While Covid-19 has sent economies world over on a slippery slope and companies are either shutting down or deep–pruning their wings, one sector seems to be on a boom; and US lawmakers are worried that like the gun lobby and the power of tobacco companies, tech companies may dominate life and everything around it.

It is in this backdrop that top tech executives appeared together for the first time at an antitrust hearing in the US.

Chief executives of Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon testified before the members of the US Congressional panel on whether their dominance has harmed the economy, stymied rivals and left consumers hapless in a choiceless world.

Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Tim Cook of Apple, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Sundar Pichai of Google spoke by videoconference as members of Congress met in person on Capitol Hill.

Obviously, all of them denied those claims.

The hearing marked the end of a year-long investigation into the companies by a committee of lawmakers. Many federal and state antitrust officials are also investigating the tech giants.

In a series, we bring you excerpts of what transpired before the House Antitrust Subcommittee on Wednesday:

Apple’s no commission claim has a few cracks that’s showing

Putting up a strong defence in his sworn testimony, Tim Cook backed the company’s App Store commission structure claiming that the majority of the apps pay no commission at all; however, with others it is either 15 or 30 percent, based on the specifics of their particular situation. He said developers were all treated equally and that Apple wouldn’t raise commissions, because it had to compete for developer interest in its platform as well.

But the House Subcommittee had its own version. The documents shared by the subcommittee as part of their investigation clearly shows that exceptions to Apple’s rules have been made — notably, with Amazon’s Prime Video app. In addition, the subcommittee said Apple may have never raised commissions, but discussions were not ruled out. It had once even considered raising commissions to 40% in particular situations.

The lawmakers were deeply armed with a huge bunch of internal Apple emails and interviews from App Store developers who said that Apple doesn’t uniformly enforce its rules and has its own darlings.

But their quizzing of Cook over App Store fees seemed to initially reveal little in terms of new information about Apple’s practices.

Cook deep-emphasised that 84% of App Store apps pay nothing to Apple in commissions. It’s the remaining 16% that pay.

Lawmakers wanted to know if Apple was the sole decider on what gets published on the App Store and Cook agreed that it was. Since the App Store was a “feature of the iPhone, much like the Camera and the chip is.” He further clarified that Apple’s control over apps only extended to native software applications, not web apps, but denied Apple treated developers unfairly.

“We treat every developer the same. We have open and transparent rules,” Cook said, in his testimony. “It’s a rigorous process, because we care so deeply about privacy and security and quality. We do look at every app before it goes on,” he added.

But that may not be the solemn truth. Emails in 2016 between Apple SVP Eddy Cue and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos show that Apple negotiated a special deal with Amazon over its Amazon Prime Video app for iOS and Apple TV.  In an email dated Nov. 2016 — before the 2017 launch of the Prime Video tvOS app —  Apple agreed to take only a 15% revenue share for customers that signed up in the app using Apple’s payment mechanism. 

The details were shared on the House Judiciary Committee’s website. 

In April this year, Apple confirmed it had a special package for Prime Video and a small handful of other apps, which were subscription video entertainment providers.

The lawmakers wanted to know whether there was anything that could stop Apple from raising commissions. Cook responded saying Apple had never increased commissions since day one. Moreover, he argued that competition for developer interest would stop it from raising its cut.

“There is a competition for developers, just like there’s a competition for customers. And so the competition for developers — they write their apps for Android or Windows or Xbox or Playstation,” said Cook. “We have fierce competition on the developer side and the customer side which is essential — it’s so competitive, I would describe it as a street fight for market share in the smartphone business,” he added.

But in internal emails from 2011, Apple did discuss raising commissions — all the way to 40% for the first year of recurring subscriptions. 

Tech CEOs Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook, Sundar Pichai and Mark Zuckerberg visited Capitol Hill to discuss their companies’ dominance in the tech market. (Video: Jhaan Elker/Photo: Graeme Jennings/Pool via AP/The Washington Post)

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In a surge, the S&P 500 rose almost 1 percent to enter into positive territory for 2020. While Amazon jumped nearly 8 percent, Citrix Systems, Microsoft and Adobe were among the best-performing stocks in the S&P 500.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite rose 2.5 percent.

Lawmakers have returned to Washington to discuss the fourth bailout package, which is expected to be massive, since the virus wiped out large chunks of the US economy earlier this year.

The House, controlled by Democrats, wants $3 trillion in aid, while the Republican-controlled Senate appears to want something around $1 trillion.

Not just tech stocks; energy stocks also climbed after Chevron announced acquisition of Noble Energy, a Houston-based oil and gas explorer for $5 billion.

This isn’t the first time this year that Wall Street has clawed its way back into positive territory. It did so in June, before the coronavirus pandemic began to spike again in parts of the United States and other countries, sending shares lower again.

Companies are expected to release their results for the three months through June. Earnings reports are expected from Microsoft, Chipotle, Hershey and United Airlines, among  others.

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Amazon is keen on pushing its music service through its voice-controlled, intelligent personal assistant Alexa. Amazon’s Echo and Echo Dot smart speakers use Alexa for voice control.

Amazon will begin by offering music in ten languages like English, Hindi, Tamil

Amazon will begin by offering music in ten languages like English, Hindi, Tamil, without any additional costs for Prime members who pay a subsidized annual fee of Rs 999. Users can also download songs without any additional charges and enjoy ad-free listening, said Sean McMullan, head of international expansion for Amazon Music. He told that voice-controlled devices like Alexa were transforming the way people consumed music. We are moving from streaming music on our mobile phones to voice-based streaming, he said. Amazon Music will be made available on Android, iOS, Amazon Fire TV an Echo devices.

Amazon India captured the streaming media market in India with the launch of Prime Video in India. Amazon’s Prime Video was included with the Prime membership which offers free shipping, one-day and two-day deliveries, among others.

The Prime Music service will provide access to unlimited ad-free music streaming across various genres and languages. With this, the Amazon Prime can be termed as one of the best value for money proposition when it comes to media streaming services.

The launch of the Prime Music service in India comes just after Amazon increased the price of Prime membership from ₹499 to ₹999 — after an introductory period of about one year.

In the last few years, global players like Apple Music, Google Music have entered the India market

Along with Gaana, another domestic music streaming service, which is largely dependent on advertising revenue, is Saavn, backed by Tiger Global and other investors. In the last few years, global players like Apple Music, Google Music, and now Amazon have entered the India market which charge a subscription fee. Amazon Music is a paid product in the US where it competes with the like of Spotify. It is available across 30 countries globally.

In terms of music streaming services, Amazon ranks third globally, with over 16 million paid subscribers. Indian operation will surely help Amazon to garner more subscribers.

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Six years after it lost the crown to Apple Inc., Google Inc. has reclaimed the title of the most valuable brand in the world. For Android fans, the reversal of fortune is especially gratifying given that much of Apple’s luster was largely due to the success of its iPhone.

“Google won out mainly because Apple’s fall was even more dramatic. The iPhone company saw its value drop by 26%,” said HowMuch.Net.

As of 2017, Alphabet’s GOOGL, +0.13% GOOG, +0.15%  Google brand is worth $109.47 billion, and Apple AAPL, +1.30%  is valued at $107.14 billion.

See larger map

“The market is volatile and their survival is precarious. Huge, wealthy brands can stumble and shrink to a ghost of their former selves,” HowMuch said.

Brand value is more than just how much money companies are worth, according to the cost-estimating website. It also captures the abstract quality of how much confidence consumers have in the brand, as well as name recognition.

Following closely on Apple’s heels is Amazon.com Inc. AMZN, -0.02%  at $106.37 billion. AT&T Inc. T, +0.25%  comes in at fourth with $87.2 billion and Microsoft Corp.MSFT, +0.37%   rounds out the top five at $76.27 billion, underscoring the dominance and the prestige of U.S. brands across the globe.

Samsung 005930, +0.64% the Korean conglomerate that makes everything from Galaxy smartphones to apparel, was sixth with a brand value of $66.2 billion. The only other non-American brand to crack the top 10 list was Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, at $47.8 billion, Brand Finance data show.

Aside from the predominance of tech names in the U.S., banks were the most valuable in eight countries, although with the exception of Santander in Spain, most did not have much global recognition, according to HowMuch. Energy companies and telecommunication brands also popped up fairly often on the map.

Article Courtesy: Market Watch

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Delhi-based e-commerce major Snapdeal will fire between 1,000 and 3,000 employees in the next couple of months, according to a report by The Economic Times. This accounts for about 30 per cent of Snapdeal’s total workforce.

This is part of the company’s cost-cutiing exercise at a time when it is struggling to raise fresh funds and grow the business, due to intense competition from Amazon and Flipkart, who together hold more than 70 per cent of the total e-commerce marketshare in India.

According to this report, the decision will affect nearly 1,000 direct employees and 2,000 contracted employees working for its subsidiary and logistics unit Vulcan Express.

A few days ago, the company sent an email communication to managers in the marketplace operations to “right-size” their respective teams, added the ET report.

Snapdeal had last year handed ink slips to around 200 people.

Snapdeal, once the second largest e-commerce player in India, has been struggling over the last two years and lost marketshare to Amazon and Flipkart. Snapdeal, which had raised US$650 million in funding from SoftBank in 2014, has not been able to attract major investment after the growth slowed down.

Founded in 2010, Snapdeal was started as an online deals platform, which later pivoted to a full-fledged horizontal e-commerce company with a marketplace model in 2011. Owned by Jasper Infotech, it also counts among its investors companies like eBay, Kalaari Capital, Nexus Venture Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners, Intel Capital, Ratan Tata, BlackRock, Temasek, Myriad Asset Management, Tybourne Capital, PremjiInvest and Saama Capital.

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CashKaro.com has released results and infographic of its annual survey titled ‘E-Shopping Revelations 2016’. The survey reports the ever-evolving preferences and behaviour of online shoppers in 2016.

The survey was conducted at a pan-India level and registered more than thousand respondents.

As per this survey, Amazon.in tops in quickest and hassle-free deliveries while Flipkart ranks number one in customer care service.

Key findings of the survey:

• E-commerce portals that offer the best customer care service
  Flipkart
  Amazon.in
• E-commerce platforms that have the quickest and hassle-free delivery
  Amazon.in
  Flipkart
• Payment wallets preferred to pay bills/recharge
  Paytm
  Freecharge
  Mobikwik
• 75% of respondents feel bank card offers add value to the overall sales and discounts. Compared to 2015, we saw bank card offers play a more important role in influencing buying decisions in 2016 and the discounts were also greater
• 59% of respondents think gift cards is a better and convenient way to gift someone
• 50% users feel brand videos/ads have a positive impact on their purchasing decision
• 60% of users like receiving offers from e-commerce sites on their social media accounts like Facebook and Twitter
• 55% of respondents agree that subscription-based services like Amazon Prime, Flipkart First, Snapdeal Gold etc. enhance online shopping experience, though 20% said they would not subscribe to the same
• Compared to last year, 75% have started shopping for daily items/groceries more online now
• Desktop is still the most preferred platform to shop online with 60% of the respondents using the same. Though with increased use of smartphones, 40% of the respondents are transacting via mobile now.

On the survey, Swati Bhargava, Co-founder of CashKaro.com, said: “CashKaro survey is a reflection of how buying habits of the Indian online shopper are changing and increasing importance of softer aspects like fast delivery, prompt customer service, discounts and cashbacks. 2016 was an eventful year for Indian e-commerce.”

“The advent of subscription- based services like Amazon Prime, Flipkart First, Snapdeal Gold etc. helped in enhancing shopping experience while cashback offers became mainstream. Post demonetisation, we saw a great increase in the use of payment wallets and also witnessed an increased number of users using Cashback sites like CashKaro to save on their daily transactions,” she added.

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