Hi Everyone. This is Take Off, your personal tech news barista. We'll whip up frothy, piping hot insights that'll give you that extra jolt you need to tackle the market.

Here's what we're serving up today:

• Goliath Vs Goliath 🥊

• Apples are Ripe 🍎

• Asteroids ☄️

• Futuristic Fridays 🔮

Goliath Vs Goliath 🥊

No, the title is not a typo. You're watching the Clash of Titans unfold in the retail world, where it's Goliath vs Goliath.

Walmart, inspired by Amazon, has decided to take on... well, Amazon.

1/ E-Commerce

Think Walmart is just your good ol' brick and mortar store? Think again! Walmart has quietly turned itself to an E-Commerce giant with $82B in annual digital sales.

Though still an e-commerce 'toddler' with a 6.7% market share next to Amazon's 'Hulk-like' 47.9%, the butterfly is growing its wings, with a 12% YoY growth.

2/ Premium Subscription

Ever heard of Walmart+?

Walmart's answer to Amazon's Prime, this subscription service offers free shipping, travel rewards, and a bunch of other discounts. They've even brought Paramount+ into the fold to make sure there’s no room left for copying Amazon’s model.

3/ Advertising

Amazon has stepped up its ad game quite aggressively in the past couple of years with the vertical bringing in a colossal $37.7B.

And now Walmart also wants a piece of the pie. But, instead of trying to out-punch Amazon, they're stepping into a different ring entirely.

They’re playing to their strengths. Walmart has over 4.7K locations in the US which are visited by 139 million customers every year.

So, instead of rolling out ads to their website, they’re going to deploy it inside the stores on digital screens, sampling stations and self-checkout lanes.

Even though its ad business accounted for $2.7B in sales, which is less than 1% of Walmart’s total revenue, the biz grew at an astounding rate of 30% last year.

Retail advertising is on track to be a $106 billion industry by 2027 and if Walmart plays its cards right, it very much has the potential to be the king of the jungle.

Apples are Ripe 🍎

Apple released its Q3 earnings yesterday and chalked up its third consecutive quarterly sales slump. The last time this sort of a dip happened was in 2016.

But before you start liquidating your kid’s college fund invested in Apple, let’s have a closer look into what’s happening and how much is that college fund in danger.

Look at the Digits

Here are the numbers from yesterday’s report.

1. Total Revenue: $81.8 Billion (-1%)

2. iPhone Revenue: $39.7 Billion (-2%)

3. iPad Revenue: $5.8 Billion (-20%)

4. MacBook Revenue: $6.9 Billion (-7%)

5. Wearable Revenue: $8.3 Billion (+2%)

6. Services Revenue: $21.2 Billion (+8%)

We know that that’s a lot of RED. However, investors aren’t losing sleep and are quite confident that this is just a temporary slip on a banana peel. Why?

Well, even though the slump looks similar to 2016 being caused by declining iPhone sales, things aren’t exactly identical.

While the iPhone still accounts for almost half of Apple’s sales, it’s down from nearly two-thirds in 2016. This has given investors enough belief that the company has diversified its revenue portfolio.

Peek into the Future

There are two other reasons why investors feel that Apple’s still got the midas touch.

See that not-so-little sector that generated $21B. Services like streaming music, TV products, and all the dollars we drop in the App Store are padding out their revenue nicely.

Oh, and the cherry on top? The juicy 70% margins on services. We’re pretty sure Tim would be happy with that.

Apple is also finding new success for their iPhones in other emerging markets, especially India which analysts are hoping will compensate for sales decline in more established markets like the US and China.

And let’s not forget that in June, Apple made history as the first company to hit a market cap of $3 trillion. So, we'd say, don't write off the tech kingpin just yet.

☄️ Asteroids ☄️

AI.com flips from ChatGPT to Elon Musk’s X.ai. We're not sure why this domain merry-go-round is happening, but it sure adds some fun to the AI world. 🌐💻

Discord cuts 4% staff as part of company re-organization. While that's tough news, they've rolled out some cool new features and got a valuation boost from Fidelity recently. 🎮📈

YouTube uses AI to summarize videos in latest test. They're aiming to help viewers decide if a video is right for them more quickly 🎥🤖

🔮 Futuristic Fridays 🔮

Intel's CEO is super excited about AI, saying it'll be in every product they make, including the upcoming Meteor Lake chip. He believes AI needs to happen at the "edge," not the cloud. 🤖💻

Scientists might have discovered a superconductor that works at room temperature. The material, LK-99, is stirring up quite a buzz and even causing stock bumps. But, some experts remain skeptical. 🧪💡

Computer chip with built-in human brain tissue gets military funding. Researchers made a "DishBrain" using lab-grown brain cells to play Pong! These cells could merge bio-computing with AI for smarter tech. 🧠✨

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