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Rivian loses $1.45 billion as cost-cutting measures continue | TechCrunch

May 8, 2024 2:05 AM0


Rivian lost $1.45 billion in the first quarter, showing that its recent company-wide cost-cutting measures have a ways to go before it can approach profitability.

The EV-maker brought in $1.2 billion in revenue in the period, coming in just under its record haul from the prior quarter, according to its first-quarter earnings report that was released Tuesday after markets closed. That’s slightly more than the $1.16 billion expected by Yahoo Finance analysts. Rivian’s revenue grew 82% from the $661 million it generated in the first quarter in 2023.

Still, that wasn’t enough to assuage shareholders. Rivian’s shares fell more than 4% in after-hours trading.

The Q1 revenue figure, while showing growth year-over-year, reflected a somewhat tepid sales quarter. The company reported in April it produced 13,980 vehicles and delivered 13,588 of them in the first quarter of 2024. Both of those figures are down from the fourth quarter of 2023, where it built 17,541 and shipped 13,972.

Rivian reaffirmed on Tuesday that it plans to make around the same number of EVs as it did in 2023.

Rivian had an eventful first quarter that included a splashy reveal of its future R2 and R3 EV lineup as well as more belt tightening and layoffs. In February, Rivian laid off 10% of its workforce as the EV startup tried to rein in costs. This was the third round of layoffs for the EV company since July 2022, when Rivian cut 6% of its workforce. The company cut another 6% of jobs in February 2023.

This story is developing…


Software Development in Sri Lanka

Robotic Automations

Cloud revenue accelerates 21% to $76 billion for the latest earnings cycle | TechCrunch

May 4, 2024 5:24 AM0


If you were concerned about slowing cloud infrastructure growth for a time in 2023, you can finally relax: The cloud was back with a vengeance this quarter. The market as a whole was up a healthy $13.5 billion to $76 billion, up 21% over the first quarter in 2023, per Synergy Research.

That’s healthy growth by any measure.

If you’re wondering what’s driving the growth, you probably guessed that it’s related to generative AI and the copious amount of data required to build the underlying models. Whether it’s Microsoft’s close links to OpenAI, Google Cloud making a slew of AI announcements at its recent customer conference or Amazon’s infrastructure managing the data side of the equation, AI is driving lots of business for these vendors.

“There is a symbiotic relationship between the rapid advancement and adoption of AI and the scalable ‘Big 3’ cloud infrastructure providers,” said Rudina Seseri, founder and managing partner at Glasswing Ventures, a firm that invests heavily in AI startups. “AI actually makes the cloud providers more valuable. By creating more capabilities for computing through automation and augmentation within the enterprise, there is a corresponding increased demand for the underlying computational power provided by the Big 3 cloud infrastructure vendors, as evidenced by their immense growth in recent quarters.”

Seseri also sees the cloud vendors making it easier for startups to build on top of their infrastructure in the coming years. “For startups, many depend on the cloud providers, having built atop these immense platforms. I predict we will see immense investment in AI-optimized infrastructure by the major cloud platforms, as it is a key driver behind the sustained growth in cloud computing, which will make it easier to build AI platforms and products on the cloud,” she said.

And these companies are reaping the financial windfall for the newfound interest in this technology. Altimeter partner Jamin Ball reports that those rewards started coming in last quarter, and the ball kept on rolling into this one. Amazon cloud growth had dropped as low as 12% in Q2 and Q3 last year, climbing a bit to 13% in Q4. But the company really kicked it up a notch this quarter with revenue of $25 billion, up 17% over the prior year. That’s a $100 billion run rate, good for 31% market share.

Ball’s numbers indicate that Azure continues to kill it. The company now has 25% market share, good for a $76 billion run rate, up 31% over the previous year. Google is a strong third with 11% market share, up 28% YoY (although it’s important to note that Ball’s number includes Google Workspace, and Synergy’s numbers are only infrastructure and platform numbers).

Image Credits: Jamin Ball

The days of cost cutting in the cloud appear to be over. And although we probably aren’t going back to the heady growth numbers of 2021 and 2022, AI seems to be bringing a new wave of substantial growth to the cloud vendors.

“In terms of annualized run rate, we now have a $300 billion market, which is growing at 21% per year,” Synergy’s chief analyst John Dinsdale said in a statement. “We will not return to the growth rates seen prior to 2022, as the market has become too massive to grow that rapidly, but we will see the market continue to expand substantially. We are forecasting that it will double in size over the next four years.”

As companies’ continuing thirst for AI and the data management related to that grows, it seems that the cloud glory days are back. The growth may not be as gaudy as back in the day, but it’s still pretty darn good for a maturing industry sector, with all signs pointing to solid growth in the coming years.

Image Credits: Synergy Research


Software Development in Sri Lanka

Robotic Automations

Three things we learned about Apple's AI plans from its earnings | TechCrunch

May 4, 2024 12:35 AM0


Apple CEO Tim Cook didn’t give much away about the company’s AI plans on Thursday’s Q2 earnings call with investors, but he did confirm a few tidbits about how the tech giant plans to move forward with artificial intelligence.

Notably, his comments suggested that despite spending more than $100 billion on R&D over the last five years, Apple isn’t planning to spin up too many new data centers to run or train AI models. Instead, when it comes to AI, it will continue to pursue a “hybrid” approach, as it does with other cloud services, the company told investors.

AI will span devices beyond the iPhone

We also learned that Apple envisions AI as a key opportunity across the “vast majority” of the company’s device lineup, not just the iPhone. While we’ve known this for some time — after all, Apple has been calling its M3 MacBook Airs the “best consumer laptop for AI” — the company shouted out how AI is being used across its products on its earnings call.

“I think AI — generative AI and AI — both are big opportunities for us across our products, and we’ll talk more about it in the coming weeks. I think there are numerous ways there that are great for us, and we think that we’re well-positioned,” Cook said.

In addition to the MacBook Air, the Apple Watch uses AI and machine learning in features like its irregular heart rhythm notifications and fall detection, Cook noted. And when speaking about the enterprise, the CEO referenced big companies buying and exploring the use cases for Vision Pro, though he added that he wouldn’t want to “cabin that to AI only.”

“I would just say that we see generative AI as a very key opportunity across our products. And we believe that we have advantages that set us apart there,” Cook said.

AI won’t likely come up at the iPad event this month

However, customers itching to have an AI-powered Siri will have to wait a bit longer for that news, which has long been expected to be announced at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in June. When Cook was asked Thursday about how AI will affect consumer demand for new devices like iPhone, he responded that, with regard to generative AI, we wouldn’t see any impact “within the next quarter or so,” but said he was “extremely optimistic” about the technology.

Apple isn’t planning to make its bigger AI announcements before WWDC.

This discovery came about through a correction to a CNBC news story, which had misinterpreted a statement Cook made to seemingly indicate there would be “big plans to announce” from an “AI point of view” at both upcoming events, including next week’s iPad event and WWDC in June. But as subsequent corrections show (likely after a lashing by a frantic Apple comms team), Cook had paused before saying “… from an AI point of view …” which was the start of his next thought and not connected to Apple’s plans for both events.

The story was updated with this correction so people didn’t think AI news would be announced at the iPad event scheduled for May 7. (You can read through the backstory on the corrections here on 9to5Mac.)

While we didn’t expect to hear much if anything about AI until at least WWDC, this correction basically confirms that timing.

Apple iPad event 2024: Watch Apple unveil new iPads right here

Apple is taking a hybrid approach to AI investments

The biggest AI news, however, is something Cook said about Apple’s CapEx expenditures, which are funds spent on fixed assets, like servers and data centers, real estate and more.

While that’s not often the most interesting subject, this time the company’s response hinted toward Apple’s AI investment plans. As technology investor M.G. Siegler pointed out on his blog, Apple CFO Luca Maestri had answered a question about generative AI’s impact on Apple’s historical CapEx cadence by explaining that Apple pursues a hybrid model, “where we make some of the investments ourselves, in other cases we share them with our suppliers and partners …”

Plus, he added, Apple does “something similar on the data center side. We have our own data center capacity and then we use capacity from third parties.”

“It’s a model that has worked well for us historically, and we plan to continue along the same lines going forward,” Maestri said.

Siegler interpreted this to mean that Apple won’t need to spend on CapEx because Apple isn’t planning to immediately build and train LLMs (large language models) on its own servers.

And, if you squint a little, it could also be another signal that Apple could be looking at third parties to power its AI services. As Bloomberg reported in April, Apple has been holding discussions with ChatGPT maker OpenAI and Google to power an AI chatbot coming in an iOS 18 update.

With Apple confirming that its CapEx wouldn’t be affected by its near-term AI plans, it’s likely that Apple is planning to forge some sort of deal with partners for AI services in addition to what it can handle on-device and by itself. Whether Apple eventually shifts the balance to utilize more of its own servers and data centers over time still remains to be seen.

Apple earnings see 10% iPhone sales drop, massive buyback fuels stock jump

Apple WWDC 2024, set for June 10-14, promises to be ‘A(bsolutely) I(ncredible)’


Software Development in Sri Lanka

Robotic Automations

Apple earnings see 10% iPhones sales drop | TechCrunch

May 3, 2024 2:18 AM0


Apple on Thursday reported a 10% drop in iPhone sales for the second fiscal quarter, dropping from $51.3 billion to $45.9 billion, year-over-year. The slowdown was fueled, in part, by an 8% drop in China.

Apple’s slow adoption of AI versus competitors like Google and Microsoft likely played a role in consumers’ decision to hold off on purchasing a new iPhone. Apple has promised some big announcements on that front (likely at WWDC in June), but the iPhone 16 itself likely won’t arrive until fall.

In spite of those dire hardware figures, however, the company still managed to beat Wall Street expectations, fueled by both an increase on services revenue and a massive $110 billion stock buyback — a jump over last year’s $90 billion purchase.

Developing…


Software Development in Sri Lanka

Robotic Automations

Tesla profits drop 55%, company says EV sales 'under pressure' from hybrids | TechCrunch

April 24, 2024 2:00 AM0


Tesla profits fell 55% to $1.13 billion in the first quarter from the same year-ago period as a protracted EV price-cutting strategy continued to cut into the automaker’s bottom line.

The results, posted after markets closed Tuesday, sent shares up 7% immediately following the release. Tesla reported revenue of $21.3 billion in the first quarter, an 9% drop from the first quarter of 2023.

Analysts polled by Yahoo Finance expected earnings of $0.51 per share on $22.15 billion in revenue.

The company said in its Q1 earnings report that it experienced “numerous challenges in the first quarter, including from the Red Sea conflict and the arson attack at Gigafactory Berlin, to the gradual ramp of the updated Model 3 at its factory in Fremont, California. Tesla also noted that global EV sales continue to be under pressure as many carmakers prioritize hybrids over EVs.

Tesla has seen EV sales grow over the past several years, topping out to a new record of 1.8 million vehicles in 2023. But the company’s profits have suffered thanks to repeated price cuts that started in late 2022.

While those price cuts did provide a temporary bump in sales, it hasn’t had a lasting effect. Tesla delivered 386,810 vehicles in the first quarter of 2024, down 20% from the 484,507 it delivered in the final quarter of 2023. This wasn’t just a quarter-over-quarter blip either; Tesla delivered 8.5% fewer cars than the first quarter of 2023.

Tesla warned in January that growth of its vehicle sales “may be notably lower” in 2024, noting at that time it was between “two major growth waves” and prepping for the launch of a new vehicle platform to build a smaller EV that costs around $25,000. The company has also been prepping a “robotaxi” built on the same platform. In the meantime, Tesla’s only new model is the expensive (and fussy) Cybertruck.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said during the company’s earnings call in January the smaller and cheaper EV would go into production in late 2025 at the company’s factory in Texas and eventually expand to a yet-to-be-built factory in Mexico.

Three months later, Musk appears to have scrapped the company’s low-cost EV playbook. Musk paused those low-cost EV plans, opting instead to plow headlong into launching the robotaxi, which will be revealed in some capacity in August. Less than two weeks after announcing the robotaxi launch date, Musk oversaw a 10% reduction in headcount and a restructuring that puts autonomy in sharp focus.

Two high-profile executives — Drew Baglino, Tesla’s SVP of Powertrain and Energy, and Rohan Patel, VP of Public Policy and Business Development — also left the company.

This story is developing …


Software Development in Sri Lanka

Robotic Automations

Tesla earnings week spotlights EV price cuts, 'balls to the wall' autonomy push | TechCrunch

April 23, 2024 10:16 PM0


Tesla investors, still digesting a 43% drop in share price since the beginning of the year, are gearing up for what will likely be unimpressive financial results for the first quarter and a shift in priorities for CEO Elon Musk, who is making more moves to go “balls to the wall for autonomy.”

Tesla is expected to report earnings after markets close Tuesday. The company’s earnings call is scheduled for 5:30 pm ET.

Tesla shares rose Tuesday morning more than 2% ahead earnings, a brief rosy sign amid an otherwise downward trend that’s accelerated since early March. The falling share price comes as Musk pushes forward with a renewed focus on automated driving on two fronts: selling more customers on its advanced driver assistance system known as “Full Self-Driving,” or (FSD) and a moonshot effort to bring a robotaxi to market.

Over the weekend, Tesla dropped the price of its Full Self-Driving (FSD) advanced driver-assistance system to $8,000, down from $12,000. That price cut is in addition to last week’s drop of the FSD monthly subscription to $99, down from $199. The push to get FSD into more cars could be a bid to collect more data as Tesla works to boost the neural networks that will power fuller-scale autonomy. FSD today can perform many driving tasks in cities and on highways, but still requires a human to remain alert with their hands on the wheel in case the system requires a takeover.

Tesla faces narrowing profits as it places a major and expensive bet on autonomous driving technology. Last week, Tesla laid off 10% of its staff in a move to reduce costs in preparation for the company’s “next growth phase,” per an email Musk sent to all employees.

Earlier this month, Musk abruptly announced on X that Tesla was pausing the development of its $25,000 electric vehicle in favor of a robotaxi that he promised to reveal in August. Sources within Tesla have confirmed to TechCrunch that they didn’t have prior warning from Musk on this sudden shift and that internal restructurings reflect a new ethos that puts robotaxi development at front and center.

All of this is happening as Tesla zigzags on its EV pricing strategy.

Last week, Tesla ditched EV inventory price discounts, but over the weekend slashed prices on the Model 3 and Model Y by as much as $2,000 in the U.S., China and Germany. As we saw during the first quarter of 2023, those price cuts are taking their toll on Tesla’s income and margins.

The company will need to convince investors that its shift in priority to autonomous vehicles is a silver lining in the cloud of declining margins, rather than just smoke and mirrors.

What to expect at Tesla’s Q1 2024 earnings

Tesla’s lower first-quarter delivery figures combined with price cuts are ingredients for a smaller profit pie. And analysts seem to agree.

Analysts polled by Yahoo Finance expect a profit of $0.48 per share on $20.94 billion in revenue. As a reminder, Tesla generated $25.17 billion revenue in Q4 and $23.3 billion in the first quarter of 2023.

Tesla delivered 386,810 vehicles in the first quarter of 2024, down 20% from the 484,507 it delivered in the final quarter of 2023. It’s worth noting that this wasn’t just a quarter-over-quarter blip. Tesla delivered fewer cars than the first quarter of 2023 — the first year-over-year drop in sales in three years.

Tesla’s Q4 results show a company already grappling with shrinking profit margins due to its price-cutting strategy, rising costs of its Cybertruck production launch and other R&D expenses.

The automaker reported net income, on a GAAP basis, of $7.9 billion in the fourth quarter — an outsized number caused by a one-time, non-cash tax benefit of $5.9 billion. The company’s operating income and its earnings on an adjusted basis provided a clearer picture of its financial performance.

Tesla reported operating income of $2.06 billion in the fourth quarter, a 47% decrease from the same year-ago period. On an adjusted basis, the company earned $3.9 billion, a 27% drop from the same period last year.

The question is whether Tesla can prevent that profit pie from shrinking to profit muffin.

Since Tesla reported its Q1 2024 production and delivery numbers, the company has continued to pull various financial levers aimed at attracting new buyers and inducing existing customers to pay for FSD — all while reducing costs and maintaining profit margins.

Those opposing goals coupled with Musk’s “wartime CEO mode” status are bound to make the Q1 earnings call entertaining. Beyond that potential theater, there are pressing long-term questions about how Tesla delivers on autonomy and if it will be enough to convince investors that it can still lead and innovate.




Software Development in Sri Lanka

Robotic Automations

Tesla earnings week spotlights price cuts, Elon's 'balls to the wall' autonomy push | TechCrunch

April 23, 2024 1:10 AM0


As Tesla gears up to report what will likely be unimpressive financial results for the first quarter on Tuesday, the company is making more moves to go “balls to the wall for autonomy,” as CEO Elon Musk put it last week in a post on X. 

Over the weekend, Tesla dropped the price of its Full Self-Driving (FSD) advanced driver assistance system to $8,000, down from $12,000. That price cut is in addition to last week’s drop of the FSD monthly subscription to $99, from $199. The push to get FSD into more cars could be a bid to collect more data as Tesla works to boost the neural networks that will power fuller-scale autonomy. FSD today can perform many driving tasks in cities and on highways, but still requires a human to remain alert with their hands on the wheel in case the system requires a takeover. 

Tesla faces narrowing profits as it places a major and expensive bet on autonomous driving technology. Last week, Tesla laid off 10% of its staff in a move to reduce costs in preparation for the company’s “next growth phase,” per an email Musk sent to all employees. 

Earlier this month, Musk abruptly announced on X that Tesla was pausing the development of its $25,000 electric vehicle in favor of a robotaxi that he promised to reveal in August. Sources within Tesla have confirmed to TechCrunch that they didn’t have prior warning from Musk on this sudden shift, and that internal restructurings reflect a new ethos that puts robotaxi development at front and center. 

All of this is happening as Tesla zigzags on its EV pricing strategy. 

Last week, Tesla ditched EV inventory price discounts, but over the weekend slashed prices on Model 3 and Model Ys by as much as $2,000 in the U.S., China and Germany. As we saw during the first quarter of 2023, those price cuts are taking their toll on Tesla’s income and margins. 

Tesla is scheduled to report earnings after markets close April 23. Musk has previously said that without autonomy, Tesla is “basically worth zero.” 

The company will need to convince investors tomorrow that its shift in priority to autonomous vehicles is a silver lining in the cloud of declining margins, rather than just smoke and mirrors. 

Since Musk laid off staff and announced that Tesla would be going hard on autonomy, Tesla’s share price has dropped almost 10%. Shares have fallen over 42% since the start of the year.

What to expect at Tesla’s Q1 2024 earnings

Tesla’s lower first-quarter delivery figures combined with price cuts are ingredients for a smaller profit pie. And analysts seem to agree. 

Analysts polled by Yahoo Finance expect a profit of $0.48 per share on 20.94 billion in revenue. As a reminder, Tesla generated $25.17 billion revenue in Q4 and $23.3 billion in the first quarter of 2023. 

Tesla delivered 386,810 vehicles in the first quarter of 2024, down 20% from the 484,507 it delivered in the final quarter of 2023. It’s worth noting that this wasn’t just a quarter over quarter blip. Tesla delivered fewer cars than the first quarter of 2023 — the first year-over-year drop in sales in three years.

Tesla’s Q4 results showed a company already grappling with shrinking profit margins due to its price cutting strategy, rising costs of its Cybertruck production launch and other R&D expenses. 

The automaker reported net income, on a GAAP basis, of $7.9 billion in the fourth quarter — an outsized number caused by a one-time non-cash tax benefit of $5.9 billion. The company’s operating income and its earnings on an adjusted basis provided a clearer picture of its financial performance.

Tesla reported operating income of $2.06 billion in the fourth quarter, a 47% decrease from the same year-ago period. On an adjusted basis, the company earned $3.9 billion, a 27% drop from the same period last year.

The question is whether Tesla can prevent that profit pie from shrinking to profit muffin. 

Since Tesla reported its Q1 2024 production and delivery numbers, the company has continued to pull various financial levers aimed at attracting new buyers and inducing existing customers to pay for FSD — all while reducing costs and maintaining profit margins. 

Those opposing goals coupled with Musk’s “wartime CEO mode” status are bound to make the Q1 earnings call entertaining. Beyond that potential theater, there are pressing long-term questions about how Tesla delivers on autonomy and if it will be enough to convince investors that it can still lead and innovate. 




Software Development in Sri Lanka

Robotic Automations

Watch: Tesla's Cybertruck recall, layoffs set the stage for its Q1 earnings | TechCrunch

April 22, 2024 10:12 PM0


Tesla is not having a good start to the week. In its defense, it didn’t have a very good end to last week, either.

Today the news is that recent price cuts have irked Tesla investors, who sent its shares off around 4% in early trading today. Those losses have extended Tesla’s total share-price declines to around 43% for the year. Which is, as they say, a lot.

But those price cuts are hardly the only issues needling the U.S.-based EV company. Tesla’s last week saw the company slash its staffing, including high-performers. With the company reporting earnings tomorrow, its actions at the moment are under even greater scrutiny than usual.

The backdrop to all of this is the company’s apparent move away from a basement-priced EV, and towards a robotaxi effort that some consider to be technologically premature. Regardless, Tesla’s price cuts, pivots, and mass-recall of its Cybertruck vehicle are not the recipe for content investors. Hit play, and let’s have some fun.

After we recorded this clip, Bloomberg posted a fascinating dig into the company’s current form that we recommend as further reading.


Software Development in Sri Lanka

Robotic Automations

YouTube launches new Shopping features to help creators market products and grow their earnings | TechCrunch

April 17, 2024 11:37 PM0


YouTube announced on Tuesday that it’s launching new Shopping features that allow creators to curate shoppable collections, better plan their shoppable videos, quickly monetize older videos and more.

The launch of the new features come as TikTok Shop is seeking to take on YouTube Shopping and other competitors in the space. TikTok is reportedly aiming to grow the size of its TikTok Shop U.S. business tenfold, to as much as $17.5 billion this year.

YouTube is launching “Shopping Collections” to allow creators to curate products from their favorite brands for users to browse through. Creators can pick a selection of products based on a theme, such as an everyday makeup look or a capsule wardrobe. The collections will appear in a creator’s product list, Store tab and video description. At launch, creators will be able to make Collections on the Studio app on their phone. YouTube plans to launch the feature on desktop soon.

Image Credits: YouTube

In addition, YouTube is launching a new Affiliate Hub in its app to make it easier for creators to find information about the latest list of Shopping partners, competitive commission rates and promo codes. Creators will also be able to use the hub to request samples from top brands. YouTube says the idea behind the new hub is to make it easier for creators to plan their next shoppable video.

YouTube is also adding Fourthwall, a website builder that helps creators build shops, to its list of integrated platforms. By allowing users to connect their Fourthwall shop, YouTube is making it easier for users to create and manage their content directly in YouTube Studio. YouTube already offers integrations with Shopify, Spreadshop and Spring.

Image Credits: YouTube

Last year, YouTube launched features that allow creators to tag products across their video library in bulk based on products added to the video’s description. YouTube is now expanding this feature to all Shopping creators. The company notes that this feature can help creators earn more revenue from their older content if it’s still getting high traffic.

As part of Tuesday’s announcement, YouTube revealed that users watched over 30 billion hours of shopping-related videos in 2023. The platform saw a 25% increase in watch time for videos that help people shop on YouTube.


Software Development in Sri Lanka

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