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| Here's your daily business briefing. - 🤝 Open AI-Axel Springer AI content deal
- 💳 Deep Dive: Payment shifts shake retail
- 📺 Netflix unveils viewership numbers
Make sure to continue reading the Quarterly Earnings Report and the Quick Hits. Thanks! Shriram
p/Shriram | |
| 1 | | OpenAI has signed a multiyear licensing deal with Axel Springer, granting access to its content for use in ChatGPT. This agreement covers publications like Politico and Business Insider, and Axel Springer anticipates significant revenue from the deal, with ChatGPT providing proper attribution by including source links in its responses. More: - OpenAI can use Axel Springer's historical and contemporary content to display solutions and train its technology, while Axel Springer can leverage OpenAI's technology to improve its own offerings.
- Amid content consumption and pay worries, the pact highlights changing business connections between news organizations and generative AI startups.
- Under the terms of the non-exclusive agreement, Axel Springer may receive payment through comparable arrangements with other generative AI businesses.
- The Associated Press had earlier disclosed a licensing arrangement with OpenAI, allowing a portion of AP's text archive to be utilized in training ChatGPT.
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What the numbers say: New retail credit card accounts have decreased since 2015, hitting 27.5 million cards in 2022. Private-label credit card originations fell by 37% last year, with an average interest rate of 28.93%, higher than the 21.19% for all credit cards. Retailers are exploring ways to boost the appeal of their store cards amid declining revenue, including tying card usage to loyalty points. Relevance: Americans are shifting away from store credit cards, opting for alternative financing like buy now, pay later services, amid rising interest rates averaging 28.93% for retail cards. The decline in private-label credit card originations is linked to reduced consumer demand. At the same time, retailers anticipate potential impacts on credit card revenue due to proposed regulatory changes, including rules capping late fees. More data: The proposed rule to cap late fees at $8, down from the current $41, could save American families up to $9B annually. Retailers like Kohl's are launching co-branded cards to counter potential reductions in late fees, while Target and Macy's have experienced declines in credit-card business income. | | | |
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| 3 | | Netflix unveils its inaugural engagement report, disclosing viewership data for over 18,000 titles in the first half of the year, encompassing 99% of total Netflix viewership, which amounts to nearly 100 billion hours. The report highlights "The Night Agent" as the top-performing program, garnering over 800 million hours viewed from January to June. Netflix plans to release such engagement reports biannually, providing valuable insights for creators and the industry. More: - Six of the most-viewed shows and nine of the top 10 titles were Netflix originals.
- At over 250 million hours, the action movie "The Mother," starring Jennifer Lopez, was the most-viewed Netflix original production.
- The top five shows are "Ginny & Georgia" (season two), "The Glory" (season one South Korean drama), "Wednesday" (a spinoff of Addams Family), and "Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story."
- More than 60% of the Netflix releases from January to June were included in the weekly top-10 lists, highlighting a variety of definitions of success that go beyond the number of hours watched.
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| 4 | | Uniqlo plans to open 20 new locations in the U.S. and Canada in 2024, aiming for 200 stores in North America by 2027. This expansion is part of Fast Retailing's strategy to accelerate international growth by opening 30 stores annually in North America and Europe, driven by the success of products like the half-moon mini shoulder bag in 2023. More: - According to its year-end report, Uniqlo North America saw a 91.9% YoY growth in regional operating profit, or ($145M), and a 43.7% ($1.13B) YoY gain in revenue.
- The first nine locations of the expansion, which are spread across Washington state, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, Toronto, Calgary, and Ottawa, will open for business in the spring of 2024.
- The business highlights retailers' value in interacting with nearby communities and determining what customers want to improve product selection.
- The worldwide CEO of Fast Retailing, Daisuke Tsukagoshi, took on new roles as executive director, president, and COO of Uniqlo, in addition to holding the position of CEO of Uniqlo North America.
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| 6 | | Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin is gearing up for the first launch of its New Shepard rocket in over a year, with the mission's launch window expected to open on Dec. 18. The suborbital rocket returns to flight after a 14-month hiatus caused by a mid-launch failure during a cargo mission in September 2022. More: - The FAA concluded its inquiry into the unsuccessful NS-23 mission, mandating that Blue Origin implement corrective measures for structural enhancements and organizational adjustments.
- Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket will launch from its Texas facility, carrying passengers and payloads beyond 100 kilometers for a brief experience of weightlessness.
- The reusable rocket booster returns to land on a concrete pad close to the launch site, while the capsule, flown autonomously without a human pilot, falls with parachutes to land in the Texas desert.
- With 31 passengers having already flown over the edge of space with New Shepard, the impending flight will support Blue Origin's suborbital space tourism operations.
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| 7 | | Quick Hits: - Want to master Kubernetes? The Kubernetes Kubernetes Cookbook is a must-have guide to discover guidance on cloud architecture analytics, optimization, governance, and more.*
- Pfizer projected 2024 sales at potentially $5B below Wall Street estimates, aiming for a more accurate assessment of its COVID-19 business, leading to a 10-year low in its shares.
- In response to safety concerns expressed by federal regulators, Tesla is recalling more than 2 million cars in the U.S. to improve safety measures in its Autopilot system.
- The Washington Capitals and Wizards aim to move to Alexandria, Virginia, in a $2B entertainment complex led by Virginia and Monumental Sports & Entertainment, with an expected late 2028 opening pending legislative approval.
- Torrid's Q3 net sales declined 8.3% YoY, leading to a net loss, prompting the apparel brand to adjust its full-year guidance and name Paula Dempsey as the permanent CFO.
- Bestselling book on alternative investing offers the first chapter free for a limited time. "Money Shackles" innovates the way you think about money.*
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 | Freelance Writer | | Shriram is pursuing Master’s in Business with Marketing at Warwick Business School. He worked as a Senior Consultant in Tech and Political Consultancies before his Masters. He is passionate about Tech, Marketing, Strategy, Anthropology and Politics. He is also the Postgraduate Ambassador for Warwick Business School. | | This newsletter was edited by Aaron Crutchfield | |
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