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Is Apple Pay A Success?
June 13, 2016 by admin
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Over a year ago after Apple Pay took the United States by storm, the smartphone giant has made only tiny ripple in the global payments market, hindered by technical challenges, low consumer take-up and resistance from banks.
The service is available in six countries and among a limited range of banks, though in recent weeks Apple has added four banks to its sole Singapore partner American Express; Australia and New Zealand Banking Group in Australia; and Canada’s five big banks.
Apple Pay usage totaled $10.9 billion last year, the vast majority of that in the United States. That is less than the annual volume of transactions in Kenya, a mobile payments pioneer, according to research firm Timetric.
And its global turnover is a drop in the bucket in China, where Internet giants Alibaba and Tencent dominate the world’s biggest mobile payments market – with an estimated $1 trillion worth of mobile transactions last year, according to iResearch data.
Anecdotal evidence from Britain, China and Australia suggests Apple Pay is popular with core Apple followers, but the quality of service, and interest in it, varies significantly.
To use Apple Pay, consumers tap their iPhone over payment terminals to buy coffee, train tickets and other services. It can be also used at vending machines that accept contactless payments.
Apple Pay transactions were a fraction of the $84.5 billion in iPhone sales for the six months to March, which accounted for two-thirds of Apple’s total revenue.
Apple has leveraged its huge U.S. user base to push Pay, but has met resistance in Australia, Britain and Canada where banks are building their own products.
“Payments in general is such a complicated system with so many incumbent providers that revolutionary change like this was not going to happen very quickly,” said Joshua Gilbert, an analyst at First Annapolis Consulting.
The upshot: Apple has rolled out Pay in a dribble, adding countries and partners where it can – Hong Kong is expected to be added next – resulting in an uneven banking landscape with users and retail staff not always sure what will work and how.
Source- http://www.thegurureview.net/mobile-category/apple-pay-struggling-to-gain-traction-outside-u-s.html
Does Yahoo Have a Buyer?
December 8, 2011 by admin
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Blackstone Group and Bain Capital are putting together a bid for all of Yahoo Inc with Asian partners in a deal that could value the Internet company at about $25 billion, a source familiar with the discussions said on Wednesday.
The potential bid by the group, which would include China’s Alibaba Group and Japan’s Softbank Corp, has not yet been finalized, the source and two other people familiar with the matter said.
Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, whose primary interest is in buying back a 40 percent stake owned by Yahoo, is keeping its options open and said it has not decided whether to participate in a bid for all of Yahoo.
“Alibaba Group has not made a decision to be part of a whole company bid for Yahoo,” Alibaba Group spokesman, John Spelich, said in an emailed statement on Wednesday.
Yahoo’s shares, which closed at $15.71 on the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday, gained 6.4 percent to $16.72 in after-hours trading, valuing the company at more than $20 billion.
Will AOL Merge With Yahoo?
October 18, 2011 by admin
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AOL is trying to engineer a merger with Yahoo in order to lower costs.
AOL’s CEO Tom Armstrong reportedly has been working hard to generate support from shareholders for a deal with Yahoo. According to Reuters, Armstrong is presenting the deal as an alternative to going it alone as an internet media company in order to reap cost and advertising reach benefits.
Apparently Armstrong is claiming that a merger with Yahoo, which itself is at the centre of acquisition rumours, would bring in savings of between $1bn and $1.5bn by combining datacentres and consolidating content on areas such as news, sports, entertainment and finance.
Since AOL was spun out of its disastrous merger with Time Warner, the firm has been trying to remake itself into an internet media company by buying popular websites such as The Huffington Post and Techcrunch. While many question whether that is a workable plan, the financials can’t mask the deep trouble AOL is in, with the company reporting a $11.8m loss for the second quarter.
While talk of AOL being bought up has cooled considerably in the last few months, the firm still has a few worthwhile assets. According to Reuters’ sources, shareholders like the idea of merging with Yahoo but are not convinced that Armstrong can pull it off.