Earnings, earnings, earnings

SO EARNINGS reporting season has just gone by and I am sharing some thoughts on the financial results of a few companies I follow, particularly on companies I haven't blogged about already. Ideally I would have liked to blog about this sooner but travelling and holidays got in the way!

TMT Sector 

Yahoo! announced their Q2 2013 results on 16th July. Revenue dropped by 1% to $1.07 billion while profit was $331m, up 46% compared to Q2 2012. This profit growth was mostly attributed to Yahoo's investment in Alibaba. While on the topic of Alibaba, I want to note that how Alibaba's impending IPO will affect Yahoo!'s fortunes is uncertain; Yahoo! has already promised to sell half its shares but of course it is Alibaba who holds the cards in this IPO and not Yahoo!. I imagine there could be some conflict on interest between Yahoo! and Alibaba as Alibaba will be less concerned about the initial offering price but more about strong stock performance after. (Just think of what happened to Facebook's shares soon after their IPO). A favourable situation for Yahoo! could be to sell its stake in Alibaba but share some future share price gains. On the other hand, Yahoo! could prefer an outright exit. Whatever they choose and given its promise to sell half its stake, the investment of Alibaba won't be propping up Yahoo!'s profit so strongly after Alibaba's IPO.

Another cause for concern is Yahoo!'s falling revenue in advertising and for search, decreasing 13% and 9% respectively. Melissa Mayer however is choosing to concentrate on the offering of new mobile applications and services where Yahoo! is basically offering a new product or service every week - notable mobile apps include Yahoo Mail, weather, sports, news and Flickr. Share price under Mayer has risen by 70% (over the past year) and since Mayer took office, admittedly, Yahoo! has undergone a cultural and structural turnaround. Employee turnover has decreased by 59% and 17 acquisitions including Tumblr have been made to not only acquire the technology but also the talent. Despite this, Mayer's strategy to ignore revenue is not particularly unimpressive in this competitive environment. The lackluster revenue reflects the fact that Yahoo! is failing to make the effort to attract online advertisers who are far more appealed to Google and Facebook instead. It is predicted by eMarketer that Yahoo's share of digital ad spending is to decline from 3.37% to 3.1% of total spending while Google and Facebook will bite more into Yahoo's online ads stake. 

There is also indication that Tumblr won't generate big profits this year and there will be no more big acquisitions like Tumblr either. As a result, Yahoo! really needs to capitalise on making money by appealing to digital advertisers to advertise on what seems like their endless array of apps and mobile services as well as on the jewels of Flickr and Tumblr. The challenge (for all internet companies) however is that it is difficult to display ads on the smaller mobile screen for the ever increasing smartphone app users. Further, Yahoo! is not as attractive to advertisers as Facebook since it does not have as large a user base and user data for targeted/location ads. I think another lucrative but more difficult route to go down is mobile gaming which has a huge opportunity to build in buy-able add-ons and advertising. Designing from scratch and building this area organically is costly and tough in an already filled market. Yahoo! could enter into joint venture with a games developer (the likes of Beeline, King and among others) to build-in such games into its online apps, email and IM. 

Whatever Yahoo! decides to do next, it still will be in a turnaround process into the next 2-3 years. If Mayer is successful in reversing Yahoo!'s fortunes, it will be reflected in the company's fundamentals then. 

Facebook delivered their Q2 2013 results on 25th July which surpassed expectations. Profits reached $333 million, as boosted by mobile ads, sending shares to a 25.6% gain  - the highest since May 2012. In fact, Facebook's revenue from smartphones and tablets constituted almost half of their total advertising revenue to the June quarter; this was $655.6m (or 41%) of the total $1.6 billion advertising revenue. It was only 30% last quarter. Facebook's smartphone users has increased by 51% to 819 million, compared to this time last year. 

It seems that Facebook has finally capitalised on its 1.6 billion users (who spent 20 billion minutes on Facebook in June 2012) to generate business since one year ago, the social media giant had no mobile advertising. Unlike Yahoo!, Facebook is making smart moves to capitalise and focus on advertising. For example, in Q4 this year, Facebook will launch mobile video advertising with 15 second video ads. This could be the next billion dollar revenue generator as Facebook's massive user base, user data, smartphone users are highly desirable to advertisers. 

Compared to Google and certainly to Yahoo! among other internet companies, I would say that Facebook is in the lead with digital advertising. At their conference call, Zuckerberg indicated that mobile revenue will continue to grow and set to overtake its desktop counterpart. I think this is a definite accurate statement since I talked about what is happening in Q4. Also, Facebook will be opening the popular photo sharing platform Instagram to advertisements and possibly adding video ads on Instagram given video sharing is a new feature there. It is predicted that Facebook will generate more than $2 billion in mobile advertising revenue in 2013 and its market share of the digital ad market will increase from 4.11% (in 2012) to 5.04% this year. In essence, Facebook's weapon is simple. Facebook's competitive advantage is its user base and user data; highly attractive to advertisers since there is a huge opportunity to create targeted and location based ads. 

Not many people outside of China are familiar with Tencent but many are familiar with social media platform and instant messenger QQ. QQ is actually run and owned by Tencent who also designs and owns a whole host of other social media platforms  such as WeChat and gaming products.  

China's biggest internet company announced their results for the April to June quarter about two weeks ago. Results this time aren't has golden compared to previous quarters, missing targets by around 3.9 billion Yuan and causing shares to drop ~5%. While Tencent have made a profit (3.7 billion Yuan; $605 million) which is up 18.4% compared to this time last year, profit declined by 9.5% compared to the previous quarter. 

This decline in profit is largely attributed to a more competitive gaming environment,  marketing costs for e-commerce and marketing costs for WeChat. On the topic of WeChat, high marketing costs seems to have paid off as WeChat now has 300 million active users, up 176% from a year ago (the more established Whatsapp has 250 million). For example, Tencent used Messi among other celebrities to promote the app to appeal to users outside of China.  However, I do not think Tencent's slowing profit is a long term concern at all.  Their marketing costs has been offset by the huge surge of users internationally, not just within China. Chinese internet companies have had trouble with breaking out of China (see why in this previous post) but WeChat is proving previous experiences wrong. Further, with a huge user base and user data on smartphones, Tencent can set to monetize the app with targeted and location ads or services. In fact, I updated my WeChat app this month and found that the new version combines online games, stickers and payments for add-ons. I don't buy these things but many people do! It is good to see Tencent moving away from desktop products and into mobile, especially attempting to break borders. 

Tencent's main challenge I would say is the cut-throat competition in China's internet scene right now (which is nothing new, of course). Alibaba recently bought an 18% stake in the well-known Sina Weibo and also suspended sellers’ access to WeChat applications this month. The good news is that IM is highly popular in China with 84% of Chinese internet users regularly using IM. By the end of the year, WeChat is projected to have 400 million users globally, with the biggest foreign market being India and in South East Asia. This provides a golden opportunity to invest and push on with gaming and digital advertising services within WeChat. If Tencent could achieve this, it is predicted that 2.2 billion Yuan will be generated from WeChat. 

Consumer Goods Sector (Retail)

Inditex is the owner of the brands as shown above; most well known brands are Zara and Zara Home. Zara in recent years has won appraise from both the fashion side and the investor side for its huge uninterrupted growth due to its "fast-fashion model" where it replicates designs from the catwalk forthe high street in a short lead time of just two weeks. Inditex released their first quarter figures in June which proved that Inditex is actually not invincible. Lower demand due to cold weather in Europe and a volatile currency market -  particularly in the Yen, Bolivar, Real and Rouble -  has made Inditex's Q1 the weakest set of results in four years. It did make a profit nevertheless where Inditex reported a net profit of 438m Euros, a 1.4% increase compared to this time last year but missed analyst predictions by 2m. After all, it was always going to be difficult to beat last year's bumper results. However, Inditex has experienced slowdowns before and this quarter's results (still strong profit margins and a profit) won't make Inditex unfavorable with investors. 

Inditex's net sales grew by 5.2% to 3.6 billion Euros, mostly attributed to the opening of new stores. In the coming years, the group plans to open 80-100 new stores each year globally but not in Spain due to the difficulties there... Some of the Inditex brands deserve more exposure to our shopping streets, particularly Pull and Bear and Bershka. Their chic fashion pieces and low prices can draw in sales. 

JH

What's next for LVMH?

Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy (LVMH) has the greatest number of jewels in its treasure chest in that it holds more majority stakes in prestigious luxury  brands - from Marc Jacobs to Givenchy to TAG Heuer and of course Louis Vuitton -  than any of its competitors. 

Its strategy in recent years has been one of rampant acquisition and global expansion where the group has spent more than $10 billion in 27 transactions since the beginning of 2010. Notably, Bulgari, Fendi and Pucci have all joined the LVMH family in the last two years. The group's availability of cash and cash equivalents has certainly come in handy. Its latest 'big brand' acquisition occurred in early July where LVMH acquired a 80% stake in Loro Piana, an Italian cashmere clothing house for 2 billion Euros. For a small relatively unknown family owned business, this price is high. However, LVMH can benefit a lot from Loro Piana. Why? Loro Piana is a fairly unique business focussing only on cashmere clothing - there are not many similar players in the industry. It is also a company in its early stages and thus can accommodate much growth and expansion into the future.  For example, Loro Piana achieved a growth in sales revenues of 13.1% in 2012 to 630 million Euros and no doubt can they repeat a growth rate of around 10% into the next year. Loro Piana can also go more global and expand its leather+cashmere goods products. The fact that 30% of its sales come from Asia and the region's strong demand for the brand no doubt contributed to the attraction of acquisition. Perhaps this analysis is reflected by LVMH's share increase of around 2% at the time the deal was announced. In essence, there is much synergy between LVMH and Lora Piana. 

However, we can expect to see less fashion acquisitions by LVMH in the coming year or so as the business wishes to focus on organic growth, at least in some segments. For example, the group wishes to restructure and revamp its watch and jewellery business and the plan to achieve this by giving Bulgari a make over into the long term. Watches and jewellery are LVMH's lowest revenue and profit generating area, as seen on their half-year report. 

Having said this however, acquisitions and investments by LVMH are likely to increase in the luxury hospitality sector as Arnault seeks to move into high-end hotels and restaurants. Indeed, LVMH has realised that 'luxury goods' isn't just about what the consumer is wearing or possessing but more about an overall luxury experience to suit a lifestyle; from food to place of stay on holiday. It is not so much about a product anymore, but about a produce + service. Last week, LVMH bought the 5* Hotel Saint-Barth Isle de France in the Caribbean for an undisclosed sum, to be operated by LVMH's hotel business area. There are also similar opulent resort/hotel developments in Oman, the Maldives and the French riviera  In 2016, La Samaritaine in Paris, owned by the group since 2001 will be opened as a 5* hotel.  At the end of June, the luxury group purchased a majority stake in Pasticceria Confetteria Cova, a 200 year old high-end storied cafe of Milan. This was the LVMH's first acquisition of a luxury food business and Arnault wishes to replicate Cova's popularity globally, using its heritage as leverage. Again, they have been helped by their deep pool of cash resources in this area. 

LVMH isn't the only nor the first to expand into the full luxury spectrum. For example, Robert Cavalli is buying high-end cafes while Armani and Versace is designing hotels. Such brands' ability to shift into a new business area is what keeps them interesting in the eyes of their wealthy (and frequent) customers (as well as analysts at their desks!). 

The success of the hospitality acquisitions remains to be seen but I think given the brands Arnault has chosen above are fairly unique and niche, along with having the recognisable LVMH as a parent with an already established reputation for the customers, profit margins will be high. 

Acquisitions aside, LVMH's  quarter end results to June which were released on July 26th have been mixed. China is a big market for luxury brands but sales in the country have been underperforming whereby Chinese consumers are now buying overseas -in Macau, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Dubai and Europe - rather than in the mainland as attributed to tourism and weak European currencies. This, along with slowing European sales, however is being offset by demand from South-East Asia in the countries of Malaysia, Vietnam and Indonesia. Asia is the group's biggest revenue generating region - 28% of total revenues came from Asia while the US followed in second place with 23%.  

The good news is that profit margins for Louis Vuttion  - its most prized brand has increased slightly in the first half year. In recent years, profit margins for LV has fallen and operating margin has declined from 44% to 42% between 2011-2012. In line with LVMH, Louis Vuitton sales in China declined although this was compensated by optimistic sales in Japan, US and Europe suggesting that the luxury goods sector is not so down hill anymore in the West. The strategy for Louis Vuitton for the past 10-15 years has been to expand quickly and rapidly across the globe. Consequently, growth increased by 10% but the real danger of this is that such strategy for a luxury brand is not sustainable. Continued rapid expansion makes Louis Vuitton somewhat of an expensive high street retailer rather than unique, boutique and luxurious and special. Everyday, in the city where I live, I see many many Louis Vuitton monogram and canvas bags - some fake and some real. Indeed, Louis Vuttion is rather ubiquitous but regardless of the origins of the bag, this risk has been reflected by Arnault himself who is putting a halt on the opening of new Louis Vuitton stores to maintain the exclusively. 

There are signs of a rebound in the global luxury sector but China, an enormous market for luxury goods and services will certainly have retailers in the country experience a decline in sales as Xi cracks down on luxury gift-giving to battle against corruption and misuse of public funds. For example, Swiss watch imports fell by 24% in Q1 2013 although Burberry still experience soaring sales there.  Any decline within in China could be offset by Chinese tourists visiting regions outside of the country as well as by the stronger sales in Europe and the US. For the former, Chinese tourists are attracted to buy luxury goods in Europe due to the weak currency and Chinese nationals are now account for the biggest global luxury buyer market at 25% (only 0.5% in 1995) with European nationals close behind at 24%. Major luxury retailers in the West have been equipped for this for several years now with the employment of Mandarin speakers and the likes of UnionPay but there is still scope for smaller, more boutique luxury players to follow suit. 

I believe despite the recent slowdown in Asia's luxury market, the raising middle and wealthy class with their demand for status goods - not just in China but especially in South Asia (India, Bangladesh) and South East Asia (Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam,  Thailand)  - makes Asia the most important region for luxury brands to capitalise on, for now and in the next 5 years or so. At the same time however, ongoing challenges that affect revenues aside from growth and the crackdown in China are the volatile currency market affecting exchange rates/local pricing, rising real estate prices and high import duties/taxes increasing prices by 30%-60%. This latter point nevertheless can be partially offset by tourism/spending in the West. Finally, European high street retailers of Zara and H&M have become hugely popular in Asia over the past 2-3 years. Such brands offer far more affordable fashion pieces which imitate the styles seen on catwalks. 

In Indonesia (and rest of emerging Asia) where it is happening for LVMH, Hermes, Richemont , Kering and others

JH

Why I ditched Blackberry for Samsung and not Apple

WHEN I was 11, I got my first mobile - a Nokia 3410. Compared to the modern smartphone, there wasn't a lot you could do with it. I guess it was good for playing Snake II, Space Impact and Bantumi. Other than that, the phone's functions like reminders and the calculator weren't that exciting to an 11 year old. The good thing however about phones back then was that because they were all simple in design and functions, it was easy to choose a new phone when you needed one. This is exactly what I miss about the phones of the early 2000s.

My 2 year old contract Blackberry Bold is due up for renew and I spent/wasted a lot of time this week (re)searching for a new phone. I really do like Blackberry. Their indicator light, acceptable size, physical QWERTY keyboard and its ability to receive emails extremely easily has made me value this brand over the unnecessarily large touchscreen smartphones that grace the phone market. But as a follower of business news and tech companies, I knew deep inside that choosing Blackberry again -  even their new models of Q10 and Z10 would be a mistake. 

Blackberry, who changed its name from Research In Motion at the beginning of 2013 (to put the emphasis on the company's main product) is really a dying brand and a maker of phones in many ways. I don't think it is the 'design' of Blackberry phones that have caused their continued poor performance but it is the Blackberry software itself. The phone market is populated by touchscreens and for 3+ years, Blackberry have adopted touchscreen technology into various models, such as the Bold Touch range and the Torch range. Therefore, the physical design is not likely to be a shortfall. I believe the real shortfall lies with the software. iOS and Android are more technologically advanced than Blackberry's software. Without going into the tech. specifications, I think its fair to say that the former 2 operating systems can just 'do more' than Blackberry. This is exactly what makes iPhones and other phones that run Android more exciting and fresh. For example, many applications today are developed for Android and iOS, leaving Blackberry out. One of the reasons for this is that Android and iOS are technically superior, allowing apps with more functions and graphics to be coded. I do use apps and as a Blackberry user, I have often been frustrated when I cannot download app x for a Blackberry platform. Blackberry's newest software - Blackberry 10 - allows for Android apps to run although the developer will have to tailor some code to suit a Blackberry phone. Despite not being a fan of the huge touchscreen only smartphones, the general superiority of iOS and Android (that you can 'do more') is the main reason why I could no longer consider Blackberry. 

So now the choice was down to iPhones (by Apple) versus Android phones (by HTC, Sony and Samsung).

For me, iPhones and iOS are still the most aesthetically pleasing phones and operating systems on the market. However, between the iPhone 4, iPhone 4S and the current iPhone 5, there have not been that many variations in design or internal software at all. This argument holds for the iPad and iMac ranges. Whether Apple is guilty of patent thickening is debatable, but the truth is that iPhones have become boring, unexciting and still overpriced because the brand is 'Apple'. I am wondering if Apple still has the same innovative foresight as it did under Steve Jobs. Probably not is the answer. Because of this (lack of innovation and variation in their products), I am not convinced that I can be fulfilled with an iPhone.

So next, my search turned to the Android phones. 

Sony was easy to ditch as the design of the Xperia range didn't quite appeal to me. It is too rectangular and 'sharp'. 

HTC's latest phone - HTC One and Samsung's Galaxy S3 and S4 became the serious contenders. First thoughts? Well, the HTC One's serious silver slick design and its frontal 'Beats' speaker attracted me to the phone immediately. One the other hand, the S3 and S4 are both technologically powerful, yet they are not as aesthetically pleasing and definitely the least premium feeling phone (with a plastic casing) in their category. After much pondering, watching various Youtube phone reviews and copious visits to various phone shops, I decided to settle with Samsung for their technology and all their extra functions over the HTC (and also Apple). The S4 is lighter, has a bigger screen, a faster processor, an improvement of 5MP in its camera to 13MP and a better resolution. But the S3, only one year older then its successor, it not that inferior. Therefore, (unlike most people), I didn't think it would be worth paying an extra £12+ per month to upgrade to the S4 and settled for the S3 in the end.

Perhaps my thoughts have been reflected in the companies' recent financial results. Blackberry's results coincidentally were released today. Their Q1 results for June 2013 ended (fiscal year 2014), revealed that although revenues reached $3.1 billion (up 15% from previous quarter) and global shipments of smartphones were up by 13% to 6.8 million, they still made a huge operating loss of $84 million. Even with the roll out of new products and services over the next year and the global roll out of Blackberry 10, I am not convinced in this competitive environment that Blackberry can turn fortunes around so easily. I would anticipate another loss in Q2. However, perhaps they can be helped by the adoption of BBM on to iPhones and Android. BBM is more user friendly and established compared to other instant messengers like WhatsApp or PingChat. It wouldn't be a bad idea either for Blackberry to 'combine' their traditional QWERTY keyboard with a full touchscreen using microfluidics technology (by a joint venture) as seen below. However, like Dell, I think Blackberry would really benefit from a buyout and going private for a few years. It has little prospects of competing with Apple, Samsung, HTC among others even with the launch of Blackberry 10 and its future successor operating systems. It would be a good time for Blackberry shift its focus out of  smartphones and into business services. 

This quarter has really belonged to Samsung, who has become the most profitable mobile company in the world, (finally) beating Apple. In Q2 2013, to June month end, Samsung's phones made an operating profit of $5.2 billion ($7 billion for the entire company). This has mostly been driven by strong demand for Android devices from Asia and LATAM as well as its new S4. Samsung has also succeeded with rigorous cost controls, high volume of production and high wholesale prices. 

Apple's iPhone profit was $4.2 billion ($6.9 billion overall for company). This figure has marked the iPhone range as 'underperforming',  reflecting poor sales of the iPhone 5 globally including China, and strong competition from the likes of Samsung. Samsung now accounts for the biggest share of the global smartphone market at 27.7%. Nokia is in 2nd with 15.8% while Apple is in 3rd, accounting for 8% of the global smartphone market, their smallest market share in 3 years. (Blackberry does not rank in the top 5). This, coupled with a lack of innovation and unsuccessful attempts to gain significant market share in emerging markets due to their high price of phones, has made Apple less and less of a darling company. In Sept. 2012, Apple's share price hit a record $700 odd but now it is trading at 40% less. Until a brand new innovation - that is not an adaptation of its existing products - the story for Apple is likely to remain the same. According to Tim Cook, this is likely to happen in autumn 2014. The 'Apple watch' is likely to be one of these, but I will be curious to see what else there is...

JH