Tag Archives: technology

Google Releases Payments App, Mounts Pressure On Apple, PayPal

Google announced a pilot  app program Wednesday that aims to make it more seamless to use its Android Pay payments app. The new app, called Hands Free, will remove the need to use a smartphone at checkout, when shopping at merchants participating in the pilot — which for now is limited to a southern portion of the San Francisco Bay Area. With Hands Free, shoppers at checkout tell cashiers that they want to “pay with Google.” Checkout computers, equipped with the Android Pay app, then let cashiers call up a photo that the shopper already has uploaded to the app, to verify the shopper’s identity, and then complete the transaction. In select stores, Google is testing the use of in-store cameras to automatically confirm a shopper’s identity, based on the uploaded picture. Google is a subsidiary of Alphabet ( GOOGL ). The announcement signals Google’s growing interest in the crowded payments sectors . It’s a complex and competitive arena, with companies in the mix including  Apple ( AAPL ) with Apple Pay;  PayPal ( PYPL ) which recently split off from eBay ( EBAY ); and recent  IPO  Square ( SQ ). If Hands Free indeed signals that Google plans to aggressively tackle online payments, it could spell trouble for PayPal, according to Alex Rampell, a general partner at the noted venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. PayPal executives stick to their message that the San Jose, Calif.-based company is well-positioned, in part because unlike Google or Apple, it’s platform agnostic. For example, PayPal processes many of the transactions conducted over Apple Pay. On Monday, San Francisco-based Square announced that it was adding the ability to store money on its Square Cash app, adding a feature already offered by PayPal and PayPal subsidiary Venmo. Venmo and Square Cash are peer-to-peer payments apps that are popular with millennials, which use them for things such as sharing the cost of a cab fare or meal. At least one analyst says  Venmo stacks up well against rivals such as Google and Apple. Amazon.com ( AMZN ) is also in the payments business — and that’s the reason, according to industry watchers, that Amazon shoppers will not be able to pay with PayPal at any time in the near future. When PayPal spun off from eBay, executives said at the time that one advantage was the new business opportunities it couldn’t get while attached to eBay.

Pure Storage Maintains Hot Streak As Q4 Earnings, Q1 Outlook Beat

Pure Storage ( PSTG ) kept its string of triple-digit revenue growth alive and posted fourth-quarter earnings after the close Wednesday that beat Wall Street estimates, as did its Q1 outlook. Pure Storage reported revenue of $150.2 million, up 128% from the year-earlier quarter and soundly beating the consensus estimate of $138.6 million. It was the ninth quarter in a row of triple-digit gains. The company reported a per-share loss minus items of 12 cents, vs. the consensus estimate for a 16-cent loss, as polled by Thomson Reuters, for the period ended Jan. 31. Pure Storage stock, which rose 5% to 15.71 in regular trading, was up another 5% in after-hours trading, after the company released its earnings. For Q1, Pure Storage forecast revenue of $135 million to $139 million, above the $130.5 million analyst consensus. For the year, Pure Storage expects revenue of $685 million to $725 million. The consensus is $667 million. “We delivered our best ever quarter in Q4, concluding another record setting year for Pure Storage,” company CEO Scott Dietzen said in the earnings release . “The business continues to run on all cylinders, fueled by the rapid worldwide adoption of FlashArray combined with improved operating efficiency as we scale.” The company grew its customer base by more than 120% over the past year to more than 1,650 organizations, it said. Pure Storage provides flash-chip-based storage systems for the enterprise market, a cutting-edge technology that is making life difficult for storage leaders EMC ( EMC ) and NetApp ( NTAP ). CEO Dietzen says that the data storage industry is on the cusp of a revolutionary change that Pure aims to lead. But a recent report from Summit Research said that while Pure Storage has cutting-edge data technology, it will face an uphill battle trying to dislodge EMC and NetApp.

Morgan Stanley Light On Tech But Likes Amazon, Microsoft, Comcast

Amid the sell-off in growth technology stocks in early 2016, Morgan Stanley still likes tech names with plenty of free cash, dividends, improving profit margins and rising market share. In a research report Wednesday, Morgan Stanley said its top tech picks include Comcast ( CMCSA ), T-Mobile US, Microsoft ( MSFT ), Amazon.com, Qualcomm ( QCOM ) and IBM. Morgan Stanley, though, is underweight on the technology sector overall, preferring utilities, financials and health care. “Relative to the broader market, we’ve seen more technology growth stocks with contracting multiples than any time in the last 10 years,” said analyst Adam Parker in the report. He also noted: “Since the (2008) financial crisis, technology stocks with improving margins have strongly outperformed those with high sales growth but no margin expansion.” Here’s what Morgan Stanley likes in some tech stocks: — T-Mobile ( TMUS ). “Competition in the wireless industry is intense,” but T-Mobile continues gain share with its Uncarrier-branded promotions vs. rivals. — Comcast. The cable TV firm has pricing power and invests wisely in broadband infrastructure and NBCUniversal, says Parker. — Amazon ( AMZN ). Its “retail and cloud businesses are both inflecting … which we see leading to higher than expected profitability,” wrote Parker. — Microsoft. It’s getting a boost from “real top-line drivers,” says Parker, citing its Azure public cloud computing business, data center share gains and Office 365 subscriber growth and pricing. — IBM ( IBM ). While IBM is the only large cap U.S. tech stock with institutional ownership at five-year lows, Parker says investors under-appreciate “an accelerating transformation to a more analytics- and cloud-friendly business.” — Qualcomm. “We are overweight as we think recent concerns regarding the royalty and chip businesses are overblown,” said Parker, who expects improving licensing fees in China.