On the 1st of June 2016, the International Data Corporation (IDC) updated their smartphone shipments growth forecast to 3.1%, which represented a 2.6% drop compared to the previous forecast.
Consumer transaction data can be highly informative and, in certain cases, predictive. Bank of America Merrill Lynch uses its debit and credit card data to analyze the US economy and retail sales, in particular.
There has been an increasing momentum on the topic of alternative data. The Economist, Fast Company, HFM Week (attached) and Wall Street Journal have all recently published articles with an industry overview. Below are interesting datasets that were mentioned.
On the 29th of July, we published a research note on Fitbit highlighting the company’s success both in activity tracker and running watch categories. Two new products were launched in Q1 of 2016, the Blaze and the Alta, and gained significant market shares in Q2.
Lululemon has been on the strong run since the lows of November last year with the stock rallying 70% and the market expectations were elevated ahead of their Q2 2016 numbers.
On the 12th of August, we published a research note on HPQ highlighting changes across four product categories and the company confirmed our findings when it reported its earnings on the 25th of August:
Pokémon Go has been significantly affecting Nintendo Co. Ltd.’s share price with analysts also noticing secondary plays. The game passed the mark of 100 million installs and reached $10 million in daily revenues, however it appears that Pokémon Go’s peak is now behind us.
Descartes Labs, a startup analyzing satellite imagery data, announced that it would make its corn yield forecast available for free and updated every week throughout the 2016 growing season.
On the 13th of October 2015, we published a research note on U.S. auto lenders highlighting customer service issues. Santander Consumer (SC) had the worst consumer complaint and review profile, followed by Ally Financial (ALLY). The two companies had:
Online reviews have become mainstream and consumers are increasingly relying on them when making decisions. This article presents the latest research on the following topics: distribution of negative and positive reviews, sentiment of online reviews and evaluation of the impact on sales.
Twitter data is used by financial industry professionals in a variety of ways. It has been extensively used for fundamental and consumer analysis since the SEC confirmed that companies could use Twitter to announce key information.
On the 15th of July, we produced a research note on the US toy market highlighting “… pressure on licensed brands [as] a headwind for Hasbro in the US.” We showed that Hasbro had lost share amongst the bestselling boys’ toys in the US.
