The technology winners and losers of 2020
We streamed, we Zoomed, we ordered groceries and houseplants online, we created virtual villages while navigating laptop shortages to work and learn from home. In many ways, 2020’s pandemic-induced isolation threw our dependence on technology into overdrive, snipping away at our real-life connections while bringing digital relationships to the fore.
But for every life-changing Zoom, there was at least one soon-forgotten Quibi. Here’s a look at the year’s tech winners and losers.
Losers
QUICI >> Less than a year ago, Quibi launched a splashy Super Bowl ad that posed the question “What’s a Quibi?” People may still be scratching their heads.
Quibi, short for “quick bites,” raised $1.75 billion from investors including major Hollywood players Disney, NBCUniversal and Viacom.
But the service struggled to reach viewers, as short videos abound on the internet and the coronavirus pandemic kept many people at home. It announced it was shutting down in October, just months after its April launch.
UCOR ANL LYST >> Fresh off of their initial public offerings the year before and still struggling to show they can be profitable, the ride-hailing services were clobbered by the pandemic in 2020, as people stopped taking cars and huddled down at home.
In May, Uber laid off 3,700 people, or about 14% of its workforce. Lyft also announced job cuts.
But there are some signs of hope. After significantly reducing costs by restructuring in the second quarter, Lyft said last month it expects to have its first profitable quarter at the end of 2021. And the companies scored a major victory in California, where voters passed Proposition 22, granting them an others an exception to a law that sought to classify their drivers as employees, an expense that analysts thought would have pummeled their business in the nation’s most populous state.
Winners
NINTONLO SWITK >> Even in a year heralding splashy new consoles from Xbox and PlayStation, the Nintendo Switch was the console that could. Launched in 2017, the Switch became a fast seller. That was helped by the launch of the handled Switch Lite in September 2019.
In March, it became hard to find a Switch as people searched for ways to be entertained inside their homes. Boosting its popularity was the release of island-simulation game “Animal Crossing: New Horizons,” which debuted March 20 and has now sold a cumulative 26 million units globally, according to Nintendo.
According to the NPD Group, during the first 11 months of 2020, Nintendo Switch sold 6.92 million units in the U.S. It has been the best-selling console in units sold for 24 consecutive months, a record. ZOOM >> All video conferencing software from Microsoft Teams to WebEx thrived during the abrupt shift of tens of millions of people to remote working and schooling during pandemic. But only one became a verb.
Zoom Video Communications was a relatively unheralded company before the pandemic hit, but its ease of use let to wide adoption during the pandemic. There were some growing pains, including lax security that lead to “Zoom bombing” breaches early on. The company revamped its security and remains one of the popular platforms to host remote meetings and classes.
Jury’s out
CIT TOK >> Facebook, Amazon, Apple and Google did well financially, with each company’s stock price and profit up considerably since the start of the year. They gained users, rolled out new products and features and kept on hiring even as other companies and industries faced significant cuts.