billion. IBM also announced that it would acquire cloud management vendor HashiCorp for $6.4 billion at $35 a share. "Combining IBM’s portfolio and expertise with HashiCorp’s capabilities and talent will create a comprehensive hybrid cloud platform designed for the AI era,” said Arvind Krishna, the CEO of IBM.
Face The Music
Spotify CEO Daniel Ek announced the largest rounds of layoffs in December. In the earnings call, discussing the first-quarter show, Ek said that he didn't anticipate how much the decision to fire 17 percent of the company's workforce would disrupt day-to-day operations. Spotify recorded a record profit of $179 million for the quarter.
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