Amazon misses sales estimates despite skyrocketing profits October 25, 2018 E-commerce giant Amazon missed consensus sales estimates as it reported its third quarterly earnings tonight, taking its share price down more than six per cent in after-hours trading. Net sales for the quarter rose 29 per cent year-on-year from $43.7bn to $56.6bn (£49.8bn), narrowly missing estimates of $57bn as collated by S&P Global Market Intelligence [...]
Ranked: Sports Direct tops poll of UK’s most loathed brands October 23, 2018 House of Fraser owner Sports Direct is the UK’s most loathed brand, according to consumer finance website Money Saving Expert. However, billionaire Mike Ashley's bottom-placed retail giant may have been hurt by a social media campaign against the company, admitted the website, which asked 7,600 readers to rank 52 household name brands. Read more: Mike [...]
A luddite levy on online shopping won’t help the high street October 23, 2018 Time and time again over the past few months, we’ve heard prominent figures in the retail world call for a special sales tax on online companies to help prop up their struggling sector, from the Tesco chief executive Dave Lewis, to the New West End Company that represents Selfridges and Marks & Spencer. Chancellor Philip [...]
Tech giant Alibaba opens two cloud data centres in the UK October 22, 2018 E-commerce giant Alibaba's cloud arm has opened two data centres in London, signalling the firm's first official expansion to British shores. The centres will power Alibaba's cloud services in the UK, allowing it to effectively disseminate its services to British businesses as it seeks to compete with rivals Amazon Web Services, Google and Microsoft. The [...]
Technology is set to be this week’s hottest ticket on Wall Street as its biggest leaders go head-to-head October 21, 2018 This Thursday is set to be a battle of the technology heavyweights, as behemoths Amazon, Alphabet, Snap and Twitter all report their quarterly results. Both Amazon and Alphabet, the parent company of Google, trounced consensus estimates last quarter, with Amazon truly shaking up the game on Wall Street with earnings per share rising over 1,157 per cent [...]
Amazon ramps up UK investment with commitment to over 1,000 new jobs October 19, 2018 E-commerce giant Amazon is set to further cement its commitment to the UK, after it revealed plans tonight for a new research centre in Manchester and expansion in Edinburgh and Cambridge which will create over 1,000 new highly-skilled jobs in the country in 2019. Labelled by the firm as “Silicon Valley jobs in Britain”, the [...]
Loot boxes, video games, and others ways the gaming industry wants you to spend more money October 18, 2018 What do you get when you buy a game? You might think that, after spending hundreds of pounds on a PlayStation or Xbox console, or an expensive gaming PC, then another £50 on the latest release, you’re getting a full and complete experience. But that’s not necessarily the case. Games are very expensive to [...]
E-commerce demand helps boost rent for logistics warehouse giant Segro October 17, 2018 Warehouse property giant Segro’s rental income soared 43 per cent in the nine months to the end of September, amid burgeoning demand for new space from fast-growing e-commerce firms. The Slough-based FTSE 100 company, which is one of the UK’s largest listed property firms, said headline rent for the period hit £52m, rising from £36.4m [...]
With Amazon’s ‘sexist’ algorithm under fire, will AI ever be able to be an unbiased decision-maker? October 15, 2018 With Amazon’s ‘sexist’ algorithm under fire, will AI ever be able to be an unbiased decision-maker? Daniel Gilbert, founder and chief executive of Brainlabs, says YES. Some artificial intelligence (AI) will continue to use biased data; there’s a lot of it out there. But both the innovators in this space and regulation in AI ethics [...]
Sears caves to bankruptcy as widespread store closures loom October 15, 2018 It was once the world’s largest retailer. Now, US department store chain Sears has filed for bankruptcy, losing a fight for survival in a fresh sign of the tough retail conditions hitting high street giants. The 125-year-old company said this morning that it plans to close 142 of its 500 stores, having just recently closed [...]