♪[music] >> i'm emily chang in san francisco. is bloomberg technology. we are still learning new russia's massive campaign to spread misinformation and influence the 2016 election. are learning that instagram may have been their biggest weapon. may beber's growth flowing but its food delivery business is on fire. head of uber the everything, that is, all the ride hailing.ond and qualcomm.

we will hear from the lead manufacturersthe of the iphone and are spending at least $9 billion in damages from the chip maker. first, a new report revealedned -- has that russia's influence in the far moretion was massive than previously understood. the biggest bombshell was the played, muchm bigger than facebook, twitter and google. joining us now, the director of at the cyber security firm, new knowledge, who helped report.is use, first of all, just tell how much more massive than we have originally known was the influence of the russians in the u.s. election. >> i think what we saw from the senatet provided to the was that this was a long-running multi-year influence operation specificallyasn't focused on politics. it was focused on developing relationships with americans. the groups, meaning

establishing pages and instagram accounts and establishing kind where peoples clustered. then sometimes very much more directly, like recruiting activists, infiltrating protest movements, creating hotlines for embarrassed about certain facets of their lives. it was really a much more broad-based scope. put this into context, 187 million interactions with instagram content compared with just 77 millionon facebook, 73 on twitter. one of these stra instagram accs had over 300,000 followers. just how big was the influence instagram in particular? >> instagram was something they used more, in some ways more strategically i think. they began to create pages on instagram according to the datas thanwe have, even earlier on facebook. so they were really prioritizing it. instagram inng

remarkably interesting ways. there was an instagram account army of jesus. you may have seen the meme of boxing sa satan. that kind of content was third iteration. it started out as a kermit the frog meme. wasn't popular, they switched to a simpsons meme page. then they found jesus and it became a religious army of jesus focused page. so they were really in there, their metrics,g looking at their engagement and to direct these accounts. i think it was very much more on a per post basis. morenk instagram gave them of "likes." it's difficult to make a direct comparison,ples because on facebook you can share, and on instagram it's more about building up your audience. it's just a different platform. >> so, sarah, what do you think is the biggest takeaway here? >> i think it's that the russian

veryign was run like a professional branding or marketing campaign where you get deep into a community and building an affinity. on instagram in particular, we saw a black activism account that was incredibly popular, a feminism account that was incredibly popular, and once buy-in, then it turned on the political messaging and us as blackow, voters, there's no reason to us for vote. countte is not going to anyway. hillary clinton is not one of us. a -- becoming part of a group, then sharing the message that russia wanted to share. one of the allegations in this report is that facebook, notle and twitter did reveal the extent of the interference. facebook has made a statement from acoming spokesperson. as we said all long, congress and the intelligence committee place to use the

information to determine the political motivations of actors like the internet research agency. we provided thousands of as and content to the community and shared information with the public about what we found. facebook,ed on what google, twitter have already said, from what you're seeing in misleadort, did they the american public? >> i just got a statement from saying that facebook, google, twitter were a lot -- harder thanob a lot it should have been, that they were dragging their feet on data and they were unwilling to do the kind of rene'sh analysis that team was able to do with this report. i mean, i think that the consequence office this are dire, because these companies are facing the prospect of regulation in the future and if they can't show that they can police themselves, increases the argument to have congress make them. specificare there instances where you believe or

you can point out where mark sandberg,, sheryl mislead congress in their testimony? think there were -- one of the most notable ones was about the idea of suppression. the content aim to prevent people from voting? this is a question that came up hearing that sandberg participated in. the response there was much like the response from the spokesperson, which is that is committee andce the senate are best suited to make that assessment. i understand and appreciate why the company feels that way and wants to have that degree of clarity. i think, though, that since this responsible for the sort of front line of defense about a lot of these things, having a kind of clear definition on what it thinks of as suppression and working with lawmakers and civil society and researchers to identify and so thatse things early rather than doing forensic 400 gig's worth of material, we're better positioned to identify and find collaboratively work to prevent something like this from

happening again in the future. you feel that the companies are now being forthcoming, that they've or is itheir lesson, still a problem for the future? are you still finding it difficult to get the data you do this kind of analysis? >> no >> for 2018, we worked together collaboratively. they came together and did a solid job of identifying the closings. was remarkably forthcoming when things were its platform. steps are moving in the right direction. is it perfect? no. i think that one thing that the public has to understand as well idea that this is going to happen almost as a chronic condition at this point. the internet research agency, as found out through some of the indictments through eastern district court, increased their budget after 2016. so they thought that what happened was a success. so in light of that, they've kind of telegraphed that they're

going to keep doing this. so we really have to work to find it try earlier so that we're not doing these lookbacks in the future. >> renee, do you believe there's more that you, that they, that we still do not know? so, yes.k i think that we know -- we find new pages. we find stale accounts. we find dormant accounts that appear to have been created around the same time as some of the other accounts. right now what we're trying to up with frameworks where when researchers find this youf, we can say, hey, should have a look at this. each side has an incomplete picture. can see cross platform manipulation. the accounts were created, you know, anomalies, things that justre linked with that don't make sense. then the intelligence community has an idea of targeting, foreign services are going to go after, why they topics.ck certain that's where putting the pieces

of the puzzle together are critical. >> the companies have talked a lot about the investments they're making that make sure this isn't happening again, but already said this is happening again. do you think this can happen to extent in the 2020 elections? will the russian attackers, if you will, just develop new that these companies will not be able to catch? >> i hope that we'll be able to catch them. do think they'll develop new tactics. we already see a decrease in using ads. in 2018, that was not really a strategy. but at the same time, they may foraying the groundwork laundering ads through llc's that are clooered to advertise on -- cleared to advertise on facebook. there is much more infiltration we previously knew about. so looking at it, did they know who they were dealing with, or

are they still engaging in some with accounts, these are things that the platforms have much more visibility into than do. i think there are -- if you think about it, from -- almost security problem. nobody thinks that the patch they get for their operating is going to be the last one. there will be a new feature, a and then bady, actors will go out and try to find a way to exploit it. it's up to those of us on the side to try to prevent them from doing it. right. renee, who helped write this report, to the senate committee, with new knowledge. thank you so much, renee, for stopping by. you'll continue to cover all of this for us. well, google will invest more than $1 billion to expand its presence in new york city. the company will move into new buildings in manhattan over the next three years. they could more than double their staff in new york, which currently stands at 7,000 people.

coming up, uber's future may on its ambitions beyond ride hailing. we'll talk to the executive about its growing food service and more next. this is bloomberg. ♪

>> in november, uber released a limited set of financial information. the san francisco based start-up its food glimpse into delivery business for the first time. a spokesperson said uber eats generated $2.1 billion in gross uber's 12.7% of billion dollars in gross bookings overall last quarter. emergence of uber eats as a promising new business has been news. dario was asked about it as the

tech live conference earlier this year. >> lots of companies would kill growth. it's a large number. and we've got businesses like 150%.hat are growing at we have a mix of businesses. and there are some businesses that are naturally going to mature as a scale. but as they are scaling, contribution margin, we demonstrate in some markets that contribution market is positive. is ouru.s., which largest market, we're in a big with lyft. that's a challenge. >> joining us now, uber vice president and head of uber everything, jason. thank you so much for joining us. so that was in response to a why is growth overall slowing. like a lot is riding on uber. what actually counts as everything else? >> yeah. i'll give you a little bit of history on how quick we got to which is uber everything. so i joined the company four and

thelf years ago to build team to help figure out what other businesses uber could get into, because from the very uber saw itself as more than ride sharing and how launch new businesses and new ideas and allow people to connect with their cities. over the course of 2014, we okay, there's a lot of things we could potentially do. thingsook at all the that we can move. so we said, let's call the everything.r we quickly found out that food was a big part of it. 95% of what we do on a regular basis. that weren't expecting food would be as big as we thought. at the very beginning, we thought, oh, there's got to be a businesses, but food ended up being bigger than we thought it would be. there's the uber everything eats.but we do uber >> all foods orders. taking,ust what uber is but the entire order.

>> that's right. >> give us an idea of how fast growing.ess is >> hard to say when we would get to half. mean -- >> but is that -- is that a possibility? soyou know, we don't -- it's hard for me to speculate. the reason why is we just hit our three-year anniversary about ago.k and so we launched the business 2015.ember 9 of it's been three years. $2.1 billion in bookings last year. it's grown much faster, even the company is surprised. surprised.asantly but it's hards to say. i think our approach has always been, if we focus on the ontomer and if we focus restaurants and the markets and what people want out of the business, then it will end up being what it is. and it's a bigger business than we thought it was gonna be. and i think it will continue to us.rise >> are there any anecdotes that would share with me that would how fast it'sst grown? >> year one, december of 2015, our first city, toronto. a year later, we were in 50

markets. city, a would be one market. a year after that, we were in 200 markets. 360 markets across 36 countries. that $2.1 billion that you know, obviously happened in under three years. number will be an increase to even that. soj of the surprising -- some of surprising things from a growth standpoint is ho% of use-- 40% of the people who uber eats have never been in an uber. drawing on a new base of customers that hopefully will eventually allow the rides -- the ride business has allowed us to grow. >> which cities globally are the busiest? what markets do you have that have more than half the market share? don't come on a -- i think we've been surprised how big it kind of almost everywhere we've gone. the u.s. is the key market for australia, mexico, brazil. i mean, we just have been very

surprised at how much penetration we've been able to get. and we've done, you know, everything we can to execute on opportunity that's out there. >> you're expanding on the starbucks partnership. mcdonald's.got how important will corporate partnerships be versus local restaurants? >> yeah. think they're a big part of our business. ultimately we have to serve what consumerswant and sometimes want mcdonald's and starbucks. we have -- you know, uber's history says we want to businesses and local small businesses. and supply them with the same infrastructure and logistics as we do the larger partners. so an important part of the strategies but giving data and logistics and marketing to these, et cetera, extent we can to small businesses is a big part of our strategy. a number of profitable markets. we're very focused on growth now. took the business from growth stage.

we wanted to mike sure -- make we could get the economics in shape. then we said, all right, let's growing. >> will we get more specifics? >> you know, i have heard, you dara has said we're going public next year. i'm going to leave it to him to talk about the specifics. >> okay. do you see acquisitions in the business? do you think the eats business from strategic acquisitions? >> i think we're opportunistic in everythingc that with edo. it's hard to say -- in everything we do. growing so quickly, as, you know, you mentioned. seeing, that we've can only do something like that if it made sense at the stage of the business. is growing and when there's enough green out there to address, i think you really opportunistic and selective. but generally, no. >> has uber abandoned the idea of delivering things like furniture or flowers? we haven'tnk -- no, abandoned any idea. i think that there is the right

time for the right businesses, know. in my past, i've started a lot andhings from early stage grown them. and one of the lessons i've learned is that timing really landscape is constantly changing. and new opportunities are come. a new opportunity that didn't exist in2014 might 2019. we'll see if the timing is right for those things. courierabout like a service? so many put stuff in an uber they've left somewhere, and i know that's not how the service is supposed to work, but happens. i've had my phone brought back to me. >> i think it's really the magnitude of the opportunity. food is a big opportunity. our plan is to go as deep as we food. there are other adjacencies that are really interesting. it will probably be a while before we have on demand furniture. >> uber has talked about drones,

delivery robots. is that just hype? or is that something we'll see near term? >> uber is making a big bet on autonomy and robotics. the way i look at it is you have research andon development that will play out in three, five, seven years. what we're doing with some of these technologies. to day standpoint, we're very concerned about the welfare of our delivery partners, couriers, restaurants, because they're going to be a businessof our probably forever. it's a logistical challenge to door because human beings need to be involved and that's the reason we're making big investments. >> dara has expressed interest groceries.ng >> grocery is one of the adjacent sis. i think part of that comment -- are staffing up a team in toronto to address that opportunity. we see grocery and prepared food

bit of a collision course, because if you go into a grocery store, you've got prepared food. and a lot of the movement on the of things over years, people0 prepared foodhat more as a replacement to grocery. i think you're going to see those worlds move together and we're making a bet, you know. getting intoently it. but we are starting to look at d it. >> starting to look at delivery prepared food from grocery stores? >> we do that today, because there are grocery stores on uber eats. but more is a full-fledged offering, we do think it's adjacent to the eats business. >> okay. head of uber everything, which is mostly uber eats, thank much for stopping by. okay. coming up, robinhood does and about-face on its newest product

launch. details just ahead. is bloomberg. ♪

>> after a backlash around the marketing of its newest product, robinhood financial has it haded the service previously billed as robinhood checking and savings. yes, this is the service we told you about last week. initially rolled out with bankrcomparisons to traditional accounts but offering a 3% interest rate, the company from itsthe page website and deleted tweets about a blognch and issued post exchange the change. called a cash management service. they plan to work closely with regulators. an indian education start-up doubled itshan round.on after a funding

the company raised $540 million which will be used to fuel an expansion into english-speaking countries. existing backers include the well asrg initiative as ten crept holdings and sequoia capital. cofounder and chief the hqve officer of trivia app has died. c.e.o. of hqamed in december. he was found unconscious and early sunday morning. but a medical examiner has yet to determine the cause of death. 34 years old. the h.q. twitter account posted this. the passingoday of of our friend and founder and it is with deep sadness that we say goodbye. our thoughts go out to his family, friends and loved ones difficults incredibly time. coming up, who has the upper hand in the massive legal battle of qualcomm versus apple? we will hear from the lawyer manufacturerspple

who says he's optimistic about their case. plus, jeff bezos has had quite concluding the search for h.q. locations. we will discuss, next.

emily: ms. is "bloomberg technology." in sanly chang francisco. last week, a chinese court ruled in favor of qualcomm, banning sales of apple's iphone across the country can apple said it believes it was already in compliance but would change it software to address any possible concern. it is another twist in a global patent showdown between apple and qualcomm that is also impacting the contract manufacturers that assemble apple products. i spoke with ted, a lawyer representing them. i asked how big of a below this ruling is. >> it is not a blow at all. it is part of qualcomm's

distraction technique. they went in secret and got an order. my clients, the companies that they'll be i found the knife ipads did not even know about it. it turns out it is an order that relates to software. it doesn't have anything to do with cellular technology that is at issue in the lawsuits we have against qualcomm for my clients, where we are seeking $9 billion in damages. apple has been saying, they have an easy software work around. qualcomm has been engaging and all sorts of distraction techniques meant to take people's attention away from the fact that they are facing three big lawsuits here in the united states that challenge their business model to the core. not happylcomm is with apple's response. that they will design these patent issues. qualcomm's general counsel telling us they are legally obligated to immediately cease sales and importation of the devices and prove compliance in court.

you are representing the manufacturers. what happens if apple cannot sell its most popular devices on the chinese market? cannot sell its most popular devices on the chinese market? ted: i don't think it will even come close to happening. qualcomm is exaggerating in a way that is really deceptive to the investing public. their ceo has been saying there is a settlement on the horizon which is false. that secd of the thing looks into when companies make these statements. that order will not affect manufacturing. qualcomm is trying to take away from the fact that the united states government is taking them to trial on january 4, arguing and claiming that their business model, which is a monopolistic practice in excessive pricing and abuse of the law, must stop. that is what they are trying to pull everyone's attention away from. that is what this is all about. the patent they are clip -- they are claiming in china is not

something they created. it is something they bought. with thething to do legal hurdles they face in the united states. emily: what would it take for all sides to get serious about a settlement? ted: what qualcomm would have to do is cease its illegal practices. what happened is qualcomm took a lead in early cellular technology and it obtained a monopoly. and then it used that monopoly taxr to basically innovation to add a double price, something no manufacturer -- no company could ever get away with when they tell chips to product manufactured -- when they sell chips to product manufacturers. walk him needs to stop that. they need to compensate my stop that. they need to compensate my clients, the contract manufacturers for the injury and harm. one of the reasons i wanted to talk to you today is this case

has been talked about as apple versus qualcomm. it is really more than that. it is my clients, the builders of the devices, the united states government, it is regulatory authorities around the world, china, europe, korea, have found this conduct to be illegal. imposed over $3.5 billion in fines. qualcomm needs to cease its to treatctivity competitors fairly and treat consumers fairly cap the bottom line is its behavior is injuring consumers in the united states and around the world. the set of illegal disputes kicked off, the relationship between 20 -- between china and the u.s. has been different. what is the impact of the trade war and geopolitics? just a lawyer. just a country lawyer. far outwant to get too of my limit of geopolitics. what i can tell you is when a company like qualcomm goes to china and seeks an order that is clearly inappropriate and doing it in a way that is really meant to have an effect on u.s. proceedings, it is not too good for trade. it is not good for consumers.

it is not good for competition. he really need to stop that behavior and face the music as to their business model. that will be good for everyone. opennk we need to have trade, fair trade, fair markets. the kind of behavior, -- qualcomm is engaging in, china has already found it was imposed nearly $1 billion fine in u.s. dollars. any need to stop acting in anti-competitive way. that will be good for trade around the world. ted boutros there, representing the contract manufacturers that assemble apple products. toning us for more reaction the ongoing global legal battle between apple and qualcomm, chief operating officer. what do you make of his remarks? >> i think what you are seeing there is a huge drive here to try and hit back and

trying toat apple is argue their case and argue their case that qualcomm has done an extreme thing. and this is a field where there needs to be equal asset -- equal access to technology. and that china can -- china consumers should not necessarily suffer as a result of this case and apple has their innovations but qualcomm wants to protect theirs as well. argument that he is making. fore is an opportunity here the consumer to lose. -- i think that would be that is the case he is making. that is exactly what apple does not want to happen. so, what apple wants to happen would completely up and qualcomm's entire business

model. is that even possible? crawford: i think that is kind of the point he is making. not really likely. he is actually making the case that that could happen. theink in the aggregate, consumer in china, people do not want the consumer to lose. the chinese government does not want that to happen. from qualcomm standpoint, they do not want that to happen. i think overall, we are probably looking at a protracted legal battle where we reach some kind of a settlement because in fact, qualcomm has invested the medically. qualcomm has invested significantly in a fair amount of innovation that they want to protect. upending the entire business model does not seem likely from my bench point. emily: and it is also about the law. isn't qualcomm and the patents have racked up protected by law? crawford: they are protected by law. and the cases to what extent can qualcomm protect those patents

around the world? qualcomm wants to do that very, very aggressively. this is now where we are getting to the point i was making. who loses in this argument? does apple end up throttling data speeds. as a result of this to get around the patents. that will win for the consumer. you have to believe that qualcomm will try everything they can do to protect those patents that they have as you say racked up. way, that they are now starting to use to innovate and disrupt multiple markets and start participating to a larger degree in other markets. of which are other connected devices all the way up to these always connected pcs. in newm is innovating areas and using this technology to drive new areas of growth to the company. reallye going to work hard because as you say, this comes down to the viability of the company. emily: i want to ask you about

huawei, another company that has been racking up patents related to five gp or we have been covering the arrest of the cfo. we have been covering the security concerns around huawei not just in the u.s. but also in europe where huawei is running into some walls. how do you think huawei's fate plays out? crawford: this is a really, really tough one for huawei. standpoint, they have done an amazing job in markets around the world. they are now one of the leading android smartphone manufacturers. they are not a knock off supplier. they are a supplier of premium phones. at the same time, their 5g technology and the allegations are that there may be back doors to their technology and they have kind of avoided some of the major mature markets around the world. because they have not been able to do business in those markets. not the least of which being the united states. what they are going to see is

that there will be -- again, rollout is a connected rollout where the world is going to be delivering these advanced services. what huawei will be facing is pressure from companies that do business in will be facing is pressure from companies that do business in the u.s. and pressure from companies that do business in mature reasons of -- regions around the world and not necessarily do business with huawei because there is a fear that there will be a backdoor and there could be rated linkage or other kinds of issues associated with security. huawei has to be transparent. they have got to go into this with an open dialogue. if they are going to make progress. they are -- there are companies who are happy to supply this technology. not the least of which would be ericsson, in terms of infrastructure technology. emily: plus question, 30 seconds left. does qualcomm, another company that wants to dominate 5g, also win if huawei loses? if huaweiin a way,

yeah, slide back, then that does potentially open up some opportunity for qualcomm. remember, in the case of huawei, they have other options. particularly on the handset side. because they have their high silicon division where they can do their own innovation as well. if they get transparent, probably can drive a dialogue across the world. that there are these backdoors. emily: ok. crawford de prete, a lot of twists and turns. thank you so much for stopping by. coming up, we will look back on amazon in 2018 talking about everything from h2 q to its continues to push into the smart home. that is next. this is bloomberg. ♪ rg. ♪

emily: 2018 was quite the year for big tech. especially amazon. the tech giant concluded a year-long search for a new u.s. city to locate it second headquarters and decide to split the office into two different locations. after intense pressure, amazon raised its minimum hourly wage to $15 an hour. the company added at its feature to on most everything including microwaves and headlined stones -- and the headlines don't stop there. darren baker is with us. also with us, bloomberg opinion. i want to talk about how darren: many points amazon clocked on the competition. darren:amazon stole the 10,000 pound gorilla. emily: visit 20,000 pounds now? emily: i think that -- darren: i think that is the story.

there are 15 times as many transactions than its competitors. there are signs it is slowing. they are up 2% year-over-year in total online transactions. cyber monday across the board was down 5% year-over-year in transaction volume. other days were up. you see this behemoth advertising revenue we have talked about before where they are growing table -- triple digits every quarter. 10% of all product use come from a sponsored search on that has been stable for the last four or five months. i think they will have to find other ways to groups of its just selling stuff online. emily: could it be 2019 will not be the year of amazon? >> it is a difficult thing to predict. it does feel like a lot of the winds are blowing at amazon's back in terms of the percentage of all kinds of retail activity. that it is shifting still from the physical world to online. that is mostly a benefit to amazon.

look, revenue growth that does seem to be slowing for amazon. it does not seem like the company is losing market share yet. theseere are all of empowered competitors including walmart, including kroger and of the otherme grocery or retail big-box stores, and it is the tale of online not an amazon only story anymore. the way in my desk and before this year. emily: amazon is investing more now in brick-and-mortar retail. use amazon goes stores they aim to have more than 3000 of them by 2021. theamazon for star stores, review for those stores have been mixed. if it is an -- is in an area where amazon cans succeed? deren: yes. i think the way they can do that is by experimenting heavily. food, that isle the big bang. how they integrated alexa to connect the physical world in this digital world, that is a

big story to watch. they: talk to us about response to amazon's brick-and-mortar pushing these stores? we see them in new york. are they working? shira: it is hard to know. i think at least the most visible of the amazon retail experiments, retail efforts, our experiments. the stores have been a tiptoe testing some interesting technology but it is still are early. the bookstores, the physical bookstores amazon has, to make him a little bit of a puzzle. obviously the whole foods acquisition was at least to me, a sign that amazon realizes the entire retail world is not going to be online only. and it needs to have a physical footprint. one thing i am watching is where else does amazon go in terms of physical stores? do they think about apparel or appliances, for some of these other areas in which amazon

reportedly has interest in opening brick-and-mortar stores? emily: when it comes to alexei, amazon is outfitting appliances like microwaves with alexa, how much did -- bigger deal think alexa can be and is subsequently, how much more business will that drive for the company? there was a story to watch in 2019 for amazon, that would be it. our data jumpshot chose from thanksgiving until yesterday, the top four of the top five selling products on amazon were alexa enabled products. the only one that could get in there was michelle obama's new book. can start toey integrate that into more and more of what consumers are using to shop and find products online, that is a massive opportunity. emily: yet, we continue to hear this the income and it is getting louder about workplace conditions. butised the minimum wage you have a lot of people in new york who are not happy about hq to coming to their city. you have pushes to unionize at some of these warehouses.

how is that going to impact the company over the next 12 months? shira: i think those whole issues around the working conditions and pay and whether amazon is a force for good in the job sector, that is one of the big wild cards for this company that i wonder if amazon was caught off guard by some of the backlash we saw to hq two, which came all of a sudden largely because it conducted this high profile year-long search for what it held -- built as a second headquarters. it turned out not so much to be a in hq to but splitting the baby solution of making to expanded campuses -- two expanded campuses. i think that crystallized the backlash that amazon has faced. this is a company that has almost 600,000 employees worldwide. it is an enormous employer. and like walmart before it, there are a lot of open questions about whether that

large of a workforce, are they really good jobs? emily: all right, 600,000 reasons to continue to focus on these issues. , darren baker, thank you so much for stopping by. still ahead, rally and distract of protests have chicken -- shaken the prop -- the confidence of french shoppers. a means amazon is winning new business. we will discuss next. this is bloomberg. ♪ this is bloomberg. ♪

the violentance, protests by the yellow vest movement has hit the french economy hard. the protest started in november as a grassroots movement grants -- against plans to hike gas taxes. that has spiraled, donning high

visibility which french drivers are required to keep in their cars. they are calling for lower taxes, higher wages, better public services, the protest have hurt brick-and-mortar stores with holiday shoppers seeking -- seeking sanctuary online and france. that means more amazon. bloomberg news retailer reporter robert williams in paris about what is happening on the ground. robert: the images you are seeing from protest, they are not the kind of things that make you want to go out shopping. in addition to the luxury shopping streets in paris being blocked off and severely vandalized over the past few weekends, shopping centers throughout france have been blockaded. you have thousands of protesters throughout france really stopping people from going out and buying things. emily: going on the fifth weekend in a row now, these demonstrations, how has that impacted traditional retail? how has that helped online retail? robert: i think the impact has

been mostly negative on everybody. the finance minister is calling it an economic catastrophe and retailers are estimating they have lost about 2 billion euros in sales at this point. however, we are seeing online players are much less impacted than brick-and-mortar stores. lee e-commerce actors have been roughly stable whereas they expected to grow during the past couple months. stores are down as much as 10% to 30% over the past few weekends. emily: get some amazon warehouses have actually been targeted by these protest. tell us what has happened and how amazon is responding. robert: there have been some protest at amazon warehouses. and amazon has been keeping a low profile. they say they have not had any kind of serious impact, positive or negative. they have been targeted

somewhat. but it is nothing compared to the big blockades you are seeing outside of french hypermarkets like par 4, for example. emily: how can we and the impact on brick-and-mortar retailers on the hypermarket? robert: they have been keeping mostly quiet about how severe the impact is. because in the weeks to come, getting closer to christmas, a lot of the sales could be made up. when you speak to analysts that follow this sector, they are that some of these disruptions have caused people to start ordering online that had not tried it yet. and that some people might be changing their habits and may be switching to someone like amazon for good. the outlook on whether these protests will continue into the new year? weekend,his past retail sales were down around 10%, according to their national lobby. to see twobig drop

weeks before christmas. however, it is less severe than and 25% drops we have seen previous weekends. in the new year, we can expect things to calm down. if that trend continues. we can also expect a boost to some sort of retail sales because of the fact that the president macron has been probeng some new purchasing power reforms. boosting minimum-wage, and also cutting certain taxes too low earners. bloombergs robert williams and paris talking about how the yellow vest protests have impacted online and traditional retail in france. the french government will meet this week to launch a three-month debate on the economy and tax policy. that doesn't for this edition of "bloomberg technology." tomorrow's show, we will cover spacex. it's next plan to launch the 21st of this year. we will take a deep dive into elon musk's other company, tesla. why it was such a wild 12 months.

bloomberg tech is livestreaming on twitter. you can follow our global great -- global news at tic toc. this is bloomberg. ♪

comcast business built the nation's largest gig-speed network. then went beyond. beyond chasing down network problems. to knowing when and where there's an issue. beyond network complexity. to a zero-touch, one-box world. optimizing performance and budget. beyond having questions. to getting answers. "activecore, how's my network?" "all sites are green." all of which helps you do more than your customers thought possible. comcast business. beyond fast. unstopand it's strengthenedting place, the by xfi pods,gateway. which plug in to extend the wifi even farther, past anything that stands in its way. ...well almost anything.

leave no room behind with xfi pods. simple. easy. awesome. click or visit a retail store today. >> this is "bloomberg daybreak: middle east." >> asia-pacific stocks slide and u.s. equities fall to their lowest close in 14 months as investors brace for a fed increase. what will jerome powell have to say? , theresaeeks before may pushes her controversial vote to january, tabling a nonconfidence vote in the prime minister. >> china marks 40 years since the opening of its economy to the world. president xi hailed it a turning point in the nation's history.