Skip to main content

tv   Bloomberg Technology  Bloomberg  February 2, 2021 11:00pm-12:00am EST

11:00 pm
emily: i'm emily chang in san francisco and this is "bloomberg technology." coming up in the next hour, amazon bombshell. the company says founder and ceo jeff bezos will step down to become executive chair. andy jassy, who has been running amazon web services, will become the next ceo. we've got all the details and analysis from all angles as amazon reports operating income and sales that beat estimates.
11:01 pm
plus, alphabets record profit. i speak to the ceo on his explosive add growth bringing profitability to the cloud and how they will deal with mounting antitrust issues. her comments, coming up. and, uber agrees to buy alcohol delivery service grizzly. it's a $1.1 billion deal. doordash and bevmo venmo owner also made a play. we will speak to the grizzly ceo about what clinched the deal. although stories in a moment, but u.s. stocks rallying as the first daytrading frenzy collapses. get of course big news from amazon and alphabet. i want to get straight to the big market picture. i want to know what the move in amazon shares was after that huge and unexpected announcement. -- announcement from the company about jeff bezos. >> you saw a little bit of uncertainty right after that but it looks like investors are liking the news.
11:02 pm
let's look at the price market and post market trading. a little more comfortable amazon up by over 1% for you also see alphabet up by 1%. it looks like those are the free -- premarket shares. post-market, you are seeing a rally. alphabet shares up over 6%. amazon shares just up shy of 1%. like you said, emily, strong beats on both those fronts. amazon stealing the spotlight with that new changing of the guard. i do want to look at and today for the stock market in the united states. nasdaq, tech index that has to do a lot with the tech sector that rallying for second day in a row, really coming on the back of last week's losses. extremely significant to keep in mind that risk sentiment has started to see a little bit of an increase, a little bit of a positive turn as we see some of the retail bid dissipate a little bit. speaking of which, i do want to take a look at gamestop and silver, the targets of that retail trading frenzy.
11:03 pm
as you can see on the screen intraday, you saw both of those , stocks take a little bit of a step back. this is extremely important. i highlight this because this has a lot to do with risk sentiment and confidently investing in the market. without that fear of being caught in a short squeeze. i also want to switch over and bring it up to our last stock , and that's alibaba shares taking a hit today even the they also beat on fourth-quarter earnings. strong earnings across the board, but investors looking for any news on the antitrust probe. they did not get any and that meant some selling in those shares. emily: still cannot believe gamestop, watching it every day, closing at $90 per share. thank you for that update. i want to get back now to amazon. a huge announcement from ceo jeff bezos. announcing he will be stepping down from his role in the third
11:04 pm
quarter and that andy jassy will become the next ceo. this coming on a day that amazon reported income and net sales beating estimates. we have the cofounder and president joining me on the phone. melissa, a longtime former amazon employee, you worked there for many years. as somebody who has been covering the company for a very long time, it certainly came as a surprise. we knew it would happen eventually. but now, curious for your take. >> i think there is a signal when jeff wilkie announced he was retiring, that he wouldn't be the period. kind of knew this was coming that there would be a successor. andy jassy has been with the amazon since 1997. the inception of aws. he led amazon's most profitable and successful business unit. so i think it leaves jeff bezos able to concentrate on building rockets and third -- and things
11:05 pm
he wants to do with someone at the helm that he can trust and really tackle the big problem an opportunity has ahead of them. like health care, delivery, just a lot of great inventions and innovations. i think andy jassy will be a great leader to do that. emily: that said, jeff bezos has been so involved at amazon proper for so long, it still seems he is very much in the weeds with his question mark emails. i wonder if it is at all surprising to you that he is leaving now. we know he has other projects but he has had those other projects for quite some time. melissa: i think that he wrote in some of his letters that he sent out to folks that he feels like it is a time that he wants to focus on these other areas. he is not retiring, quote unquote. but i would not be surprised if
11:06 pm
he is not still involved, he just might not get a jeff email, now you will be getting an andy jassy email. so, yeah. emily: tell us a little bit about how andy jassy leads. i sat down with him a couple of years ago for a longform interview. we know he has got that relentless focus on customers , that same relentless focus that jeff has. what kind of a boss is he and what kind of a boss do you think he will be while running the entire company? melissa: look, i mean all of , these leaders and the executive team in general, there is just so much discipline at amazon on execution. they really have a great process around creating leadership principles, executing on them, creating goals from the top that rolldown.
11:07 pm
that is no different with andy jassy. i think he has proven himself in building an amazing business. with aws. i think he will be able to deliver that same discipline across amazon. so, yeah. emily: sometimes at a loss for words. it is such a big deal. we do have this quote from that -- jeff bezos to staff that says i intend to focus my projects on initiatives. andy has been a amazon almost as long as i have. he will be an outstanding leader, and he has my full confidence. we have been talking a lot about the regulatory issues that amazon, we expect, will face over the next couple of years. we saw jeff bezos dragged before congress. we saw lawsuits filed against
11:08 pm
facebook, against google. amazon could be next. i wonder how you expect andy jassy to navigate those issues , given it could be his number one issue for the next couple of years? melissa: yeah, and i think that is where amazon will be focusing, maybe less on the hot topic areas the areas they get , in trouble with around private label and things like that. i think we will see maybe less focus in those areas where they have had some pressure against them. and i do think google and facebook are ahead of amazon in some of these antitrust issues. my guess is that amazon will focus a little bit less on the hot pressure areas and more on wider plane areas that they will maybe get less in trouble with. emily: what does this mean for aws now that andy will not be
11:09 pm
the sole leader of that business? melissa: i feel sorry for the person who will fill that role. he will know a lot about what questions to ask. amazon has a great way to promote within their organization and company. i am sure they have identified a leader that will take over that business. and, andy will know very well the questions to ask. like i said, they are just very disciplined in their quarterly business review, monthly business review, and financials. they have a really great execution method around understanding the business unit. so, they are a very well-run company and execute very well. i think that they are not going to have any issues with a leadership change like this. emily: meantime, i do want to touch on the numbers, which is what you initially agreed to
11:10 pm
join us to talk about. amazon projected revenues that signaled continuing strong e-commerce demand. the big question is, when we come out of the pandemic, when we settle into whatever the new normal is, does amazon growth take a hit? what is your outlook? melissa: no doubt. this year has been huge. they have had so much growth acceleration for e-commerce, perhaps that grows a little bit, it's hard to compare like this year. the acceleration of e-commerce in general. when you look at the earnings report the category was up 64% this quarter, the advertising revenue. they had not just a big quarter in general, but advertising was huge too.
11:11 pm
they have a lot of opportunity heading into 2021 with these numbers. emily: melissa burdick at pack view, who worked at amazon for 10 years before that, thank you for bringing us some personal commentary from your experience there. i will miss big news that jeff bezos will be stepping down. he will be succeeded by andy jassy who runs amazon's web services. he will become amazon's next ceo. alphabet reporting record profits this year. i spoke to the cfo about ad growth, the cloud, how the company is dealing with its own antitrust scrutiny. details on that in my conversation with her, next.
11:12 pm
11:13 pm
11:14 pm
emily: meantime, alphabet reporting quarterly sales that beat wall street estimates buoyed by heavy digital advertising spend over the holiday shopping quarter. shares jumping an extended trading. we are joined now by dan, principal analyst at future research. i was on the phone with alphabet ceo ruth porat when the news that jeff bezos stepping down broke. we talked first about and -- add growth and whether or not she is keeping up close pandemic. she said we feel good about ad strength, good about the acceleration of the digital transformation and activities you see moving online will continue to be quite durable. whether that's content, e-commerce, retail. what is your headline take away on these results? >> the results were outstanding. i think over half the earnings of the year coming in this most recent quarter. i think the cloud was the story of this quarter. my phone was ringing off the
11:15 pm
hook. people asking for comments about what was going on with the cloud business in the plan to break those numbers out. we saw growth coming in at 46% for this quarter. big growth, over 13 billion on the year. that was probably the biggest headline for me. i had a good feeling that what ruth said was going to come true. the lull in the advertising business was coming down -- coming back as we see more normal behavior. despite the fact that the pandemic is looming. i think everyone's eyes were really on this cloud breakout to say how close is google in terms of aws? and now we know. it is not really close to the 12 billion but it is vying for that third position. alongside the likes of oracle and ivf. emily: as you mentioned, cloud
11:16 pm
revenue up 47%. the question, when will they start focusing on profitability and the ground -- cloud versus growth. i got the sense that it is still really all about growth. she said, an important element is that we have been building out our organization ahead of revenue. product portfolio, ramping data centers, ramping sales. all of which enabled us to address a very sizable total adjustable market. it is interesting that we are talking about this on a day that andy jassy has been named to the next ceo of amazon given that he started the aws business and google and microsoft have been chasing it ever since. what is your take on jassy taking over at amazon and how that changes the competitive landscape in cloud? >> as you said, the forward look about the growth and profitability, google has the luxury. you saw their bottom-line results. the company wants to keep pouring gasoline on investments, the company can do so.
11:17 pm
this moved to bring andy jassy has so much positivity. if you look at the performance of amazon over the past several quarters aws is sort of an , unsung hero. everyone things about the company for its e-commerce, trucks, drones, disruptive whole foods, but aws has been significantly delivering to the bottom line for that company. prompting up those shares. almost two x for this quarter. while the growth for aws has come down to about 28% this quarter, we are still looking at over $12 billion on a quarter basis. andy jassy has continually been behind this philosophy, saying we will meet the customers where they are. that is the growth of data centers, new products, expanding the portfolio, expanding into software and larger investments in infrastructure.
11:18 pm
[standby] i think bezos will have a significant influence on this company for a long time. i think jassy has really earned this opportunity. i am excited to see, can amazon be a ceo-led company beyond its founder, something a lot of companies have to face at some point. emily: andy jassy does have $12.7 billion to show this quarter, so he is off to a good start. thank you so much for that perspective. coming up, fireeye also reported results, record revenue. and, more talk about what they are learning from that massive solarwinds hack. my exclusive conversation with fireeye ceo kevin mandia. this is bloomberg. ♪
11:19 pm
h■ñsrú ■nga■■
11:20 pm
emily: fireeye also out with strong fourth-quarter results two months after finding out they were one of the hundreds of
11:21 pm
u.s. companies breached in the solarwinds cyberattack campaign. i sat down with fireeye ceo kevin mandia earlier. to get an update on both. kevin: 2020, we had a record year in revenue, record year in billings, even though we did not guide to billings. a record year in operating income, and it's just record after record. so, very pleased with the performance of the team in emily: what is your outlook of 2020. the coming quarters as the vaccine rolls out and people presumably start going back to the office? kevin: and a lot of it depends on the pandemic. at the same timeframe, a lot of things emerged -- i almost felt like a shift changed after the solarwinds implants. people are recognizing you can have an implant and a network. 18,000 companies can be impacted by that impact, and nothing detected it. it took fireeye doing an investigation to find, there is an implant in a third-party supply chain.
11:22 pm
so people want to know how effective is our security. we are buying all this stuff and, wait a minute, nine months it took nine months until , somebody discovered this implant. that seems like a long time. i think you have a more discerning buyer and security. in security, again, when you have a breach and a campaign like this cyber espionage campaign, emily everybody is , turning their focus to what is our cybersecurity program and how good is it? i think security effectiveness will be a big theme of 2021. emily: we are two months now since fireeye disclosed the initial attack. and everybody still wants to know, what damage was done? can you elaborate? kevin: in regards to the red team tools taken from fireeye, there was no doubt that the attacker went right in, went right for our red team tools. those are the tools we used to do assessments of people security programs, how good are they?
11:23 pm
we launch and simulate attacks based on the things that we respond to. i think what the impact of this breach was, or this campaign, because it was more than just a breach, really depended on the victim, and what they did. whether you are a government agency or software company, and it may have impacted several other industries. what it really does is it kind of shows the whole or the gap in what are the rules of engagement. what is acceptable cyber espionage? you can feel the escalating hum in cyberspace because no one has defined the rules, so we don't have rules. i think what you are going to see his groups go out, they conduct their espionage operations, and they kind of move the needle. we have to figure out as a nation, what's a doctrine in what will we do about it? emily: is there evidence that the data, or these tools have been used, and have you built new ones? kevin: there is no evidence from our partners, as well as in their government, we have seen no evidence that the fireeye red
11:24 pm
team tools have been used by another third-party. we have not seen that at all. that's good news. by the way, we created over 500 rules and shared them with the entire world to detect the red team tools. we did a good job there. we will have to re-create some of those tools in the future. but one of the nice things about fireeye, when you respond to over 1000 breaches per year, we are seeing the red teams from other nations. what we really do is just repurpose that r&d they are showing us. the are still breaking in the countries and organizations around the globe and we are responding to intrusions from china, russia, from north korea, from a lot of different nations. we repurpose those. we kind of look at them and say, if they just did it that way, they may have evaded additional detection. we are already on our way to creating a new set of red team tools. emily: we have seen other cybersecurity companies come forward since, saying they were also the target of a russian adversary. talk to us about the
11:25 pm
conversation happening within the cyber community right now about this and future cyberattacks. like, if you are being targeted, how do you assure clients that they are safe? kevin: you know what, cybersecurity right now, if you look at cyberspace, it's a dangerous neighborhood, period. you have to make sure you have the appropriate locks and safeguards when you're operating it. we are on the front lines interacting with those executives all the time. you get a real sympathy to what it's like. then we became victims ourselves in the fourth quarter to this cyber espionage campaign. when i talk to other security vendors, we know we are in this together. ultimately there is an obligation. you know, we are stewards for our shareholders as ceos but we also recognize that we have to protect cyberspace. we have to protect critical infrastructure. i think we have seen an elevation of communication amongst ceos and security. what are you seeing, and what are you doing about it? information sharing is at an all-time high. we are trying to formalize it,
11:26 pm
we are trying to make it faster, we are trying to be better at it. we are all just kind of banding together to make sure we can do a shields up for all the nations we protect. emily: how confident are you in the new administration, and their response to the attack, and has that response essentially changed with a new administration? kevin: i think it's an issue that's not devices -- divisive. whether you are republican or democrat, you care about cybersecurity and want to make sure you do your best to protect american organizations from attacks regardless of the domain those attacks occur in. i seen some good appointments. we know a lot of folks in the administrations. i am very confident that we will take steps to establish bright lines in cyberspace, that we will try to impose risks or repercussions to those who attack american organizations. i am confident that we will do things differently, even if we do something as simple as communicate doctrine. here is the rules of the road and this is what we believe and as a nation. you will see other nations adapt
11:27 pm
those and think about what they do on offense before they attacked the united states. emily: fireeye ceo kevin mandia. much more on that conversation you can find on bloomberg.com. p, more on amazon jeff bezos stepping down. ♪
11:28 pm
11:29 pm
11:30 pm
emily: welcome back to "bloomberg technology." i'm emily chang in san francisco. amazon ceo jeff bezos look down from his post from the third quarter of this year. he will be succeeded by andy jassy, the head of amazon web services. i want to bring in bloomberg text red stone, hours and your executive editor who has written a book on amazon and is about to publish his second book on amazon. curious if you saw this coming or if this surprise you just like it surprised the rest of us? brad: i would be lying if i said
11:31 pm
i was not surprised. certainly, that it happened now. but when i thought about it, and talking about the story i'm telling in the upcoming book coming in may, it did make a certain amount of sense for a couple of reasons. the last 10 years at amazon is jeff guiding all of the new stuff like alexa and the cashierless store, the health care initiative, then letting the deputies run with the more mature businesses, like andy jassy and aws. i suspect he finds the new stuff on. and while the details of the older businesses are getting so intricate that it's impossible for one person to keep track of everything. the second thing is, the future of amazon, in large part, in washington and brussels, and what we saw last summer when bezos was talking to the house
11:32 pm
antitrust subcommittee. he was kicking and screaming. i don't think he enjoys the hot seat. i would assume he feels his time is better spent on other things. he has other responsibilities like administering his philanthropy and running the space company. which we have to admit, has lagged seriously behind elon musk's space x. it's only a partial stepping away, he is still executive chairman. he will get to focus on the things he likes to do, while also observing things to go run. and he will get to personalize his extracurricular activities. emily: jeff bezos reached for a snack in the video of that went viral. talk about scrutiny. we did see a congratulatory tweet from the ceo of alphabet. of course this as overshadowed amazon in alphabet.
11:33 pm
he tweeted, congrats jeff bezos, best wishes for day one earth fund. in congrats andy jassy on your new role. andy jassy's twitter page does not mention aws. he talks about being a dad, a big sports, music and movie fans, and an experienced buffalo wing eater. you've talked to andy jassy a lot over the years, how do you expect him to lead and how do you expect him to handle the antitrust scrutiny that will almost certainly define the next couple of years at amazon? brad: it is interesting you mention his twitter bio. andy is someone who wears his passions on his sleeves, has that kind of amazon style of futility, maybe even more so than bezos has had. he is someone you will never catch in a private jet or in an
11:34 pm
owners box at the super bowl. not to insult his fashion stylings, but it sometimes looks like he is wearing the -- but at the same time he is frustratingly disciplined when it comes to public speaking. whether that is at aws events or in interviews. i just expect him to be a very careful public person for amazon. i imagine he will challenge regulators that are trying to catch amazon. but it is kind of a homecoming for him because he started in the retail business. his first few jobs were in amazon's advertising division, and in the cd business, very early on in amazon's history. it was only when he started as jeff bezos technical assistant
11:35 pm
that he ran the aws business and pioneered that. he has been a vocal member and has had a hand in big decisions amazon has had to make over the past 20 years. in some ways, it feels like a very natural transition. emily: jeff wilkie, who used to run amazon's consumer unit, of course left last year. i wonder if we should look at that as a sign. bloomberg text seeing executive editor brad stone, thank you for joining us. we will be waiting for your next book on amazon, out later this year. joining us on a recap for the top stories of the day, amazon and alphabet. we have the founder and ceo of -- i'm sure you heard the conversation there with brad. we are all still digesting this news that jeff bezos is going to be stepping down from his baby. what is your take on how the company changes, and what chapter two, i guess you could
11:36 pm
say, is? >> it makes total sense. i think it is underappreciated just how amazing and innovative and important to everything that goes on basically in technology today that aws is and was. we totally take it for granted. all of the services that we use, all of the rapid development, all of the engineers, it is everything. and beyond that, i think it makes total sense going forward from an innovative perspective. he has touched everything, all of these other businesses. he basically is the person that drove the platform that underpins the modern internet. i think they will get rewarded for that in the short term in the long term when the stock is up. it makes total sense. aws itself, 20% year-over-year growth. 40 something percent of the net
11:37 pm
income. the business is still firing on all cylinders, even though there are competitors out there, google and microsoft do have cloud businesses that are growing faster, and certainly knocking at the door. but, this isn't slowing down anytime soon. as we have seen with the last six to nine months, this infrastructure is not just critical to these businesses, it has been critical to the country and to the world. emily: i don't think we can expect that jeff bezos will not be involved, he will surely continue to be heavily involved in the company. we are entering a new phase of regulatory scrutiny for amazon. andy jassy will have to deal with this. how big of a risk factor do you think that is, and how do you expect him to lead through that? leigh: i have been on one side of this for a long time. i just don't think for amazon this is an issue. it is going to be for some other
11:38 pm
companies, but if you look at the actual concepts that are being put forward in terms of regulation, they just don't add up to something that either makes a lot of sense, or will be super significant going forward. amazon is basically a monopoly, but we have decided, in this country, that some monopolies are ok, and they are, they are certainly good for consumers. we basically handed them that in return for something, which is being neutral. and there are places that they stepped over the line in terms of not being neutral. but that is a tiny piece of what the populist rhetoric around amazon attempts to stick them with that just won't stick. there might be little pieces around the edges, but by and large, this won't be an issue. emily: i have to ask you what is going on with these reddit
11:39 pm
retail traders, gamestop dropping back down to $90 a share, but the markets really rattled in the game it seems, has been changed. the rules has been changed, the field now looks completely different. at the same time you've got some of these reddit are continuing to try to rally the troops. i wonder, are we seeing this fizzle out, or does this continue? is this just a new part of the story, and does this have to be incorporated into this strategy of traders, both professional and retail? leigh: there are a lot of takes on which you can approach this whole story. but for me, the most important one goes back to, i have been in the social finance space for over 12 years.
11:40 pm
and i don't think we ever quite first saw the combination of the ease of getting retail investors invested in basically playing a casino game, which is what robinhood and some of these other brokerages have done. they have made it that easy that it is a dopamine receptor casino game, mixed with the social aspect of being able to basically drive a period in one direction. and i do think that that is a tale risks that hedge funds will have to deal with in the future. we sought on the short side. we have seen on the long side. that is not going away. the populist aspect is, basically you can write off the entire political populist story. but going forward, this is going
11:41 pm
to happen over and over again. we just saw the largest deed grossing of hedge fund a um since 2009. this is bigger than the deed grossing that happened in march. so there are long tail risks that have not been accounted for , and certainly, while i think you can write off the whole populist aspect to the wse thing, you definitely cannot write off the concept that online crowds, plus dopamine casino games, these investing apps are going to be really important. emily: love your analysis there, thank you so much for breaking it down on a big day. appreciate it. coming up, alcohol delivery company drizzly posting today with a $1.1 billion teal -- deal selling to a uber.
11:42 pm
we will catch up with the cofounder and ceo, next. this is bloomberg. ♪
11:43 pm
11:44 pm
emily: space x second test flight of a new deep state vehicle ended and another explosive fireball after one of the prototype's engines appeared not to reignite as planned. the starship lifted off with no crew from the seaside launchpad in texas. in december the starship also slammed into the ground when space x went ahead with a test launch, even though federal regulators denied the company a required safety waiver. we will continue to follow how this one evolves. uber has bought drizzly for $1.1
11:45 pm
billion, beating out to rivals in talks with the company. the boston-based startup has had a breakout year with sales nearly 400%, surging above levels as consumers ordered and alcohol instead of going to the store for the ball. i want to bring in drizly cofounder and ceo. i have to admit that i'm a customer. i have to start with the obvious. why uber and ysl? >> both good questions -- and why sell? >> both good questions. two reasons. and hear them talk about uber, not only where you can get food delivered quickly, but now alcohol and you throw in pharmacy, i want to live in that world, i believe in that world and i think drizly could accelerate that consumer experience we want and deserve. on the other response of why
11:46 pm
now, the market is sown a say. we spent the last eight years building the infrastructure to bring this particular category online and we have a big vision. we want to be a household name in synonymous with alcohol. while we believe we can get there by ourselves over the coming five or 10 years, this is an acceleration that gives us the ability to move quickly with the platform, technology, scale and expertise that uber brings in a way that very few others can. emily: drizly founded in boston, before doordash and uber eats existed. in a way, you pave the way for new consumer behavior. is this kind of growth going to keep up post pandemic in a new normal? are we still going to order this much alcohol when we can buy at the store or go to a bar? cory: you need to separate the categories. i believe alcohol will have different dynamics than food or convenience of groceries. it will be one of the few
11:47 pm
categories that has an organic positive growth weight -- growth rate. all that comes back to consumer awareness. so much happened in 2020 to drive a new awareness for the legality of alcohol coming online. why is drizzly a better experience walking into your local liquor store? when we think about bringing 2% of alcohol online prior to covid, more like 4% today, we still have so much green space ahead of us. this should be a 10%, 15%, and 20% online industry in the coming years. there is a lot of room for consumer behavior to change. emily: we reported that doordash, which owns bevmo, also tried to buy drizly. what were the offers, did they fall short of the $1.1 billion price tag? cory: the conversations were organic. we zeroed in what we discussed anything about moving forward
11:48 pm
with the company, uber was our choice and it's more cultural than anything. the price tag of today might get the headlines, that our focus has been finding the right team with a shared vision that we want to be able to work with and accelerate what we are doing, at the same time combining in such a way that we can drive value for uber on the other site. that has been our focus, and i think we found the right fit, with the right company in the right leadership team. emily: lantern is not included in the uber deal, why not, and what happens to that business now? cory: lantern will spin out to be a standalone company as part of closing. that was part of the initial idea behind lantern. it was just a 2.0 and taking technology, finding how to intersect that with regulation for a nuanced category. one that is changing incredibly dynamically over a couple of years. lantern was built for this moment and was always a separate
11:49 pm
company. now it has a chance to go on its own with its own management team. they have their own balance sheet and i am excited to see the next few years. i believe lantern will be the drizly for cannabis and has incredible things ahead of it as that market and regulation starts to open up. emily: we did see after uber bought postmates. will there be layoffs, will you stay at the company? cory: i will absolutely stay at the company. there is so much more to be done. i think it affords us the opportunity to provide the consumer experience that we know should exist in our consumers deserve. this is a different deal. this is part of the reason why we singled in on uber very quickly. the way they approached the conversations, the sincerity they showed us his 100 times the enterprise value. we believe they want to build drizly and take our expertise and bring that into the uber
11:50 pm
eats app. i think it is complementary and we are excited to do both. i think the team should be thrilled, and i think we found the right fit for drizly to be built over the coming years. emily: drizzly cofounder and ceo -- drizly cofounder and ceo, thank you for joining us. i will speak with the cfo of this company about the latest earnings in a big earnings week. in economic predictions for the rest of the year. that is next. this is bloomberg. ♪
11:51 pm
11:52 pm
emily: more u.s. companies are topping earnings estimate this quarter reporting season with tech and financials among the biggest winners. they announced earnings last week and surpassed estimates, however much dependent on the future holds for the u.s.
11:53 pm
economy. we are joined now by the cfo. great to have you back on the show. what are you seeing in consumer behavior right now, and what clues does that give us about how they will be spending in 2021? >> thank you for having me. we just reported earnings and we were holding up reasonably well. in the fourth calendar quarter we saw a sequential small improvement in spending domestically almost everywhere. in the u.s. we had some healthy growth. what we are seeing is a significant shift in how people are spending money. there is a big shift in using debit, and there is significant growth in retail services and it is quite strong compared to holiday seasons. it is different depending on
11:54 pm
travel and entertainment. stimulus payments are going into the economy fairly quickly. they went out right after the new year. we saw a big jump in our debit card spending right after that. in the first two weeks of january debit card spending has been 10 points stronger than it was in the fourth quarter. and around the world, it varies by companies and boosting back to normal, some are going into lockdowns. all in all, the consumers are warming up very well almost everywhere. emily: the shift in debit, do you think that is a permanent shift for debit cards, what does that mean for visas business? vasant: a significant amount of that we think is permanent. debit has become a way for people to use cash. there are a lot of categories that people are using e-commerce
11:55 pm
for, like every day spending, and they are using debit cards online. we have seen a lot of stimulus payments go to bank accounts on prepaid cards and that comes out as debit spending. our visa direct business uses our debit network, so that helps a lot. in addition, even when people go to the store, they are using their way to pay, which is becoming extremely popular. on the flipside, there is a significant performer and that people tend to use credit for travel and entertainment. as they recover there will be a recovery and credit, stronger than it has been so far. and also, on tough times, people do intent to spend more money in the bank then borrow more money. there is no question that the
11:56 pm
debit outperformance is going to stay. it reflects the acceleration of the move away from cash. emily: just 30 seconds left, can you give us any more hints about visas crypto services and how they will work? vasant: we have put in a call system -- ecosystem together to enable cryptocurrencies. we work with most of the major players. we have 35 new partnerships. as longest we can do it in compliance with the laws and regulation, we can do what we can to enable both transactions that allow it to be held in your account or used for a purchase whether it is just as a cryptocurrency. we are putting the infrastructure in place to enable that. and it's not that different to enable trading in the 160 season
11:57 pm
that we have to report. emily: we will have to have you back to tell us more. the cfo of visa, thank you so much. that doesn't for this addition of "bloomberg technology." big news, jeff bezos stepping down to be succeeded by andy jassy. this is bloomberg. ♪
11:58 pm
11:59 pm
12:00 am
>> the following is a paid program. the opinions and views expressed do not express the views of bloomberg lp, its affiliatr empes. ♪ announcer: the following is a paid presentation brought to you by rare collectibles tv. the united states mint has been dedicated to producing the finest numismatic coins since its inception in 1792.

46 Views

info Stream Only

Uploaded by TV Archive on