NexOptic Technology Corp (TSXV: NXO)
You’ll Never See The World The Same Way Again
Bloomberg sources say SoftBank (OTCPK:SFTBF,OTCPK:SFTBY) held preliminary talks with Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) about purchasing Arm, but the iPhone maker wasn’t interested in the deal.
Apple reportedly felt that Arm’s licensing operation wouldn’t fit in well with its hardware and software business model.
The purchase could have raised regulatory concerns about Apple owning a license supplier to many rivals.
Arm tech appears in more than 2B custom processors for Apple devices shipped over the past decade. Last month, Apple announced custom silicon for Macs built on Arm architecture.
Bloomberg also reported that Nvidia is interested in an Arm purchase.
Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT): Q4 GAAP EPS of $1.46 beats by $0.09.
Revenue of $38.03B (+12.8% Y/Y) beats by $1.48B.
Q2 Intelligent Cloud revenue (including Azure) of $13.4B (+17% Y/Y) vs. consensus of $13.11B, company guidance of $12.9-13.15B.
Shares -2.2%.
Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) is sticking up for its App Store approach ahead of a House hearing next week, and alongside increasing regulatory antitrust scrutiny.
Today it pointed to economic research it commissioned showing that the fees it takes from developers are in line with those charged by other platforms.
The App Store (which generates an estimated $15B in annual sales) has come under fire for its 30% revenue cut, and rules dictating the marketing and pricing of apps. But Apple says it’s not a monopolist, and takes that cut from a small percentage of some 2M apps available in the store.
That 30% fee, Apple’s study says, is below the roughly 37% and 31% commissions charged by ticket resellers StubHub and Ticketmaster.
CEO Tim Cook is joining top execs from Amazon.com, Facebook and Alphabet at next week’s hearing from the House Judiciary’s Antitrust subcommittee.
Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) drops 2.5% despite fiscal Q4 beats driven by the pandemic’s remote work and learning trends.
Revenue breakdown: Productivity and Business Processes $11.75B (consensus: $11.90B);Intelligent Cloud, $13.37B (consensus: $13.11B); More Personal Computing, $12.91B (consensus: $11.47B).
Work and learn from home trends helped the Productivity and Business and Intelligent Cloud segments, though traditional licensing slowed and LinkedIn (+11% Y/Y in constant currency) was negatively impacted.
In More Personal Computing, Windows OEM (+7%), Surface (+30%), and Xbox (+68%) benefited from the remote trends while Search ex-TAC (-17% Y/Y) was hit by the ad spend cuts.
Azure revenue was up 50% Y/Y in the quarter, decelerating from the 61% growth last quarter.
Operating expenses were up 13% Y/Y including the $450M charge for closing the physical stores.
Microsoft returned $8.9B to shareholders in the quarter, up 16% Y/Y.
Earnings call starts at 5:30 PM with a webcast here.
Bloomberg sources say Nvidia (NVDA +1.0%) has expressed takeover interest in SoftBank-owned (OTCPK:SFTBF,OTCPK:SFTBY) semiconductor designer Arm.
Nvidia made the approach in recent weeks, but other potential bidders could emerge.
Talks are in the early stages. A deal could fail to materialize or SoftBank could opt to pursue a public listing for Arm.
Last week, WSJ sources reported that SoftBank was discussing options for Arm, which it purchased four years ago for $32B.
