Steam Mobile Apps Gradu...

I know I say this a lot, but man that was fast. Valve’s new pair of Steam mobile apps have been in their respective marketplaces for less than a week, and already they have graduated from beta status. That means that you, Mr. or Mrs. Game Enthusiast, will be able to sign into your Steam account on your iOS or Android device right now and begin chatting your far-flung friends or ogling new deals. As noted when the apps first made their appearance, they provide most of the functionality you’d find in the standard PC/Mac client. Communication and robust game shopping experiences aside, the Steam apps also provide access to new Steam info as well as news pulled from syndcated sources like Kotaku, ShackNews and, RockPaperShotgun. Of course, you won’t actually be able to play the games on your mobile device — look to services like Onlive if that’s your goal — but at least you’ll never miss a Holiday Sale ever again. That is of course unless you’re trapped in an aunt’s remote cabin without an internet connection, in which case you’ll need to while away the time the old-fashioned way. [via The Verge ]

Amazon Misses; Q4 Net I...

Amazon has just released fourth quarter 2011 earnings, missing sales expectations but beating earnings estimates. Net income decreased 58% to $177 million in the fourth quarter, or $0.38 per diluted share, compared with net income of $416 million, or $0.91 per diluted share, in fourth quarter 2010. Net sales increased 35% to $17.43 billion in the fourth quarter, compared with $12.95 billion in fourth quarter 2010. Analysts are expecting earnings of $0.17 cents a share on revenue of about $18.3 billion. “We are grateful to the millions of customers who purchased the Kindle Fire and Kindle e-reader devices this holiday season, making Kindle our bestselling product across both the U.S. and Europe,” said Amazon CEO and founder Jeff Bezos. “Our millions of third-party sellers had a tremendous holiday season with 65% unit growth and now represent 36% of total units sold.” Operating income was $260 million in the fourth quarter, compared with $474 million in fourth quarter 2010. Operating cash flow increased 12% to $3.9 billion for 2011 compared with $3.5 billion in 2010. Free cash flow decreased 17% to $2.09 billion in 2011, compared with $2.52 billion in 2010. Full year 2011 sales increased 41% to $48.08 billion, compared with $34.20 billion in 2010. North America sales were $9.9 billion, up 37% from fourth quarter 2010. International sales, representing the company’s U.K., German, Japanese, French, Chinese, Italian and Spanish sites, were $7.53 billion, up 31% from fourth quarter 2010. Worldwide Media sales grew 15% to $6.01 billion. Worldwide Electronics and Other General Merchandise sales grew 48% to $10.91 billion. Amazon says its Appstore for Android customers nearly tripled in the fourth quarter compared to the third quarter. In addition, customers downloaded more apps from the Amazon Appstore during the fourth quarter than they had during all previous quarters combined. Amazon also said the number of videos purchased or rented from Amazon Instant Video and the number of Amazon Instant Video customers both more than doubled year-over-year in the fourth quarter. In addition, the number of Prime Instant Video streams increased nearly 300% in the fourth quarter compared to the third quarter. All signs point to the Kindle Fire selling very well . One analyst recently updated Q4 Fire sales to six million units from five million. Amazon said that Kindle device sales as a whole tripled over the holidays. Amazon has also been rumored to be taking on Netflix with with a more comprehensive video-streaming product.

iOS App Downloads &...

Mobile app marketing company  Fiksu  just released new data revealing the impact the holiday season had on iOS app downloads and user acquisition costs. According to the company’s App Store Competitive Index , a measurement of the average aggregate download volume of the top 200 free U.S. applications, December saw 6.04 million daily app downloads. That’s a nearly 7% increase from November’s 5.65 million, and a clear indication of how many folks were unwrapping new smartphones during the holiday season. That last half of December was the most competitive for mobile marketers, says Fiksu, with the traffic and dollars spent in the final week up 100% over prior weeks. “December is a strategically critical month for app discovery,” said Micah Adler, Fiksu’s CEO. “What we witnessed during the month was a ‘land rush’ in which advertisers earnestly spent marketing dollars in order to achieve ranking before the traditional App Store freeze which then would generate substantial organic downloads through increased visibility.” The App Store “freeze” being referred to is the time period when Apple itself goes on holiday, shutting down the queue for new app submissions and updates. For advertisers, it’s critical to get the apps in the best position possible before the freeze occurs, so as to improve discoverability during the December rush. Notes Fiksu, on Christmas Day alone, there were over 6.8 million new iPhone and Android devices activated. The company also measures the cost to acquire loyal (that is, returning) users for mobile applications. In December, this index hit a record high: $1.81 per user, up 26.5% from November’s $1.43. The increase was due to brands participating in bidding wars, in their attempts lock in top ratings before the freeze. Data for the Fiksu Indexes was sourced from more than 11 billion mobile app actions, including things like app launches, registrations and in-app purchases, as well as from the more than 200 million downloads recorded by apps marketed via the  Fiksu for Mobile Apps  user acquisition platform.

The Day Apple Left The ...

$46.33 billion in revenue. It’s a number the biggest and best tech companies in the world can only dream to hit in a year. Apple hit it in one quarter. $13.06 billion in profit. It’s a number no tech company would ever aspire to in one quarter because it’s ridiculous. The only companies that have ever thought about such numbers are oil companies. And even then, only 3 of them have actually hit it . Ever. Until yesterday. I’ve already tried to give some context to the stunning Q1 2012 results that Apple posted. But the truth is that they’re still unbelievable. Perhaps the next step should be to figure out how they could post such numbers. The simple answer is that Apple’s iPhone sales were off the charts. 37 million units sold is mind-boggling when the previous record was 20 million, set in Q3 2011 . A year ago, in the same holiday quarter , Apple sold “just” 16 million iPhones. That was also a record at the time and lead to record revenue and profit at the time. This year, Apple quite simply took things to the next level — and then went a level beyond that. Because the iPhone is over 50 percent of Apple’s revenues, amazing iPhone sales equates to amazing revenues. Again, the simple answer. But to figure out why this quarter was so far ahead of any other quarter, you have to go deeper. It was really a confluence of events. First of all, this past quarter was set up by the preceding quarter, which saw Apple fall short of Wall Street expectations for the first time in years. But as we noted at the time, this was misleading . Apple surpassed their own expectations (which isn’t surprising given that they’re always low), but failed to meet Wall Street’s simply because Wall Street’s numbers were lazy . Analysts didn’t take into account the fact that the new version of the iPhone did not launch in the summertime, as it had in years past. Because it did not — and again, the iPhone is about half of Apple’s revenue — there was no burst in iPhone sales that Apple usually sees in Q4. Instead, that burst came in Q1 — last quarter. And unlike previous years, this burst was compounded because Q1 is also Apple’s holiday quarter. A new iPhone plus holiday shopping season is apparently like gasoline on a fire. Now we know. But it would be foolish to think that Apple’s big numbers were only about the iPhone. Remember, Apple set new records in Mac and iPad sales as well. The iPad in particular is interesting because while it’s Apple’s newest business, it’s already the second-largest in terms of revenue. This past quarter, 20 percent of revenue came from iPad sales. The third-biggest source of revenue is Mac sales — they accounted for 14 percent of Apple’s revenue last quater. In other words, 87 percent of Apple’s revenue last quarter was from products that all saw record sales. The lone dim spot in Apple’s numbers were iPod sales, which continue to decline year-over-year. But because the other businesses have grown so massive, so quickly, the iPod only accounts for 5 percent of Apple’s revenues now. Pretty soon — maybe even next quater — the iTunes Store itself will be a bigger money-maker for the company. When you consider that iTunes (including the App Store) was initially set up to be run as a break-even business, this is impressive. Something else to consider: the iPhone, iPad, and Mac have the highest margins amongst Apple major products. The iPhone 4S, because it is largely based off of the design of the iPhone 4, probably has one of the best margins that Apple has ever seen. That rings especially true when you hear that Apple’s overall gross margin for the quarter was 44.7 percent. It’s a number so big that Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer said he couldn’t recall ever seeing a number so high in his 15 years of service. And he was skeptical that Apple would ever hit it again. That huge margin meant huge profit. In fact, it meant profit the likes of which had never been seen before by a technology company. Something else: Q1 2012 for Apple happened to span 14 weeks. This was unusual, and Apple was quick to note as much in both their press release and on the earnings call. Normally, quarters span 13 weeks (do the math: 13 x 4 = 52). You simply cannot discount an extra week of sales. And you especially cannot discount it during the holiday quarter. And one more thing: the passing of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs in October drove people all around the world to Apple Stores to pay their respects . When people visit Apple Stores, they don’t often walk away empty handed. And what better way to pay respect to Jobs than to buy a product from the company he cared so much about? It’s a delicate subject, but worth mentioning. Again, this monster quarter was all about a confluence of events. It was about a new iPhone launch during Apple’s typically busiest quarter merged with a newer product, iPad, coming into its own, and the Mac continuing its methodical growth. Add to that amazing margins plus one more week of sales — and the fact that Apple as a whole has been killing it for several years now across the board — and you get a jaw-dropping quarter. It all came together. Next question: will Apple be able to replicate the magic next quarter? Well, no. The quarter after the holiday one is typically weaker as consumer spending cools. And when you consider that it will span the regular 13 weeks instead of 14, you have two things working against it. Add to that the fact that the iPhone 4S will no longer be a new product, and you have another dip. There could be a new iPad in the quarter — but it may only go on sale at the tail-end. Or it may not be on sale until the following quater — we’ll see. Either way, that probably dings iPad sales a bit next quarter too. But even with all those things working “against” Apple next quater, Oppenheimer still gave guidance of $32.5 billion in revenue. That would be Apple’s second-best quarter ever. And again, Apple always low-balls such numbers, so perhaps $35 billion in a more reasonable guess. In other words, Apple may only have the second-best quarter of any tech company ever in terms of revenue next quarter. And profits may only be near the bottom of the all-time top 20 amidst the oil empires. Boo hoo. [photo: flickr/ ConvenienceStoreGourmet ]

Will Facebook Shopping ...

Facebook shopping makes sense. You’re on the site everyday anyway. You’re already tapped into the brands you like and they’re sending you coupons. So from there, it’s just a click away from actually making a purchase while still inside the walls. It sounds reasonable, but when I visualize myself doing it, I can’t see it. I may be in the minority on that because Booz & Company predicts social commerce in the US will rise to $14 million in 2015. eMarketer has a char t to show the growth. The numbers include all social media, not just Facebook, but since they’re currently the king of the category, we can infer that they’re responsible for a large chunk. Social and shopping do go together, going back to the days when young girls went to the mall as a group activity. (Do they still do that?) But it’s the mechanics of it all that has me perplexed. If you’re selling single items, like a current CD on a band’s fan page or a ticket on a movie page, I get it. Selling when there’s a selection involved, I don’t get. I can’t imagine shopping for shoes or kids’ clothes or even groceries. I may follow the Hershey fan page but what are the chances I’ll click and buy a bag of Kisses while I’m on Facebook? eMarketer quotes an Oracle survey that says one in five respondents would buy from Facebook. Around a third said “never.” Marketing Pilgrim’s Social Channel is proudly sponsored by Full Sail University, where you can earn your Masters of Science Degree in Internet Marketing in less than 2 years. Visit FullSail.edu for more information. I suppose I fall into the “would buy” category if the circumstances were right. If Facebook had its own payment system like Amazon, it would be more likely. I have $10 in my account, Hershey’s has cool holiday Kisses on sale. If all I have to do is push a button and it’s a done deal, I might buy them before I realize what I’ve done. But if I have to enter a credit card and fill out shipping forms, it’s not happening. I’m sure that social commerce will continue to rise. It’s hitting people where they live and that makes good business sense. But I’m not sure that shopping on Facebook will be commonplace by 2015. What do you think? Are you ready to do your holiday shopping on Facebook?