Good morning, world, and happy Tuesday!
We skipped a beat last week, when yours truly enjoyed the scale and scope of Dubai during a holiday (yes, sometimes I do take time off). Here’s some of the interesting stories that captured my attentioned.
Non-Travel Starters
Apple’s March gives us a glimpse of better tech in smaller packages. The Curpertino giant is going after the smart-phone mid-market, introducing the iPhone SE — the case of an iPhone 5S with the insides of a 6S, at a competitive $399 price (before subsidies). It also pushed for an iPad Pro at a 9.7" size, targeting the wider professional market, rather than just designers with the first version of the stylus iPad. Finally, Apple Pay is coming to desktop, now in a clear battle for the AFP (alternative forms of payments) space, where you don’t have to be an Apple user to use Apple pay.
Uber is sustainably losing $1 Billion a year in China, subsidized by the profits from the Top 30 cities where Uber operates, according to Travis Kalanick. From that comment, we can assume that the exponential growth and initial capital outlay to foster fast expansion might have bypassed the stage where Uber needs new fundraising rounds to grow at its previous pace. Wow — how do you compete with a self-financing ubergrowth company? Link.
Under the radar, Netflix is entirely changing content distribution and production. After going global a couple of months ago, new interesting facts emerge — Netflix’s US catalogue has shrunk by 31.7% over the last 2.5 years, or 2500 titles less than 2014. What’s significant here is the rise of Netflix’s own production — if previously HBO negotiated hard and didn’t give content to Netflix, now Netflix negotiates hard with HBO and other channels for their own super titles — House of Cards, Orange is the New Black, Narcos, etc. Would it be hard to imagine a vertically integrated company, owning production of content and its distribution? I’d say not. Link.
Snacks
Airports are starting to get more traction as enablers for carriers, rather than just passengers. Singapore’s Changi airport is now extending its self-connect program, allowing customers to book to separate tickets (usually two LCCs) to do their own connection via the airport. Historically, interlining (connecting two carriers) has been a prerogative of airline bilateral negotiation and GDS enablement, but now carriers need neither of those to allow passengers to connect, thus expanding the network without the heavy tech integrations and usually hard negotiations. Watch this space — self-connect // virtual interline will be the mode of network expansion in the future. Link.
Ctrip, the Chinese mega-agency which now owns Qunar and has investments in MakeMyTrip, continues to rise on strong accommodation revenues — 44% up YoY. Transporation (flights and other modes) are still the top earning item at the moment, but with focus on hotels, where the margins are bigger, we can see this change. Maybe that’s the player which will break the OTA duopoly of Expedia and Priceline. Link.
Hopper, in its current iteration a price-predictive app, raised $16M in an undisclosed valuation round. The company’s raised cash now stands at $38M and after years of refining and pivoting, the focus seems to be set on mobile and price prediction. The company’s app has been downloaded more than 3M times and according to Hopper and claims north of 95% accuracy on price prediction. Congrats to Fred and team! Link.
Airbus’s patents are a piece of art — after the recent detachable cabins, now the aircraft manufacturer focuses on engines on the side of the jet. Noise and safety aside, this could be the new form of the aircraft of the future. Link.
Dessert (or stats)
7,000,000: Number of UAV (unmanned aerial vehicles) or drones to hit the US skies by 2020, according to the FAA. Regulation there is needed, honestly. Link.
785,000: People who host or stay at a home via AirBnB every. single. day. Stat from Joe’s TED talk (link below).
70%: Binge-watchers on Netflix, according to a Deloitte study, defined as 5 episodes or more in one sitting. Funny enough, there are some people who watch an entire season that way. Now who says TV is dead? Maybe cable is, but big screen video consumption is going strong.
27: Hugely profitable companies in the US, who didn’t pay taxes due to intriguing legal and tax rules. Impressive. Link.
Some Cool Reading (Watching)
What’s the ultimate advertorial? The President of the US explains what AirBnB is during his historical trip to Cuba. (4 min). Link.
Staying with AirBnB, it’s other less known founder Joe Gebbia talks about overcoming the stranger-danger bias in how the company designs for trust. (15 min). Link.
A fellow Harvard and Government major dude, Tim Urban, explains how the mind of a master procrastinator works. Sweet 15 min for the procrastinators in you. Link.
I am fascinated by successful culture stories and I am currently reading Ray Dalio’s Principles — a self-published work by the founder of Bridgewater, the biggest hedge fund in the world. What a delight (at least a couple of hours). Link.
Design in Tech report — a great read, following the successful series of the Internet Trend reports, produced by KPCB. (20 min). Link.
//Expressed views and opinions are my own.
Photo Credit: National Geographic is amazing. Please share and give credit to their photographs and photographers. Here’s the link for your daily inspiration: http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photo-of-the-day/
