♪ emily: i'm emily chang, this is "the best of bloomberg technology" where we bring you the top interviews from this week in technology. spotify files to go public. on its own terms. why the streaming service is skipping the ipo dance. a bloomberg scoop. alibaba adding to its arsenal. we will examine the e-commerce giant's decision to go all in on china's top takeout app.

and are a hesitation, the pressure building on silicon valley to block nra content and pick a side on gun control. one of the most highly anticipated public offerings of the year is here. spotify going public. the company not filing for a traditional ipo, instead a direct listing on the new york stock exchange skipping the roadshow. part of the filing, spotify revealed it is holding on to the top spot in streaming services, with 71 million paying premium subscribers at the end of september. we caught up with alex in london, someone who knows all about the european tech scene. >> i had to come back. what will be one of the key european coming-of-age, spotify justg to the market,

listing shares and it is interesting because of course, you might think it is to save fees, they do not need cash. maybe, they do not want the drama of an ipo hot in the minds? like the previous swedish company that went public, king and, it fell on ipo day? this is very swedish. swedes are known to play it cool. the ceo, chairman, cofounder of spotify, he does not like the limelight. you can hardly find any videos of him stretching back to 2012. this is a company that wants to do things differently. emily: very swedish, alex. what did we learn? >> the coolness factor is not necessarily what investors will look at. because they don't get to go on roadshows, sit in and ask a dinner questions, they will -- ask daniel questions, they will be looking at revenue. the to 1.4 billion euros,

company continues to lose money. not something paying attention, will it hurt them not to have access to the ceo? when you think about the business, the music streaming business, the big number one question is, is this a viable moneymaking potentially profitable industry? spotify is the leader. they say they have a leader by more than double of apple music. that is great. the9 premium subscribers, folks who pay them money, that is still a small slice of the number of possible people out there who could be consuming music content. getting,be potentially 64 page prospectus investors are looking at, as they decide what is the real valuation for the company? they will be the ones making the decision on listing day. emily: there are giants like apple in the room.

what does this listing mean for the european tech scene? >> this is crucial because numbers we are seeing bandied about, as a valuation, up to $20 billion, that is significant, much bigger than in recent history than we have seen in the european tech scene. we have to look back to super cell, who sold out to china's tencent. that was $10 billion last year, one of the big ones. the valuation of $5 billion. in germany, recent ones have come to market, some do not live up to heights that spotify is going to hit. germany, 4 billion, $5 billion. more companies want to come to market. funding circle wants to tap the markets.

this is going to funnel money back into the ecosystem first dollar -- for smaller companies as well. local deals, the see founded in funded, other companies, locally to london, wellington, axel, these companies will make money at they sell their shares on listing day and they will funnel it back into european tech. it is crucial. dropback, towe saw the traditional ipo route. do you think other tech companies will take this nontraditional listing route or this is an anomaly? >> tech companies are looking at it and it will come down to the evaluation process. the risk is the stock ends up being volatile. the valuation will be set on listing day, depending on how many shareholders want to sell,

who wants to buy and what price they are willing to change hands? spotted by has given indications, since 2017 and private transactions, trading between $60 and $23 billion. that is big. this goes, on how what the volatility looks like moving forward, could be something that people watch. when you ask private company ceos, what do you think about being public? a lot talk negatively about the distraction of the stock price. that you have a stock price wildly, maybe you go back to the ipo process and get more, granular valuation, discovery process before you decide to lift shares. emily: caroline hyde and alex there. in the meantime netflix continues to ramp up spending. speaking at a conference, ceo david wells says they are spending upwards of $8 billion on content this year. they will have 700 original

shows and movies on the platform over the course of 2018. joshg up, we hear from silverman about how he crafted the company's best order today. fitbit, all-time low on disappointing earnings and forecast. what is next? we will hear from the ceo, james park, next. this is bloomberg. ♪

♪ emily: shares of at the rose after -- shares of etsy rose and for the first time they hit a billion dollars in market shares. what the company is doing to boost revenue. >> market opportunity we face is enormous. and a sea of sameness, the world needs etsy more than ever. we are very proud of the fact we had a $1 billion quarter.

$1gross merchandise sales, billion of international sales through 2017. we grew faster the fourth quarter than we have grown in recent quarters. the way we are doing that is by doing the basics better. and better job of search and discovery. 50 million unique items for sale on etsy. finding the right view to show is important. we are doing a better job on trust and reliability, so you know things like, when can i expect this to arrive in what is the return policy? marketing capabilities are better and it is showing up. emily: your been cutting costs where and how? >> we are focused on faster. we need to go faster, an organizational structure that is clean accountability and very little bureaucracy. unfortunately that meant that in the third quarter of last year, we needed a leaner structure and we did a layoff.

the goal was to go faster and we announced that we have done more than 350 product enhancements since may, with over 20% leading to higher gms. we going faster and serving the community better. emily: how is changes coming up internally and externally? >> the team went through hard times over the summer. difficult changes. we are seeing that we are serving the seller community better and the team is feeling great about that. emily: you have giants in the room. amazon, especially. how big a threat are they? >> etsy is unique in that we have 50 million items, that are made by hand. 1.9 million sellers, you just cannot find that anywhere else. etsy is where you go when you want it to feel special. the traditional role of retail, your price, convenience and selection. the old saw is, you can only do

2. if you think about our space, the way they give you better pricing is by buying 10,000 units of something and then passing along savings. if you can buy 1000 of anything, it does not belong on etsy. they do a good job of convenience by warehousing and shipping to you. are made byn etsy hand and made to order, customized for you, and not bound to the warehouse. in terms of selection, 50 million items by over 1.9 million sellers. no one else comes close. emily: shareholders raised the possibility of selling. is that on the table? >> we feel great about the market opportunity. ien i joined a ceo in may, said i believe we have a big opportunity and we can grow quickly. you're seeing evidence of that. we feel great about our trajectory. emily: could you drive better in a larger company or an off-line

craft store? >> i think we are thriving really well today and the resulting posted demonstrate we are unlocking growth and value, which is great for sellers and buyers and all of our stakeholders. emily: you have given up the b corp designation. about thethat say possibility of running a socially conscious business? isthe great thing about etsy that our day job is socially responsible. 86% of our sellers are women. they count on us to wake up every day and deliver on their behalf. we are a socially responsible organization. what has changed is, our focus in execution. when you are socially responsible you hold yourself to a higher bar in terms of focus and execution and we are. emily: that was etsy ceo, josh a woman. fitness -- josh silverman.

fitbit faces new challenges. shares, all-time low, what is the next step? cory johnson spoke with the ceo on tuesday. year.7 was a challenging and played out differently than we expected. for us, the shift from basic activity trackers to more fully featured smart watches is happening even faster than we anticipated. we launched our first smart watch, ionic, into the category in q4. prior priorhe product search. there was not the mass appeal driver we anticipated. that was reflected in our financials and that is what investors are reacting to. reporter: it strikes me as an interesting problem. when i looked at the apple watch, after fitbit, it was a product in search of a use. i feel like fitbit was the use.

monitor steps, help people live healthy. fitness, physical focused product. thatu move from bands, count steps or else a whatever to watch his that can do more, do you start to lose that focus? how do you make a mass-market product not just for runners or triathletes but for people who want to lose 10 pounds? >> absolutely. we will maintain our focus on health and fitness. emphasis in the category shift from trackers to smart watches, a lot of that will come in the futures. long are specific apps, battery life over 4 days helps with sleep tracking. the number one on itunes and android for health and fitness. platform independence plays a key role, especially as we

integrate more deeply into health care ecosystems. i still strongly believe the focus on health and fitness, regardless of what the type is, is the winning strategy. while ionic was not the success we anticipated, we achieved a lot as a company. ear guidance and earnings, we exceeded projections for free cash flow, and we are operationally efficient. $50 millionover below are target we had stated to investors. we deepened our reach into health care. one of the more interesting aspects, you think about devices and active user base, grew to over 25 million users. reporter: what is the dynamic? have you ship fewer products but have more users? >> one of the things investors have been concerned about in the past, what is our level of

attention and usage? -- level of retention and usage? do people put this in the drawer after three months? even though shipments declined and the active user base grew, that means we are getting better at getting people to stay longer on our devices and platform. that will be important as we start to shift the business model from being device centric to one more around the software services. >> let's talk about the shift in the business model. that was seen as the real leg up in terms of unit sales, might be the corporate market or a big company or eating everyone there to wear a fitbit. if you monitor your steps using a fitbit and another application, you get credit toward buying stuff for gift cards and so on. now you're talking about health care. you have been for more than a year. is that different than the corporate focus or are they one

and the same? >> it is a little different. primarily out enterprise business before had been about selling devices to enterprises. we had large installations, 40,000 50,000 units, several hundred thousand unit deal with target. the difference is, what our business model is behind the health business. we are moving to one more based around what is called pmpm, per member per month, which is recurring and more predictable. also risk sharing models where we happen to participate in, share of any savings and health care costs, that we achieve for our users. reporter: you're getting that now? >> there are promising steps. we already have pmpm deals with blue cross blue shield of north carolina. and the recent partnership with health care around the management has the potential to

move to a risk sharing payment model. are these thehat, kind of contracts that will be significant, more than say 1% of revenue per deal? >> it is hard to say what the revenue outlook will look like. we are concrete steps in 2018. you can expect to see health care being a more meaningful part of our business going forward. emily: fitbit ceo, james park with our own, cory johnson. up, alibaba edging out other investors to be the sole owner of a delivery startup. we go to hong kong next. if you like bloomberg news, check us out on the radio. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: in china, alibaba ramping

up the competition with food delivery. they have agreed to buy shares of a startup, that it does not already own. the giants already had a 23% stake in the company. it was valued at $6 billion last year. lulu broke the story and joined us live from hong kong. >> this is buying the last mile delivery network. largestready china's delivery platform and an acquisition would give alibaba instant access to 50% of the market. is also benefits the new retail strategy. the company has grocery store lines right now. their promising to deliver groceries within 30 minutes within a three kilometer radius. also they had their own business which operates a similar neighborhood service. the acquisition would help them consolidate, and streamline resources.

>> how does this impact other players in the market? >> right now, breakneck competition between alibaba and others. emerging, set to be valued around $30 billion already and that company right now, they are occupying or 2% of the market share, even though in the last quarter, alibaba, if the deal goes through, they still need to put in a great amount of money. it is a cash burning business. now, the company having an acquisition would help them consolidate that business and help them in the competition. >> how do you see the broader chinese e-commerce market playing out? >> right, in the space, remember that baidu wanted to join but

now, between the companies, aidu willnd tencent, b be fading out. and theirfocus on ai search business which is their core business. going into the neighborhood, off-line retail business, a cash burning business, the drag is down on margin and it seems as of now, only alibaba and tencent have the long-term cash to play out the war. emily: thank you to lulu chen from hong kong. aazon has agreed to buy rnig, company -- ring, a company that buys smart doorbells, this helps push amazon into the home market. advise ring.hase & co >> the ceo went into shark tank,

asked for $700,000, now valued at $7 million, selling for $1 billion now, to amazon. and nice ending for ring. amazon,, an important step as they continue to push into the more consumer-based hardware. we've seen them really try in the past six months to embed themselves in consumer homes. you sought with amazon key, where you could unlock it for delivery folks. you have seen it with echo. this seems to fit nicely within that entire ecosystem because, amazon's end goal is not selling hardware. it is getting the hardware in so they can sell more products e-commerce. >> talk about how this fits into the delivery strategy?

obviously, amazon has been focused on that last mile. now they have this concierge service key, where amazon can go in your home and drop off packages. how does this tie together? a smartyou use ring, camera, you can have the person on the ground talk. you can talk back on your pc or phone or tablet. that actual relationship where you are not passive, you can engage with the person. if it is a amazon delivery person who is verified, you can open the door for them and tell them where to leave something. amazon is been pushing services like housecleaning and dog walking. anyone who showing up at your door, can be potentially lead inside. you keep spending within that broader amazon platform. >> what do you make of this deal? i own a ring doorbell and i was shocked. the product is good but $1 billion? >> there are reports from last

year saying they were valued at $450 million. that is a bump. it is a nice exit. for amazon, a small check. ring, amazonsed didn't have an advisor. they just shelled out the money for the deal. it seems to be another small built on that amazon is collecting as it continues to fill this set of tools it has to keep getting into people's homes. >> there was a big deal with whole foods last year. do you think amazon will be more acquisitive in the future? >> i can tell you now covering tech m&a, their number one on my list. we are waiting on the next big deal. nothing in the hopper i know about now. that doesn't mean it could change. even the whole foods deal fits in perfectly. your food, you talk to the camera, get them in the door. emily: that was alex.

coming up, the gun control debate hits the tech world. the growing backlash over the nra and streaming services.

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♪ emily: welcome back to "the best of bloomberg technology turco i'm emily chang. gun-control activists have managed to get companies like delta and hurts to sever ties with the national rifle corporation. but there is one group they haven't swayed yet, big tech companies like apple, amazon and roku. those streaming services still offer access to nra tv, the gun lobbies access channel focused pro-gunch content -- content. we spoke with bloomberg

technology reporters on wednesday for more. >> since the shootings in florida we have seen growing calls on twitter from activists and consumers to stop tech companies from streaming nra tv. seenve any -- have even celebrities come into the fray. and we have seen david hogg make strong suggestions to his hundreds of thousands of dollars to ask them to move from fedex over to competing services. family: there is -- emily: there is a tweet from actress alyssa milano demanding that these companies sever ties with the nra. the tweet from david hogg says we should probably just use ebay instead of amazon. ebay does not support nra tv.

#changescoming. companiesse credit and rental car companies like ertz, for them is just a financial relationship, ending these discounts. for these streaming services like apple and comcast and roku, speechuld run into free issues bite silencing a media force. they could also be alienating a large portion of their user base, since a significant portion of the u.s. population does in fact own guns. sell guns.oesn't apple doesn't sell guns. what you make of this threat of a boycott? >> this shows how far gun-control activists are willing to go in terms of brand association. amazon doesn't sell guns or ammunition. the people are taking umbrage with the fact that it is associated with the nra, merely by offering nra tv through its streaming devices and services. so it is a question of simply association. nra tv, you can go to nra.org

right now and watch nra tv all day long, you don't need apple to do it, you don't need amazon to do it. but any association at all with the nra brand is coming under target from gun-control activists who feel like they, they just want to see some sort of action taken to marginalize this pro-gun lobby. emily: roku says they would not remove nra tv. they would only remove a channel of they were doing something illegal. what response have we heard from the other companies? declinedof them have to respond, amazon one of them. try to stay politically neutral. not surprising, they don't want to alienate the user base and want to see -- and want to have prime subscriptions coming. but in the past few days we have seen the calls to try to stay py neutral. not amazon escalate, tweeting that they are canceling prime subscription and talking about ways you can buy the products you want on amazon

by going directly to the seller, without going to the website. there are also people tweeting responses they are getting from amazon, asking them to cancel this nra tv streaming. so certainly amazon is feeling the pressure but i think the response of these companies is to roku in similar terms of being political neutral. -- being politically neutral. emily: at a certain point, is amazon going to have to respond? has beens what fascinating. its like there is a standout. the people on twitter, on social media, are encouraging one another to keep up the momentum. and it has gone beyond one tweet to encourage amazon to stop streaming nra tv. now, people are probably posting photos of the response they get when they cancel the prime accounts. and like selena said, they are coaching one another on how to buy things online without using

amazon. that part is kind of funny. it is like, wow, you can buy something online without going to amazon? yes, you can. and they are strategizing with what they call reverse show grooming. so you find a product on amazon, identify who makes it or who the vendor is, and then bypass amazon in some other way. so there's definitely a big conversation, not only about boycotting amazon but people boasting about canceling prime memberships and even coaching one another on how to boycott amazon with minimal obstruction to their lives if they been dependent on the service. selena andks to spencer. spotators brought in to fakes news and misleading videos stumbled in one of their first major tests this week. screeners mistakenly pulled right-wing videos in the wake of the park when shooting. some youtube channels began complaining about their accounts being pulled entirely.

youtube said it would reinstate any videos removed in error and that it would continue to enforce existing policy. how do yound i just just how0 billion -- do you spend $100 billion? we find that next. plus, the renewed push for 5g. that's next. this is bloomberg. ♪

>> it has been one year since snaps ipo and we still have a lot of question. out of snap went public it make huge changes. it rolled out a bidding based advertising model which caused at prices to fall. it also redesigned the snapchat function to separate posts by friends and celebrities and the

media. that is a move that has seen a lot of public backlash. there is one tweet by certain social media superstar that wiped out $1.3 billion of snap value in one day. last month the company posted its first quarter beating analyst estimates. -- fan base is growing steadily with users approaching 200 million. but internally snap did meet its own goals. the 2017 casht bonuses that were planned. leadership has been working to employee- to improve morality try to work on transparency. but the chief executive officer has that reputation for not appreciating criticism and he has lost a slew of executives. is inis one official that snap's defense. emily: that was sarah frier. when it comes to tech investment funds, softbank's vision fund reigns supreme.

with $100 billion in its coffers the fund has invested in uber, , we work, and just this week, door dash, and they are not stopping. the vision fund ceo spoke with caroline hyde at a conference in barcelona on what comes next in , hitting that $100 billion commitment. rajeev: the message is simple. it is not just about the industry. the message is the entrepreneur the vision, the passion, the first, ability to grow, not just grow in terms of revenues but are able to recruit, have the -- but be able to recruit, have the bandwidth to go out and hire senior management. and i believe that they can do it because that is what we push on market capital. how are you create exponential growth using that capital? that is one. second, they cannot be number two because going from number

two to overtaking the market leader takes a lot more effort than drawing from number one. caroline: market share in a country or globally? rajeev: in a country. and the third objective obviously is they are truly disruptive. and there is a consumer need for them. there is a consumer need to sell used cars for people living in smaller towns, or even living in larger towns where they could not get a better price. or whether it is cheaper homes, with the ability to have an kind of online real estate broker sell your home faster for a better price, etc., etc. caroline: you have $100 billion eventually to put to work. when does it close? rajeev: sometime this summer.

caroline: and when you have $100 billion, you have the rest of the eyes of the ec community on you worrying about valuations , being pumped up. is that a concern? rajeev: it would be good for them ift the valuations go up, because they can exit at those -- if the valuations go up, because they can exit at those prices. a lot of the early investors have exited a lot, predominately, with our investments because we do primary and secondary, including -- buyout secondary shares including in uber and dd and we work, where early investors exited and sold secondary shares. caroline: you mentioned uber, dd, companies in the spain -- in the same space, ridesharing. how does it work when you have competitors? rajeev: they are not competitors because dd is in china. uber is the rest of the world. there is a little bit of overlap, but i believe it is

quite synergistic because at some point there's r&d to be shared, and the benefits are immense having 30 companies in your portfolio growing to 70, 80 companies over the next few years. caroline: will you merge them? rajeev: they definitely become joint ventures. selling used cars to uber drivers, insurance companies, like selling car insurance to uber drivers. caroline: you are buying insurance at the moment. rajeev: it is early days. caroline: what about the expansion into other areas? where are you not seeing enough , in terms of deals? do you want to see more in the banking sector?

do you want to see more from a geographical perspective? rajeev: the thing about deals, our ability to process them is important. we have been in business for 30 months, so we are seeing enough deals. i think we could only desire that we see more from europe. we have made substantial investments in the u.s., which is our number one destination. we made a few investments in china and india. we would like to see more from europe. ♪ emily: that was the softbank vision fund ceo speaking with caroline hyde in barcelona. in just a few weeks, the fcc will vote on a plan to ease federal regulations for 5g wireless equipment. ftc commissioner brendan carr proposed new rules that would install small cells equipment for the next generation 5g networks. they will power the new speedy networks. this is all, in part a larger effort from fcc individuals, wireless carriers, and chipmakers to ensure u.s.

leadership when it comes to 5g. ftc chair brendan carr joined us from washington. brendan: we are transitioning and that transition is going to enable a lot of the innovation you are hearing about now, autonomous vehicles, the internet of things, remote surgery, ai, we need to upgrade our network to get it to 5g to support those types of deployments. and we are working with the fcc to cut the unnecessary regulatory red tape that is threatening to hold that back. emily: the regulatory costs are one thing and the financial costs are another. i mean, these networks are extremely costly. how do, you know how do telecoms , handle that? brendan: that's right. aboutimate it should take $275 billion in investment to deploy 5g, and these can make a

these infrastructure deployment rules can make a big difference in making that economical. streamlining is estimated to cut 80% of the regulatory costs of deployment. that means cell sites that are going to be more economical to deploy to push the 5g network further out and supply service to more americans. emily: how does wireless infrastructure fit into the infrastructure plan overall? brendan: it is certainly a big piece of it. when you look at infrastructure more broadly broadband is a key , piece of that. just like we need to reform a lot of our other infrastructure deployment rules, our broadband deployment rules are right there. fcc we have authority to do that and on march 22 we are voting on a planned it would speed the production of that broadband infrastructure. emily: a task force that was examining these issues of wireless appointment, saying that local regulators would lose control. what is your response to that?

brendan: there is a couple of different issues. the one in march looks at federal, environmental, and historic permitting processes. the other goes to the question of state and locals, and their roles in deployments. this first piece goes into environmental and historic. we are also taking a look at the state and local. i think we all have an important role to make sure these deployments are economical. the costs of deploying these networks are high enough. we don't need it unnecessarily going to regulatory red tape. the states, the locals, the i ftc i think we are all looking , at ways to streamline the deployment rules. emily: how would you rank the u.s. when it comes to global competition? obviously, we know there has ,een progress in south korea for example. we have been talking about it at the conference in barcelona. where does the u.s. fall right now in the hierarchy? brendan: right now, we lead the world when it comes to the deployment of 4g wireless, and that is why we need to update our regulations so we can deploy this next generation of 5g. a lot of countries look to the

united states. they saw that we lead the world in 4g. they want to lead the world in 5g, so for this global competitiveness we need to step up to the plate and reform regulatory structures. and if we do that, and i'm confident that we are, then we will also lead the world in 5g. so as a country, i think we are in good shape now. we just need to reform our regulatory structures. emily: why do you think the u.s. needs to lead in 5g? talk about the economic benefits when it comes to jobs, when it comes to actual people. brendan: good point. the deployment of 5g is estimated to enable 3 million new jobs in this country if we get it right. at $500timated that million to gdp. we get a high speed broadband connections to more americans, that gives them access to jobs. it gives than access to economic opportunity. so that's really why we are

trying to take these actions. emily: if we do not take these that gives them access to jobs.t lead in 5g, how might you see u.s. citizens be harmed? brendan: there are countries that are more than happy to fill the void and be the first ones to deploy 5g. that's going to mean that a lot of these innovative, cutting-edge services and devices that we are talking about will be deployed in other countries first. i want to see all those products that consumers are reading about launched here first. i don't want to sit back and watch that happen in another country. and at the fcc we are certainly not doing that. we are moving quickly to make sure we can enable that private sector innovation and investment to take place here. emily: that was fcc commissioner brendan carr. coming up, the heavyweights take center stage in the fight for cell phone supremacy. we weigh in on the battle between the iphone x and samsung galaxy s9. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: some revolving doors in tech. firstest has named its chief operating officer. company is aiming to scale its the ad business ahead of a potential ipo. they are hiring a former executive at square and google. she was most recently square's business lead, overseeing the company's revenue products international expansion, , customer support, and partnerships. she joined the electronics-payment company in 2018 after several years at google. and another revolving door story. francis frei, the woman who were bloomberg --t into was brought into uber to clean house and a punishing year, is leaving just after eight months. she was on the management committee until the fourth elected ceos replacement. frei will continue to serve as an advisor to uber as she embarks on her own project to design a leadership program for executives centering on women and minorities.

turning now to the battle of the smartphones. samsung has come out to its response to the iphone x. has new emojis, upgrades, and stereo speakers. it was unveiled in barcelona. off the heels of the announcement bloomberg reported , apple is planning to release a trio of new smartphones later this year the largest iphone , ever, and a less expensive model with some key features. according to people familiar with the matter apple is already , running production tests with suppliers. an official announcement is expected this fall. bloomberg tech's mark gurman broke the story and joins us with more. : -- mark: apple is working on three new phones this year. the big story is the bigger phone, a 6.5 inch phone, the biggest they have done and the largest mainstream smartphone on the market. there is also going to be an update to the iphone x design, the current screen size, plus a

new cheaper model with many of , the features people like in the iphone x. emily: how will this compared to the eight and eight plus? mark: if you look at apple's strategy right now, they have the high-end phones and the two low-end phones, but the problem is the eight and eight plus, while they are new and have some newer tech inside, outside is what many consumers care about extremely outdated. and is those designs are the same ones that came out in 2014, so this will alleviate that. a cheaper price with face id, the edge screen, and a lot of the new, outward-facing flashy , features. emily: why do they think we want a bigger phone? mark: that's a good question. one, it appeals to markets in asia, where a lot of consumers are single device users. that means people who only have one piece of technology in their life. they watch tv from it, they do their email from it, they do their homework from it. people who do everything on one

device, versus people who spread their workload across the phone, tablet, tv, so this is appealing to those people, especially business users as well. emily: what will competition be like between the two phones? mark: the samsung s9 is not a big update from the s8. it is sort of a a midcycle refresh. and why that is, i think it because samsung is holding its fire for this fall when it will come out with whatever they choose to call it, the galaxy x, the true successor to the samsung galaxy and the big feature will be this , flexible, foldable, high-tech digital screen, which will be a new, unprecedented step in the industry. so apple, with the new iphone will be going toe to toe with , that, so the apple-samsung war will be a significant moment to watch. emily: you often hear tim cook and apple talk about getting new users from the android platform. you know how many users are , actually switching platforms , whether it is from android to

iphone or vice versa? becausets interesting, tim cook dodged this question on the last earnings call. and typically, they like to tout those numbers. maybe it means the switching was not as frequent as they would have expected, or they do not have the data. but we do know that this bigger phone, the 6.5 inch phone will appeal to android users who are on the note 8 bandwagon. they want a screen of more than six inches in real estate. the lower-cost model will be bringing down the high-tech to a also lower price, so that could be appealing to android switchers. emily: when it comes to the iphone x, what do we know about the mix, and how do we expect that to evolve? mark: we can glean a lot from past earnings results. -- past earnings results, from earlier in the month. the iphone asp is north of $700, because of the $1000 starting price of the iphone x.

but we also know that unit sales overall came in below analyst expectations, so even though the asp was higher, unit sales were lower than expected, 1% lower year over year than last year, which indicates to me that people are interested in the iphone x's high-tech features but some people can't afford it. so they are left with the cheaper one which they do not want. so coming out with a lower-cost model around $600 or $700 with new technology, i think that is going to be a really big boon for apple. emily: that does it for this edition of "the best of bloomberg technology." tune in thursday when we bring you top female voices in technology for international women's day. 's meghan joyce and ellen pao, just some of the fantastic voices we have lined up for you. tune in at 5:00 p.m. in new york, 2:00 p.m. in san francisco. and remember all episodes are , now live streaming on twitter.

that is all for now. this is bloomberg. ♪

♪ rosalind: coming up on "bloomberg best," the stories that shaped the week in business around the world. the fed's new chairman speaks on capitol hill and investors are listening closely. >> there is no doubt he is reassessing, rethinking the policy path. >> he is basically saying we can absorb what you are throwing at us right now. >> there is a back-and-forth on brexit that clouds the future of negotiations. >> and neither of us can have exactly what we want. >> samsung rolls out a new galaxy to compete with the apple x. comcast looks to outfox disney is a bold bid for sky. >> thaes