TOP 5 STOCKS TO WATCH OUT FEBRUARY 23, 2021
1.SOFT BANK – WeWork co-founder and former Chief Executive Adam Neumann is nearing a settlement with SoftBank Group Corp that could include a nearly $500 million cut in his payout from the office space-sharing company’s new owner, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The settlement would put to rest a prolonged legal battle between Neumann and Softbank , which dates back to 2019 when WeWork’s IPO plans fell apart.
SoftBank had agreed in October 2019 to purchase around $3 billion in WeWork stock belonging to Neumann as well as current and former WeWork employees. SoftBank later contested its obligation to purchase the shares.
Under the new proposed terms, SoftBank would purchase around half the shares it had originally agreed to buy, the source said, requesting anonymity as the matter is private.
SoftBank declined to comment. WeWork was not immediately available for comment. The talks were reported earlier by the Wall Street Journal.
SoftBank, which poured more than $13.5 billion into WeWork, was pulled into a legal dispute with directors at WeWork after backing out of a $3 billion tender offer agreed when it bailed out the office-sharing firm following a flopped IPO attempt.
2. APPLE:- Apple Inc’s customers may end up spending more on non-gaming mobile apps by 2024, data analytics firm SensorTower said on Monday, as lockdown lifestyles result in users looking beyond games to apps that help with more essential services.
Downloads of business, education, health and fitness apps have seen a sharp spike due to the stay-at-home measures during the health crisis.
During the initial days of the pandemic, users spent more on mobile games in the App Store. But as lockdowns got extended, upending work life as well as the ways of communication, their attention shifted to photo and video-sharing, dating, video-conferencing and instant messaging apps.
Shares of companies such as Zoom Video Communications Inc and Match Group and other stay-at-home companies soared last year.
SensorTower said consumer spending on mobile apps will reach $270 billion in the next five years globally, a more than three-fold increase when compared with 2020.
Apple customers will outspend their Android counterparts with the App Store expected to generate $185 billion in global revenue, the data analytics firm said.
Games revenue will continue to take a relatively higher share on Google Play store than the App Store, with a projected 71% share from games in 2025 compared to 42% on the App Store, data showed.
The data analytics firm expects Europe to become a key market over the next five years, with revenue growth in the continent likely to outpace that in Asia and North America.
3. SPOTIFY :– Spotify said on Monday it would nearly double its market presence by launching in 85 new markets in the next few days, making the music streaming service available to more than a billion people around the world.
The company’s shares, which were down in early trading, reversed course to rise as much as 6% to a record high.
The Swedish company, which started its service more than a decade ago, is currently available in 93 countries and has 345 million monthly active users.
While Spotify is the leader in music streaming, entry in new countries across Asia, Africa, Europe and Latin America would significantly increase the gap with its rivals, Apple Music and Amazon Music.
“Together these markets represent more than a billion people, with nearly half of them already using the internet,” said Chief Premium Business Officer Alex Norstrom. “Some of the places we’re going like Bangladesh, Pakistan and Nigeria have the fastest growing internet populations in the world.”
An earlier expansion drive in India, Russia and the Middle East has already brought in millions of subscribers.
While paid subscribers got a boost during the coronavirus pandemic as people locked in their homes opted for its premium service, the company is now looking to boost its advertisement revenue.
In a one and half hour livestream featuring singing by Justin Bieber, Spotify released a host of new features for artists and tools for advertisers for better targeting its millions of users across music and podcasts.
4.GOOGLE:-Alphabet’s Google is negotiating individual licensing deals with a divided Spanish news industry that could allow the U.S. tech giant’s news service to resume in the country, three sources close to the matter told Reuters.
Google News, which links to third party content, closed in Spain in late 2014 in response to legislation which meant it had to pay a mandatory collective licensing fee to re-publish headlines or snippets of news.
Now the thorny issue is back on the table as Spain prepares to implement the 2019 European Union copyright directive by June. While that requires Google, Facebook and others to share revenue with publishers, the government could allow the companies to negotiate individual deals with content providers.
Spain’s Culture Ministry said the government was working on a draft bill, but declined to give further details.
Google News will only be back in Spain if publishers have the right to sign individual agreements under a new law, a Google Spain spokeswoman said, adding that a paid licence should not be mandatory.
5.HYUNDAI MOTORS:– Hyundai Motor Co launched its Ioniq 5 midsize crossover on Tuesday, the first in a planned family of electric vehicles (EV) that it hopes will propel it into the third rank of global EV makers by 2025.
The company says the model is based on a new electric vehicle-only platform that uses its own battery module technology and requires fewer components than Hyundai’s existing electric cars, enabling faster production at lower cost.
The launch of Ioniq 5 is the linchpin of Hyundai’s long-term goal to capture 10% of global EV sales by 2025, up from a combined market share of 7.2% for Hyundai and Kia together during the January-September period in 2020, according to industry tracker SNE Research. Hyundai Motor and its sister company Kia Corp together aim to sell 1 million EVs in 2025.
“We expect this year’s (global) EV demand will increase more than 30% versus last year,” Hyundai Motor President Chang Jae-hoon told a news conference.
The Ioniq 5 will have a maximum driving range of about 480 kms (298 miles), up nearly 20% from the Kona EV, which previously had the longest range among Hyundai’s EV lineup.
It will offer two battery pack options – 58-kilowatt-hour (kWh) or 72.6 kWh – and will be available in selected regions starting in the first half of 2021, Hyundai said in a statement. The South Korean automaker did not disclose the price of the Ioniq 5, but Hyundai Motor Europe President Michael Cole said in Europe it would start at about 42,000 euros ($51,100) before government incentives.
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