Strategy in TECH...
Last Friday, Amazon founder and now former CEO Jeff Bezos woke up the richest man in the world. He has been the richest man in the world for quite some time now. Yet when he went to bed Friday evening, he was no longer. And the reason that’s so should serve as a warning to you and all of us in the tech biz in 2021.
In new data from market researcher eMarketer, we learn more details on just how well e-commerce sales are doing both overall and for specific players such as Target and Amazon. It is pretty well known that as the pandemic rolled out in early Spring of 2020, Americans were thrust into quarantine and a 24/7/365 existence at home. This caused many to order their supplies from online retailers, even those consumers who had not previously ever purchased online before. Clearly, COVID was horrible for America (and the world) but good for the e-commerce business.
All online retailers did well, with companies like Walmart and Target seeing their e-commerce operations really gain some traction. But did some do better than others? Oh yeah…
Amazon.com Inc.’s secretive tech innovation development center, called Lab126, is said to be working on a more robust, step-up smart home control solution designed to be mounted into the wall, in a bid to take share in the custom integration channel. The move, first reported by Bloomberg News, is designed to take on major players such as SnapAV’s Control4 and other “professionally installed smart home control” providers.
This Friday, Sonos CEO Patrick Spence will testify before a Congressional committee (the House antitrust subcommittee) that is investigating the issue of competition in digital markets. Or, I should say, they are investigating whether the tech giants – Google, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, etc. – are engaging in anti-competitive activities in violation of the law. The Sonos CEO is likely to complain that Google is in fact anti-competitive. Spence’s appearance takes place literally just days after it has filed a major patent infringement lawsuit against Google – alleging that the tech giant stole its proprietary technology…making them a victim.
Amazon has announced that the end-of-life for its Dash button is rapidly approaching. If you’ve been dying to try it, better move quick – Amazon will completely disable the system just three short weeks from now on August 31st.
In a new survey by Reputation Institute on corporate reputation, known as the 2019 RepTrak 100, we see wild swings in tech brands’ reputation with consumer privacy concerns finally appearing to take a major toll. With an overall all-category average reputation rating increase of +0.8 points, technology as a segment saw its collective reputation drop by 1 full point on the scale.
But the news wasn’t all bad – movie king Netflix, Inc. jumped 23 spots to come in at #1 for the first time in their history.
At the urging the industry minister of Japan, the country’s Fair Trade Commission will look at a new program announced by Amazon Japan that some suggest may be anti-competitive in nature. Depending on the Commission’s findings, Amazon may be forced to abandon the idea, which is a form of a consumer rebate program.
The latest data from market research firm Strategy Analytics shows that Amazon is still the king of the smart speaker market – selling more smart speakers than anyone else. But the data also showed something else rather surprising – Google has substantially closed the gap between it and Amazon, coming within about 5.5% of Amazon’s market share numbers in the all-important fourth quarter selling season.
This week we learned that Amazon has acquired Eero, a start-up company that offers a mesh WiFi system. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the company does reveal what drew them to the still small, but rapidly growing Eero.
You will find more infographics at Statista
