Tag Archives: amzn

EBay PayPal Split Stirs Questions About Its Future

Can eBay go it alone without PayPal? The No. 2 e-commerce company in the U.S. after Amazon.com (AMZN) plans to spin off its lucrative payments unit in 2015, creating two separately traded companies. That will follow a volatile year in which activist investor Carl Icahn took a stake in eBay and pressed its board to split faster-growing PayPal from its parent in order to create more shareholder value. Icahn backed off from his demand after getting

Average U.S. home has 2 streaming video devices

The Internet video revolution continues to take hold, with the average U.S. broadband household owning nearly two connected TV devices. Research firm Strategy Analytics reported Wednesday that ownership of connected TV devices — including smart TVs, smart Blu-ray Disc players, IP-enabled game consoles and digital media streamers — grew 5% quarter on quarter in Q3. The number of devices in U.S. homes grew 28% from the same quarter last year, reaching 168 million units. The average U.S. home now owns 1.9 connected TV devices, compared with 1.5 in Q3 2013, Strategy Analytics said. Adoption of streaming media devices has been driven by the desire of consumers to walk over-the-top video services such as Netflix (NFLX), Amazon (AMZN) Prime Instant Video, Hulu and other services. In the digital media streamer market, Google’s (GOOGL) Chromecast was tops with 26% of shipments in Q3, followed closely by Roku. Apple’s (AAPL) Apple TV set-top box slipped…

Amazon.com Lets Consumers Bid For Lower Prices

Amazon.com (AMZN) on Tuesday launched a new pricing feature that lets customers negotiate for lower prices on thousands of items sold by select third-party sellers on its website. In an approach echoing eBay’s (EBAY) auctions and Priceline’s (PCLN) Name-Your-Own-Price service, Amazon is letting customers haggle to buy items at prices lower than those listed by retailers. If the seller consents, the shopper can purchase the items at the agreed upon