A new video by Inspired by Iceland pushes back against experiencing life through the “metaverse,” as described by Mark Zuckerberg during Facebook’s rebranding to Meta on Thursday, Oct. 28, 2021.
Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Wall Street is bracing for disaster in online advertising.
Following disappointing results from Snap last week and a 28% plunge in the stock price that sent the company’s value to its lowest since early 2019, investors are now turning their attention to ad giants Meta and Alphabet as well as reports this week from Twitter and Pinterest. They’ll also hear from Amazon and Microsoft, which have big ad businesses of their own.
The flurry of reports comes at a time of extreme skepticism in web and mobile advertising. Facebook parent Meta shares are down more than 60% this year, and the company is expected to report a second straight drop in revenue. Alphabet, which has slid 30% in 2022, is forecast to report single-digit sales growth. Aside from one quarter at the beginning of the pandemic, that would mark the weakest period for Google’s parent since 2013.
The economic downturn and fears of a recession have many marketers reining in spending. At the same time, Apple’s iOS privacy change from last year continues to punish companies — notably Snap and Facebook — that have historically relied on user data to target ads.
“Sentiment in the online advertising space has softened of late, with more anecdotes of budget cuts as well as advertisers holding back some budget in hopes of a 4Q flush,” UBS analysts wrote in a report last week. “Looking into ’23, we think planning amidst this level of macro uncertainty sets the stage for below-consensus growth in ’23, even if macro does not significantly deteriorate from here.”
UBS said it would “reduce estimates and price targets across the online advertising group” due to both the economic environment and a strong U.S. dollar. Through discussions with digital ad agencies, the analysts said they learned that “many advertising directors are pulling back certain budgets, particularly among smaller advertisers.”
In Snap’s report on Thursday, the company said results are being hit by a combination of platform changes, economic challenges and competition. For a second straight quarter, Snap said it wouldn’t be providing guidance for the coming period because of difficulty in predicting the economic trajectory.
Digital ad stocks in 2022
CNBC
“We are finding that our advertising partners across many industries are decreasing their marketing budgets, especially in the face of operating environment headwinds, inflation-driven cost pressures and rising costs of capital,” Snap said.
If the third quarter mirrors the second, Snap’s brutal report could spell dismal results for its industry peers. In July, Meta, Twitter, Pinterest, and Google all reported weaker-than-expected results following Snap’s miss.
Investors started planning ahead last week, sending Pinterest shares down more than 6% on Friday after Snap’s report. Twitter fell almost 5% and Meta dropped more than 1%. Alphabet rose over 1%, but still underperformed the tech-heavy Nasdaq, which jumped 2.3%.
CNBC’s Jim Cramer and the Investing Club said there’s a chance Snap’s poor results won’t reflect the overall online advertising market. Meta and Alphabet “have built multifaceted digital ecosystems” that dwarf the smaller Snap, thus making those companies “more immune from weaker digital ad spend,” the Investing Club wrote.
The industry drama this week isn’t limited to earnings reports.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has until Friday to close his proposed $44 billion acquisition of Twitter if he wants to avoid a trial. After changing his mind on the deal multiple times and being sued, Musk said earlier this month that he wanted to complete the transaction at the originally agreed upon price of $54.20 a share. Twitter wants to make sure the financing is in place before backing off the lawsuit.
Twitter shares closed last week below $50, suggesting investors still aren’t convinced the deal will close. Meanwhile, the business has been struggling. Analysts are anticipating a drop in third-quarter revenue in the company’s earnings report, which is expected this week.
One bright spot in the online advertising space could be Amazon after its digital ad business grew 18% in the second quarter, topping all of the major players in the industry.
While retailers may be pulling back on spending on Facebook and elsewhere, Amazon is a stickier platform for them because people who use it are shopping for stuff. For companies to keep their brands visible on the largest e-commerce site, they have to pay the platform.
But even Amazon’s core business has suffered this year, with growth slowing dramatically from its boom days during the pandemic. Overall revenue expansion was in the single digits for three straight quarters and the stock is down 28% for the year.
By the time Amazon closes out Big Tech earnings week on Thursday, investors should have a much clearer picture of the online ad market and how much companies are tightening their belts heading into the holiday season.
Artificial intelligence chipmaker Cerebras Systems said on Friday that it’s withdrawing plans for an IPO, days after announcing that it raised over $1 billion in a fundraising round.
In a filing with the SEC, Cerebras said it does not intend to conduct a proposed offering “at this time,” but didn’t provide a reason. A spokesperson told CNBC on Friday that the company still hopes to go public as soon as possible.
Cerebras filed for an IPO just over a year ago, as it was ramping up to take on Nvidia in an effort to create processors for running generative AI models. The filing revealed a heavy reliance on a single customer in the United Arab Emirates, Microsoft-backed G42, which is also a Cerebras investor.
In its prospectus, Cerebras said it had given voluntary notice to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States about selling shares to G42. In March, the company announced that the committee had provided clearance.
Since its initial filing to go public on the Nasdaq, Cerebras has shifted its focus away from selling systems and more toward providing a cloud service for accepting incoming queries to models that use its chips underneath.
The announced withdrawal comes three days into a U.S. government shutdown that’s left agencies like the SEC operating with a small staff. In a plan for a shutdown published in August, the SEC said its electronic system EDGAR “is operated pursuant to a contract and thus will remain fully functional as long as funding for the contractor remains available through permitted means.”
On Tuesday, Cerebras said it had raised $1.1 billion at a valuation of $8.1 billion in a private funding round. At the time, CEO Andrew Feldman said that the company still wanted to go public, rather than continue to raise venture capital.
“I don’t think this is an indication of a preference for one or the other,” he told CNBC in an interview. “I think we have tremendous opportunities in front of us, and I think it’s good practice, when you have enormous opportunities, not to let them fall by the wayside for lack of capital.”
Feldman thought the original prospectus from last year was out of date, especially considering developments in AI, the spokesperson said on Friday.
Well heeled technology companies have been quickly signing up for additional infrastructure to handle demand. On Tuesday CoreWeave, which rents out Nvidia chips through a cloud service, said it had signed a $14.2 billion agreement with Meta. ChatGPT operator OpenAI said last week that it had committed to spending $300 billion on cloud services from Oracle.
The government shutdown did not factor into Cerebras’ decision, the spokesperson said.
An employee arranges a salad dressing display at an Amazon Fresh grocery store on December 12, 2024 in Federal Way, Washington.
David Ryder | Getty Images
Amazon is closing four more Fresh supermarkets in Southern California as the e-commerce giant continues to focus its grocery strategy around Whole Foods and delivery.
The closures will take place in the coming weeks, Amazon confirmed to CNBC. They follow the shuttering of four other U.S. locations in recent months, in Washington, Virginia, New York and a Los Angeles suburb.
“Certain locations work better than others, and after an assessment, we’ve made the decision to close these Amazon Fresh locations,” Amazon spokesperson Griffin Buch said in a statement. “We’re working closely with affected employees to help them find new roles within Amazon wherever possible.”
At one Fresh supermarket in La Verne, California, employees were told to gather for an all-hands meeting on Wednesday, according to an internal message viewed by CNBC. They learned at the meeting that the store would close in mid-November, and that employees would receive a severance package, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be named because the details were confidential.
The other three stores that are closing are in cities of Mission Viejo, La Habra and Whittier.
Last week, Amazon said it intends to close 14 Fresh grocery stores in the U.K. and convert its five other locations there into Whole Foods markets.
Amazon said it regularly evaluates its store portfolio, which can lead to opening, reopening, relocating or closing certain locations. In the U.S., the company has more than 60 remaining Fresh stores. Last year, the company removed its “Just Walk Out” cashierless technology from the stores. It’s also been culling its footprint of Go cashierless convenience stores.
Amazon has been determined to become a major grocery player for nearly two decades. The company launched Amazon Fresh in 2007, then a pilot project for fresh food delivery, before acquiring upscale chain Whole Foods for $13.7 billion in 2017, its biggest purchase on record.
Amazon debuted its Fresh grocery chain in 2020, with an eye toward mass-market shoppers. The rollout has been turbulent since its early days.
The company opened a flurry of Fresh locations by 2022, but the expansion plans ran into CEO Andy Jassy’s widespread cost-cutting efforts as the company reckoned with the impact of rising interest rates and soaring inflation. In 2023, Amazon announced it would shut some Fresh stores and halt further openings temporarily as it evaluated how to make the chain stand out for shoppers.
While it’s closing Fresh stores, Amazon continues to “innovate and invest in making grocery shopping easier, faster, and more affordable,” Buch said. The company still maintains 500 Whole Foods locations and has opened mini “daily shop” Whole Foods stores in New York City.
On Wednesday, Amazon also launched a new “price-conscious” grocery brand that will be offered online and in its physical stores. And last month, Amazon expanded same-day delivery of fresh foods to more pockets of the U.S.
Jassy and other company executives have touted the success of sales of “everyday essentials” within its online grocery business, which refers to items such as canned goods, paper towels, dish soap and snacks. Jassy told investors at the company’s annual shareholder meeting in May that he remains “bullish” on grocery, calling it a “significant business” for Amazon.
Inside Google’s quantum computing lab in Santa Barbara, California.
CNBC
Quantum computing stocks are wrapping up a big week of double-digit gains.
Shares of Rigetti Computing, D-Wave Quantum and Quantum Computing have surged more than 20%. Rigetti and D-Wave Quantum have more than doubled and tripled, respectively, since the start of the year. Arqit Quantum skyrocketed more than 32% this week.
The jump in shares followed a wave of positive news in the quantum space.
Rigetti said it had purchase orders totalling $5.7 million for two of its 9-qubit Novera quantum computing systems. The owner of drugmaker Novo Nordisk and the Danish government also invested 300 million euros in a quantum venture fund.
In a blog post earlier this week, Nvidia also highlighted accelerated computing, which it argues can make “quantum computing breakthroughs of today and tomorrow possible.”