Alphabet Inc warned investors about a slew of new competitors, highlighting the company’s broad expansion beyond its original Google search business.
Alphabet named rivals, including Apple Inc, Netflix Inc and Hulu.com, while highlighting risks from new businesses, such as consumer hardware manufacturing, according to its latest annual report filed on Friday with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
Here are the top new competitive disclosures, gleaned from a comparison between Alphabet’s latest annual report and the filing from a year earlier:
‧ “Providers of digital video services, such as Facebook Inc, Netflix, Amazon and Hulu.”
Google’s YouTube has new paid subscription versions of its online video offering that compete more directly with the latter three companies. Executives were cautiously optimistic about this on an earnings call last week.
“[It] takes a while to build a subscription business here,” chief financial officer Ruth Porat said.
‧ “Digital assistant providers, such as Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Microsoft.”
Last year, the company launched its Google Assistant, a voice-based information service that Google hopes to embed in as many devices as possible. That competes against Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa and Microsoft’s Cortana. Facebook has a similar service in its Messenger app.
‧ “Providers of enterprise cloud services, including Amazon and Microsoft.”
This refers to Google’s cloud computing business, which executive Diane Greene is finally turning into a serious service for larger corporate customers. Alphabet mentioned the cloud in previous annual reports, but the focus on enterprise is new.
‧ “Companies that design, manufacture and market consumer electronics products.”
This likely refers to Google’s new suite of gadgets, including the Pixel smartphone and Home speaker. The smartphone makes it a rival to Apple and Android device makers like Samsung Electronics Co.
Alphabet’s latest annual report highlighted new manufacturing and supply-chain risks related to its in-house gadget push.
“We may enter into long term contracts that commit us to significant terms and conditions of supply. We may be liable for material and product that is not consumed due to market acceptance, technological change, obsolescences, quality, product recalls and warranty issues,” the company wrote.
Alphabet also disclosed the cost of marketing these new devices to potential buyers.
Total sales and marketing expenses increased by more than US$1.4 billion from 2015 to last year — mainly due to a US$679 million jump in advertising and promotional costs for Google’s hardware products, the filing said.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last