Christmas devices 🎄
Dorsey's curveball, fresh lockdowns, and mo stimulus.
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What’s hot bruh? ☕
1️⃣ Jammed up stimulus—the $600 per person pittance of a stimulus that American politicians cobbled up for their citizens received a shameful backlash, with Trump refusing to sign the bill that the legislators put in front of him, and instead demanding for a revised amount of $2,000 per citizen. Long shot, but if the demands do go through, consumer spending could boom and markets could see another solid run, with even Indian companies that supply goods to the US reaping harvest near term.
2️⃣ More buyers for mutual funds—despite being a gut wrenching year in the markets, nearly 66 lakh new Indian investors piled into mutual funds in 2020. Assets under management this year soared to nearly 30 lakh crores, up 13% compared to 2019. However, 2019 had added nearly 99 lakh new portfolios, so this year’s expansion is a bit underwhelming.
2020 — the year when we all bought new laptops 💻
A hard shift to distance learning and remote working initiated in the wake of the pandemic has forced more people to upgrade their old, slow, hot-as-a-furnace devices, making 2020 a record year for the PC and electronic hardware manufacturing ecosystem.
Analysts suggest nearly 300 million units of PCs (laptops + desktops) will be shipped this year, up nearly 15% compared to last year. Growth may seem meh to the unassuming, but until last year, PCs were literally staring at a death sentence — with people not upgrading devices that often, and abandoning bulky steps in favor of modular tablets for home-computing needs. Then tides suddenly turned with lockdowns.
The demand has now caused jams in supply chains, with factory lines struggling and manufacturers barely able to fulfil orders. Analysts are now expecting the tailwinds to sustain for at least 2-3 more years. The market leaders are naturally winning big — stocks of companies like HP, Dell, and even Apple have nearly doubled on the year.
Bottomline: with vaccinations prolonging, education getting comfortable with remote delivery, and workers opting for hybrid work environments, the entire hardware semiconductor industry is eyeing a record boom in device as well as component sales.
Fintech and culture wars 😎
Jack Dorsey threw everyone a Christmas-time puzzle, with news breaking out that Square is looking to buy a music streaming service Tidal, which is owned by pop star Jay Z. Square, basically a payment platform for small merchants, buying a music streaming app? TF.
Markets have been busy to try and decode the strategy. All clues point to the pop-culture dipped marketing strategy adopted by Cash App to rise to prominence overnight (Cash App is a consumer payment app owned by Square in the US similar to PayTM in India).
For the past year or so, abandoning mainstream marketing tactics, Cash App had been audaciously working with pop stars and famous sports personalities, influencers, celebs to lead a whacky marketing campaign online. Leveraging shouts, giveaways of bitcoin, custom merch and sneakers -- growth hacks highly unusual for a fintech venture, Cash app somehow managed to shore up tens of millions of users in a couple years. Does this acquisition somehow tie into that?
Meanwhile, some analysts claim Cash App wants to allow consumers to pay for music using Bitcoin, bringing their first-app use case for crypto to the market. Completely believable.
Regardless, as consumer attention becomes scarce, technology companies are increasingly looking at cultural hooks to drive mass messaging and acquire consumer buy-in. Cash App, which is slowly turning into a one-stop platform for all financial needs including investing, banking, crypto, has a tough job ahead of itself and innovating outside the box is the only way they can thrive.
Closing out — boosting women entrepreneurs 💪
Last year, Google ran a micro-accelerator to help 10 rural Indian women to scale their businesses, connecting them with the resources necessary to do so. The program was an instant hit and Google’s back with a lot more this time, joining hands with Sheroes and bringing a 6-month immersive program more widely to 500 women entrepreneurs.
In addition to capital support, entrepreneurs will be connected with experts, mentors, and urban women entrepreneurs to complement their skills and facilitate knowledge sharing. Digital skills and early growth online will be given priority in training. Bravo!
Tweet of the day 🐦
What else are we snackin’ 🍿
🌪️ History at its best - Archaeologists uncovered an ancient food stall that was buried in gushing lava back in 79 AD when the city of Pompeii was destroyed in a volcanic eruption. Stains of food were found in the pots and beautiful art which could’ve been the food menu adorns the walls. Surreal.
🔐 Japan out with lockdowns - the new mutant strain discovered in Japan has forced the country to lock its borders to foreign citizens. Global economic conditions are staring at another jolt.
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