The final week of April was stocked with surprises, from Alphabet and Amazon announcing record Profits in Q1 to the launch of Google developer scholarships in Nigeria.
Below we have curated some of the major stories around the globe you might have missed.
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Amazon makes record $26.9 billion during the pandemic
Amazon was one of a few companies that benefited from the pandemic, thanks to the rise of online shopping. In the company’s latest earnings release, it reported a $26.9 billion profit between April 2020 to March 31st 2021.
This is more than the $24.7 billion the company made in profit between 2017 to 2019.
The report shows that the company’s net sales have increased 44% from $75.5 billion in Q1 2020 to $108.5 billion in the first quarter of 2021. This is the 78th consecutive double-digit quarterly growth and marks Amazon’s highest growth rate since 2011.
Other parts of the report show that Amazon now has more than 200 million paying prime members and 32% revenue growth in its Amazon Web Services cloud division.
CES will return to Las Vegas in 2022
After the pandemic upended initial plans for last year CES, one of the biggest tech events in the world went virtual.
However, the events governing board, the CTA, have announced that the massive consumer electronic show will finally be returning physically in 2022. The CTA also says it will continue to have a digital element.
According to the release, the event is scheduled for January 5-8.
Since the announcement, roughly 1,000 companies have committed to returning. The list thus far includes big wigs like Amazon, AMD, AT&T, Daimler AG, Dell, Google, Hyundai, IBM, Intel, Lenovo, LG Electronics, Panasonic, Qualcomm, Samsung Electronics and Sony.
Nigeria hits $1.5bn in crypto trading
Despite the ban on cryptocurrency trading in Nigeria, Nigerians are still heavily trading cryptocurrency. Paxful an international exchange has revealed that Nigeria is one of its biggest market.
As of April 2021, the top four countries by volume on Paxful aside from Nigeria are China, the United States of America, India, and Kenya.
Globally, over $5 billion has been traded by six million users on the platform. Of that, Nigeria contributed $1.5 billion from about 1.5 million users.
Apple fined $12M by Russian regulator
iPhone maker, Apple has been fined $12 million by Russia’s antitrust regulator, the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) over complaints it unfairly cracked down on third-party parental control apps,
The fine comes in the same week that EU regulators are expected to issue charges of their own against Apple.
According to the FAS, an investigation started after receiving a complaint from Kaspersky Lab in March 2019, which claimed Apple had forced it to limit the functionality of its Safe Kids app shortly after Apple added the Screen Time feature to iOS 12.
The regulator has now pointed out that it wants Apple to take steps to ensure its own apps don’t have an unfair advantage. It also mandated that developers of parental control apps can distribute their software without having to limit its functionality.
In response, Apple said it disagrees with the regulator’s decision and will be issuing an appeal. “We worked with Kaspersky to get their app in compliance with rules that were put in place to protect children,” an Apple spokesperson said.
Spotify adds support for paid podcasts
In February, Spotify announced that it was now allowing podcasters to offer subscriber-only content, published through its Anchor podcasting software. This came a week after Apple announced support for paid podcast subscriptions.
Creators on Spotify can now choose from three subscription tiers — $2.99, $4.99 or $7.99 per month.
However, where Apple said it would take 30% of first-year subscriptions and 15% after that, Spotify says it will give 100% of revenue to podcasters for the first two years, then only charging a 5% fee starting in 2023.
You can check out other news that happened during the week here. Have a nice weekend!!
Source: TexhNext
