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- F1 champion Sebastian Vettel misses the point with Social Media
The motorsport world has gradually started to shake off the festive cobwebs as January continues to get the new calendar year underway with a number of high profile events taking place this week.
- Social Media and London 2012
We submitted a short blog for The UK Sports Network this week with some social media predictions for 2012. Being Olympics year, and with a number of athletes on the Sine Qua Non books, including Zac Purchase and Paralympic athletes Charlotte Henshaw and Ollie Hynd, we looked at how the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games will be the first true social media summer Games.
RT @InsideFerrari: Ferrari and Santander together until 2017 http://t.co/iGjflr3D #F1 #Sponsorship
Interesting to see how #London2012 sponsors use athletes - past and present - in activation and engagement #cisdcampbell
Tech bounces back with strong results
It would seem that the technology sector has undergone a rapid recovery recently as some industry stalwarts announce impressive quarterly figures but already there is discussion in some areas that it might be the result of a spike in demand. Whether the results from the likes Apple, IBM, Intel and EMC are sustainable or reflect a short term peak as a result of the unblocking of pent-up demand, remains to be seen, but either way both top line revenues and bottom line profits seem strong.
While EMC have set expectations that the surge in demand may already be over as revenue for the quarter jumped 23% year on year to $3.9Bn, the company is obviously still optimistic as it has raised its forecast for the full year to $16.5Bn. Perhaps the tone from Apple was also cautious with a forecast of $13-13.4Bn for Q3 given that the announcement for Q2 was at $13.Bn, up 49% from the year before. CFO Peter Oppenheimer also suggested earnings per share would be in the range $2.28 to $2.39, down from the $3.33 announced in this last record breaking, “non-holiday” quarter.
Last week Intel also announced strong results, presumably providing an indication that in addition to the 33% unit growth in Mac shipments the PC market is also recovering. On a UK level figures from IDC suggest that PC category shipments have been patchy, although consumer portables, covering laptops and netbooks and accounting for about half of the market, grew at almost 29%. Meanwhile the IMF expects the global economy to grow at 4.2% this year, which is faster than previously estimated. Mind you with iPhone shipments growing at 131% year on year, there will undoubtedly be some hotspots within the general upturn.
These figures all seem to support two views that we have held since the start of the downturn. The first is that the technology sector will be a key driver and indeed indicator in economic recovery, demonstrating both business and consumer confidence. The second is that those businesses that invested cleverly in R&D, innovation, marketing and smart acquisitions during the downturn will show the first and strongest recovery. It will be interesting to see the latest figures from Cisco, HP and other technology industry leaders in the coming weeks.
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