Tesla, the world’s most famous electric vehicle giant, reported its first-quarter performance on April 20th, with impressive margins and increasing sales. The company detailed revenues of $18.76 billion and $2.86 in earnings per share, up from $10.389 billion in revenue and 93 cents in earnings per share in Q1 2021. On the company’s earnings call, CEO Elon Musk said the company plans to bring a dedicated robotaxi to market by 2024. The dedicated robotaxi will be highly optimized for autonomy, meaning it would not have a steering wheel or pedals.
Following the conclusion of their studies, many fresh law graduates apply to state and federal clerkships with the hopes of serving directly under a judge in preparation for a lucrative career. But how do these prestigious appointments impact law graduates’ earnings over the course of their careers? The number of law graduates has been steadily declining over the past decade. In fact, Law School Transparency – an advocacy group focusing on the legal profession – reports that the number of law school applicants has decreased by as much as 23% since 2010.
When we last dove into the performance of Walmart and Target, the writing was already on the wall – both brands were positioned for a strong 2022. And a few months into the year, it appears that this prediction – albeit not bold – was very much on point. Looking at visits for both retailers through the beginning of 2022 showed a significant year-over-year jump in visits. Walmart has averaged a 4.9% monthly visits increase compared to the equivalent months in 2021, while Target has seen a 6.1% average monthly increase.
The American Revolution. Isaac Newton discovering gravity. The Continental Congress adopting the Declaration of Independence. What do all of these events have in common? They happened after Friedrich Jacob Merck took control of the Engel-Apotheke, which would eventually become one of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical companies. If that name doesn’t ring a bell, maybe its current one does: Merck. Yes, that Merck—the same one that reported $48.7b in sales last year.
First-time downloads of ‘pandemic-winning’ mental wellness apps in the U.S were 15% lower this April than in April 2019. By contrast, downloads in April 2020 were up 21% YoY from April 2019, which kicked off investor interest in the category. From June 2020 to May 2021, Calm, Headspace, Noom and Talkspace raised $963M in private equity and venture funding. BetterHelp, which we also included in this market, has been privately held by Teladoc since 2016.
Monthly active users of the top entertainment ticketing apps in the United States are up 511% year-over-year in the first quarter. Remember the trauma from 2020 when all events, including Taylor Swift, Doja Cat, and BTS concerts, kept getting canceled or rescheduled? The ticket marketplace was the only industry that felt the pandemic induced frustration more than you did. As the global entertainment industry took a massive hit due to state-imposed lockdowns, event ticket resale companies witnessed a record fall in downloads and active users.
Off-price stores, which sell branded clothing at a discount, have overperformed compared to the wider apparel sector throughout the pandemic. Much like the grocery segment, this market seemed to thrive in an uncertain world. Now, with a new set of challenges – including inflation, gas prices, and supply-chain disruptions – impacting almost all retail segments, we checked in with the category to see how it’s holding up. When COVID’s retail impact first began, the future of retail seemed uncertain.
Over the last few months, rising inflation, soaring fuel prices, and additional rollbacks to COVID-19 restrictions (even as new waves of cases come in) have dramatically shifted consumer spending. In today’s Insight Flash, we look at how share of wallet across income groups has changed in the last few months. Over the last four weeks, the highest share of wallet skew has been among low income shoppers (those making less than $40,000 per year). This group has spent 3.8 times as large a percentage of their wallet on Dollar Stores as our panel average.
When indoor malls saw a return to growth in October 2021, there was a sense of a turning tide for one of the key institutions in brick and mortar retail. Yet, comparisons to pre-pandemic holiday seasons and the rise of Omicron alongside a myriad of other challenges stunted that development. The traffic declines continued into 2022, driven largely by those same factors. Yet, already in March, weekly data started showing a shift with visit rates improving amidst a trend of normalizing behaviors.
On Wednesday May 4, 2022 Marriott International, Inc. (MAR) posted better-than-expected revenues of 4.2bn surpassing the consensus estimate of $4.15bn or by +1.2% and in the same direction as Advan's forecasted sales. The revenue was up 81% YoY and in line with Advan's foot traffic data increase of 35% YoY at its properties for Q1 2022. As a result of beating the sales and EPS the stock closed at $181.24, +4.7% from previous close. Advan's footfall data has a correlation of 0.92 on a YoY basis with MAR's top-line revenue over the last 13 quarters.
TikTok’s users aren’t the only ones singing DJ Khaled and Migos’ “major bag alert” in 2022. Since TikTok introduced TikTok for Business, advertisers have been investing massively in the platform that has quickly become a household favorite among Gen Z users. To that point, Pathmatics data shows that the top 10 advertisers on TikTok have spent more than $126 million on the platform between January 1 and May 1, garnering over 12.6 billion impressions. Let’s dive into the top advertisers on TikTok by ad spend and how they are building engaging ad content on the app to target their audiences.
The Dodge Momentum Index (DMI) moved 6% higher in April to 164.8 (2000=100), up from the revised March reading of 155.0. The Momentum Index, issued by Dodge Construction Network, is a monthly measure of the initial report for nonresidential building projects in planning shown to lead construction spending for nonresidential buildings by a full year. In April, the commercial component of the Momentum Index rose 9%, while the institutional component moved 2% higher.
Amazon reported disappointing earnings last week, noting overcapacity in its supply chain as online retail sales fell and the company issued disappointing guidance for next quarter. In today’s Insight Flash, we dig into some of the dynamics behind the report, including looking at return purchase behavior for those who started shopping for products sold by Amazon.com during the COVID-19 pandemic versus earlier cohorts, where Amazon.com shoppers have been spending instead, and what US trends look like by income and age demographics.
In our most recent white paper, we took a closer look at the grocery sector. We examined how the recent economic shifts are impacting the industry and how consumer attitudes are changing two years into the pandemic. The grocery sector was widely considered one of the most resilient retail segments during the pandemic’s early period, and the strength continued in 2021. Year-over-year (YoY) and year-over-three-year (Yo3Y) foot traffic remained strong throughout much of last year, with Yo3Y performance peaking in July 2021 at 12.5%.
The gaming community has been familiar with the concept of ‘the metaverse’ with ROBLOX being the largest mainstream example today — ranking #1 for global consumer spend on mobile in 2021 and garnering over $4.5 billion in app store consumer spend as of Mar 31, 2022 to date — a testament to its widespread popularity. However, the concept of the metaverse extends beyond gaming. While the idea of shopping, marketing, and interacting with others in a virtual world may not be mainstream yet, tech giants like Meta (Facebook) are seemingly leading the charge and consumers and brands in other sectors are quickly jumping on board
Wholesale clubs experienced a sales boost early in the pandemic, as consumers rushed to stockpile pantry essentials and household goods. But how have wholesale clubs fared two years after the panic-buying rush? We looked at a few of the major wholesale club competitors—Costco Wholesale (NASDAQ: COST), BJ’s Wholesale (NYSE: BJ), and Walmart-owned Sam’s Club—to see how consumer spending has changed at these retailers. In addition to some wholesale clubs continuing to see strong growth in sales and average spend per customer throughout the pandemic, we also found that fuel sales through wholesale clubs skyrocketed in March 2022.
Pay transparency laws have become an increasingly popular tool to battle pay discrimination like the gender pay gap. Colorado implemented a policy requiring disclosure of salary ranges in job postings under the “Equal Pay for Equal Work” Act on January 1st, 2021. Other places, notably New York City, whose pay transparency policy was to be enacted starting on May 15th, 2022 but was postponed to November following pushback from businesses, are following suit.
In this Placer Bytes, we dive into the COVID recovery of two leading brands in their respective categories – Planet Fitness and AMC. The COVID surge in January may have caused Planet Fitness to miss out on its seasonal January boost, but the fitness leader’s more recent visit data has once again disproved the skeptics. Since February, visits have been on the rise, with March visits coming in far ahead of pre-pandemic levels.
According to a study by market research firm Mordor Intelligence, the global apparel market is forecasted to record a CAGR of 5.5% between 2020-2025. For apparel and accessories brands, this growth means ad spend increases as well as shifts in spend across formats as brands look to target their ideal buyers. It’s important to note that supply chain, sustainability and authenticity, and diversity representation will be sure to alter the apparel landscape, and subsequently, the advertising outlook in 2022.
As tech stocks cool off, the WSJ found speculative NFT investments are doing the same. Looking at market trends in Apptopia, we see net new installs of Veve Collectibles, an NFT marketplace and showroom, are down 99% since their high in mid-November. In-app purchase revenue for the app is down 90%. What are people purchasing on Veve? They're acquiring gems (the app's currency) which can then be exchanged for NFT collectibles on sale through the app.
