Who’s making money in Big Tech?
Illustration by Alex Castro / The VergeApple, Meta, Google, and more report how their companies are performing. Continue reading…
Konoly
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23957277/mdoying_180419_1777_0454_2.jpg)
Across the tech world, companies are still feeling pressure from some mixture of a rocky economy and their unexpectedly severe hangovers from the pandemic. Late last year, sales growth hit the brakes, and tens of thousands of newly hired employees suddenly found themselves at workplaces that weren’t seeing rocket-like growth. What followed next was layoffs, slashed product lines, and lots of contrite statements from executives as companies looked to steady their balance sheets and prove to investors that they were back on track to long-term growth.
As the tech world and beyond begin to report earnings for the start of 2023, we’re looking to see what happens next. Big companies like Meta, Amazon, and Microsoft will be asked to speak to what shape their companies take with their reduced headcount — and how long they expect it to be before business picks back up.
GM is ending Chevy Bolt EV and EUV production at the end of the year
Image: Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge
The end is nigh for the Chevy Bolt.
General Motors plans to end production of the Chevy Bolt EV and EUV at the end of 2023, GM CEO Mary Barra announced in an earnings call Tuesday. The company plans to use the capacity at its Orion Township, Michigan, assembly plant to build electric trucks starting in 2024.
Spotify passes 500 million monthly active users for the first time
Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge
Spotify says over half a billion people, 515 million to be exact, use its streaming service on a monthly basis as of March 31st. That’s an increase of 22 percent compared to last year, or 5 percent versus last quarter. Spotify said the user growth exceeded its guidance by 15 million, with CEO Daniel Ek commenting that the results represented the service’s second largest quarter of user growth in its history. Paid subscribers, meanwhile, now sit at 210 million, a 15 percent increase year-over-year.
The audio streaming service hit the milestone during a quarter of streamlining and cost cutting. In late January the company announced it would be laying off 6 percent of its global workforce, which is estimated to impact nearly 600 staff. More recently Spotify also announced that it’s shutting down a couple of side projects, including its Clubhouse-style Spotify Live audio app, and Wordle-style music game Heardle. CEO Daniel Ek said during the company’s last earnings call that Spotify’s key priorities for 2023 are “speed and efficiency.”
Elon Musk again promises full self-driving “this year.”
Twitter CEO and Tesla enthusiast:
“The trend is very clearly toward full self-driving. And I hesitate to say this, but I think we’ll do it this year.”
Sure, Elon. We’ve been hearing this since 2019.
Elon Musk announces Tesla Cybertruck delivery event in third quarter of 2023
Image: Getty
Tesla will have a delivery event for its long-delayed Cybertruck in the third quarter of 2023, Elon Musk said during an earnings call with investors Wednesday.
After more than three years since its initial announcement, Cybertruck production is expected to start this summer — though Musk has said that volume production won’t begin until next year.
Tesla’s rampant price cutting is taking a toll on its profits
Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge
Tesla published its first quarter earnings report in which the company said it earned $2.9 billion in net income on $23.3 billion in revenue. That represents a 24 percent increase year over year compared to $18.7 billion in revenue in Q1 2022.
Most importantly, the company’s gross margins fell to 19.3 percent, a sign that its rampant price cutting was starting to take a toll on its bottom line. Gross margins were down 18.9 percent quarter-over-quarter, and 33 percent year-over-year.
25 years later, Netflix finally won
Photo by Michael Tercha/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images
The DVDs were never the point. Even in 1998, when the company mailed its first DVD — the 1988 cult classic Beetlejuice, in case you’re wondering — it was already imagining a world without discs. The company was called Netflix, after all, not DVDsByMail. It started a streaming service practically as soon as internet bandwidth would allow and bet everything on the internet being much more powerful than physical media. It was extremely right.
Now, Netflix is officially getting out of the DVD business. The company announced along with its quarterly earnings that it is planning to shutter DVD.com, which is the new name for its DVD by mail business. (You might remember when Netflix tried to spin out this business under the name Qwikster, which remains one of the worst product names of all time and lasted all of about a week. But the less we talk about Qwikster, the better.) It will ship its last discs on September 29th, and I have a sneaking suspicion you won’t need to return them.
RIP Qwikster (September 19th, 2011 — October 10th, 2011).
Other than the DVD copy of Hot Rod that I didn’t send back for about a year and a half, the thing I’ll miss the most about Netflix’s DVD business is that weird month in 2011 when Netflix tried to break its business in two the first time.
Netflix is shutting down its original DVD business after 25 years
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Netflix, which started as a company that shipped DVDs by mail, is winding down its DVD business. It will ship its final discs from DVD.com on September 29th, the company announced on Tuesday.
“After an incredible 25 year run, we’ve decided to wind down DVD.com later this year,” Netflix said in a blog post. “Our goal has always been to provide the best service for our members but as the business continues to shrink that’s going to become increasingly difficult.”
