eBay’s US sales grow almost 5% while global GMV accelerates the most in 3 years

Following the House Antitrust Subcommittee’s capstone digital markets hearing, “Online Platforms and Market Power, Part 6: Examining the Dominance of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google,” three groups representing thousands of authors, publishers, and booksellers in the United States – the Association of American Publishers, Authors Guild, and American Booksellers Association – have sent a joint letter to Subcommittee Chairman David Cicilline (D-R.I.) enumerating a series of anti-competitive tactics that permit Amazon to exercise extraordinary market dominance over the advertising and sale of books in digital markets. Its practices against both book suppliers and book customers have threatened the vitality of the American publishing industry and rendered any meaningful competition from other publishers, booksellers, or emerging platforms impossible. “The Subcommittee’s work has shown that Amazon holds an outsized position of power and control in our country, giving it the ability to interfere with the free flow of information, ideas and literature on a large scale,” the letter tells the Chairman. The full letter can be viewed at: https://publishers.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Joint-Letter-to-Rep-Cicilline-081720.pdf

UPS announced second-quarter 2020 consolidated revenue increased to $20.5 billion, a 13.4% increase from the second quarter of 2019. Net income was $1.8 billion for the quarter; adjusted net income was $1.9 billion, 8.8% above the same period in 2019. Operating profit was $2.2 billion, and adjusted operating profit was $2.3 billion, up 7.4% compared to last year’s second quarter. Diluted earnings per share was $2.03 and adjusted diluted earnings per share was $2.13, up 8.7% from the same period last year. GAAP results included a pre-tax transformation charge of $112 million, equivalent to $0.10 per share. In the prior year period, GAAP results included a pre-tax charge for transformation costs of $21 million, equivalent to $0.02 per share.

News Corp’s fiscal 2023 marked the first year that more than half of its revenue came from digital platforms — marking a “profound transformation” over the last decade, CEO Robert Thomson said in the company’s fiscal Q4 earnings call on Friday. Thomson attributed its current digital momentum to initiatives based in generative AI, which represents “a remarkable opportunity to create a new stream of revenues, while allowing us to reduce costs across the business” through “exponential” efficiencies, he said. A News Corp Australia executive recently revealed that the division has been using generative AI to produce about 3,000 local news items per week, covering topics including weather, traffic and fuel prices.