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A ROUND-UP OF THE LATEST NEWS IN THE DIGITAL WORLD
AMAZON’S PROFITS SURGE
I WONDER what could have resulted in Amazon seeing a 51% rise in UK sales in 2020? The online shopping giant has continued to dwarf all other forms of home delivery during the pandemic, seeing turnover leap to £19.4bn over the last 12 months.
The announcement of its annual results last week also included details of its global sales – a staggering $100bn-plus in just the last three months of the year.
The financial figures coincided with the release of perhaps even bigger news for Amazon. Its CEO and founder Jeff Bezos is stepping aside to become chairman of the board and will hand over the CEO reins to Andy Jassy, who currently runs Amazon’s web services.
Don’t think that’ll mark the beginning of the end for the company, though. Already in the pipeline are big plans to expand its grocery services across the UK over the coming months...
APPLE CAR RUMOURS STEP UP A GEAR
RUMOURS that iPhone-maker Apple is developing a car have been so persistent over recent years that there must be some truth to them – we even know the codename: Project Titan.
Last week it was suggested that South Korean manufacturer Hyundai, which owns the Kia brand and has manufacturing facilities in the US, was partnering with Apple to make the car.
Hyundai quickly denied the idea it was involved – perhaps reminded of the time Dr Dre announced plans to sell his Beats headphone company to Apple before the deal was done, almost scuppering the plans altogether.
Anyway, this week Hyundai has gone even further and claimed not even to be in talks to go into any kind of partnership with Apple.
There’s no way of knowing whether any of this is true, or not – but what is certain is that there is definitely no smoke without fire… even if it’s likely to be a few years before we see what Apple has got up its sleeve.