Daily Archives

We all know Lyft… as Uber’s most prominent competitor here in the United States, but Ola is Uber’s biggest competitor in India. So now, Ola may become a formidable ride-hailing firm in the United Kingdom, as well. The company has obtained licenses in Manchester and South Wales and plans to have people to ‘Ola-ing’ nationwide by the end of 2018.

London is where it’s at… and this is an area where Uber has struggled to maintain their license to continue operations. However, with 3.5 million riders and 45,000 drivers in the market, it is indeed worth fighting for. As it stands, London has declined to renew Uber’s license due to policy concerns.

And look out… because Ola is stepping outside of India to challenge Uber for the second time. The Indian ride-hailing firm moved into Australia last February and now has 40,000 drivers in seven cities there. Is it only a matter of time before we can call for an ‘Ola’ in North America? Uber hopes that isn’t the case – they have enough fires to put out, currently.

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If anyone could use less attention… it would be Elon Musk and Tesla. And yes – he is dead serious about taking Tesla private as many of you have probably heard. Every other day we hear about the company spending too much cash and failing to meet production targets. With such news, shares rise and plummet drastically, often on the same day. Tesla is also one of the most heavily shorted companies there is (i.e., everyone wants them to fail).

It is up to the investors… who need to vote on this matter for it to come true. There are also funding considerations – it would cost about $71 billion to go private. However, Musk is claiming to have financing secured for the deal (but no one knows who will be doing the financing).

You will still be able to invest… if the company does go private. Tesla would set up a special purpose fund to keep you invested. There is just one caveat – you can only buy and sell shares once every six months. With share prices that have swung from $244 in April to $390 in September, who knows what your investment will be worth over the course of six months. Stay tuned because this is one story that we will be watching very closely…

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Snapchat daily users were down… for the first time, but the company still saw a 44% increase in revenue compared to this time last year. This is mixed news for the company because the app still lost about 3 million daily users. Those users represent a 2% drop in daily users compared to the first quarter. The company’s 188 million daily users also came in at 5 million short of Wall Street’s expectation.

Snap is blaming it on… the app redesign. The redesign may have contributed, but let’s be real – more and more people are using Instagram for the same purpose. In fact, 400 million people use IG’s Story feature, which more than doubles Snapchat users. However, hopefully, the redesign will be worth it because Snap’s future depends on it.

On the bright side… old(er) people enjoyed the redesigned app. Snap reported that new user retention for people over 35 had grown more than 8% since the overhaul. Overall, it looks like the second quarter was filled with frustration and some optimism thrown in for Snapchat. The company was trading at around $13 per share ahead of the earnings report – a far cry from the $21 they were once going for.

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