Delivery democratizes, Domino's loses
Hey Snackers,
We come bearing gifts: Free stock.
For Christmas in July, we’re giving away a free stock to Snackers who join Robinhood. Simply sign up for the commission-free, swipe-tastic stock trading app to get your free stock (it's selected from a pool of stocks like Fitbit, Lyft, or Microsoft).
Did we mention it’s a free stock? Get free stock.
Domino's earnings reveal cracks in its delivery dominance
Emphasis on the "no's"... Shares of Michigan-based Domino's (mozzarella is stretchier in the Midwest) fell 9% on word that sales growth slowed to just 3% for restaurants in the US (it was even worse internationally). Domino's tech-savviness helped it get pizza to people faster and shot the stock up over 3,300% in just 10 years. But now new technology is attacking it.
"Aggressive activity from 3rd-party delivery aggregators"... The Domino's CEO gave DoorDash, Postmates, Uber Eats, and GrubHub the Voldemort treatment — He dropped "3rd-party aggregators" 19 times in the earnings call with analysts yesterday. Instead of even mentioning the Big Four food delivery apps, he bemoaned the promotions they're all giving away to entice orders.
- The Big Four have democratized access to delivery from McDonald's to Chipotle to Sweetgreen to Shake Shack to a bodega.
- Domino's is trying to be more like the Silicon Valley darlings — it just added "track my pizza" with GPS.
Domino's isn't a pizza company — it's a delivery company... And the delivery competition is on its A-game. In the past, we were typically limited to pizza or Chinese when it came to staying in and ordering delivery. Now, the Big Four delivery apps have deconstructed that, and Domino's faces delivery competition from any place with a stove and plastic to-go containers.
Apple may be deep-diving into podcasts — because Spotify caught up (fast)
Pause... Apple is actually getting serious about podcasting after years of complacency. Bloomberg reported that the original home of the podcast is switching its strategy from reactive to proactive — it's contacting podcast producers, asking them to go exclusive with Apple: Shows only for Apple Music subscribers.
50%-70%... That's the share of podcast listens that happens in Apple's podcast app. The rest are divvied up between platforms (Stitcher, Google Music), so Apple got complacent. It didn't give creators much data about their listeners, and it didn't give listeners a great interface for audio enjoyment. Then Spotify started to catch up. Fast. Here's how:
- Big goals: CEO/Founder Daniel Ek announced he wanted 20% of listening on the streaming platform to be non-music content.
- Big acquisitions: So Spotify bought podcast producer Gimlet and its 29 original podcasts in February, followed by 2 other pod-cquisitions. It's committed $500M to the initiative.
- Big results: Spotify is now 2nd to Apple, jumping from near nothing to 10%-20% of listens.
- Spotify shares fell 2% Tuesday on word of Apple's moves.
Apple used to create, now it follows... With iPod, iPhone, iPad, and Siri, Apple built entirely new product categories. Now it's playing catch-up. Here are its recent 2nd-mover moves:
- Music streaming ➡️ Copied Spotify
- Apple TV+ streaming ➡️ Copied Netflix
- Beats & HomePod speaker ➡️ Copied Bose twice
- Original podcasts ➡️ It might just be copying Spotify again
3 Congressional hearings. 4 scrutinized tech giants
1 four-pack of shade... coming right up for Silicon Valley. The main event yesterday was David Marcus, Facebook's head of cryptocurrency, who suffered a grilling by the Senate (he hits the House tomorrow). But all 4 of America's tech-powered giants sent lambs to get questioned and criticized by elected officials.
- Facebook: Defending Zuck's new cryptocurrency, Marcus promised Libra wouldn't launch until it "fully addressed regulatory concerns." Politicians from both sides didn't like Facebook's crypto-moves given its marred privacy record. PS: Bitcoin dropped 10% on DC's overall anti-crypto tone.
- Google: President Trump said he would investigate whether Google has been infiltrated by the Chinese military. That's based on a claim from Peter Thiel (Facebook board member) that Google is an unpatriotic company engaged in treason.
- FB, Google, Apple, and Amazon: Execs from all four faced a different set of lawmakers who accused them of breaking rules set up to protect consumers from monopolies as well as for having a bias against conservatives in search results.
Despite the politi-hate, record highs... The stocks of all these companies are close to their record highs. They've scaled their business models across the world and kept growing as people in developing countries adopt smartphones and the internet. And 2+ years of tech as a political punching bag hasn't resulted in laws or policies to rein in profits.
What else we’re Snackin’
- Quenched: Blue Apron surges 36% on word of a partnership with Beyond Meat for plant-based meal kits
- Signed: IBM announced a deal worth 'billions' to host AT&T's business applications on its cloud
- Double-date: McDonald's snags a delivery deal with DoorDash — ending its exclusivity with Uber Eats
- Pwnd: EA falls 3% after losing the rights to Cristiano Ronaldo's team Juventus for its FIFA 20 game
- S'more: Nestle whips up a new type of chocolate bar without added sugar to stay on top of consumer tastes (it uses pulp from the cacao fruit)
Wednesday
- Earnings from Netflix, Bank of America and eBay
- Day #2 of Facebook's grilling on Capitol Hill over its Libra cryptocurrency
Disclosure: Authors of this Snacks own shares of Beyond Meat and Amazon
20190717-902096-2714075