SevOne’s IPO Plans

According to a Gartner report released last year, total software revenues from worldwide IT operations management (ITOM) grew 8.7% in 2011 to $18.3 billion. The market is dominated by five vendors – IBM, CA Technologies, BMC Software, Microsoft, and HP – which together account for 53.5% of the market share. Other smaller players are coming onto the field.

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Envivio Struggles Following IPO

Video infrastructure services provider Envivio (Nasdaq:ENVI) has had a troubled run since its IPO in April 2012. The company had filed papers proposing the sale of shares at $9 each. Soon after listing, Envivio downgraded its financial outlook to revenues of $10 million-$11 million compared with earlier issued guidance of $17 million-$18 million.

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Digital Future at Electronic Arts

According to the latest report by NPD Group, video game retail sales of new hardware, software, and accessories in the U.S. fell 22% last year to $13.26 billion. Sales were also down 22% for December at $3.21 billion. Hardware sales reported a decline of 20% for December and were down 27% for the year. Software sales slipped 26% for the month and 23% for the year. Accessories performed marginally better, with sales falling 14% over the month and 8% over the year. The decline in sales was attributed to the absence of significant new releases during the year.

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Hulu’s Challenges in Online Video

Online video streaming service Hulu seems to have hit a rough patch. User loyalty seems to be eroding as viewers shift to other sites that offer better content with less interruption. According to a report by comScore, last month 182 million U.S. Internet users watched 38.7 billion online content videos. Google Sites, led by YouTube, remained the leaders in online video content viewership with 153 million unique viewers. Facebook followed at a distant second with 58.8 million users. Hulu did not feature in the top 10 online video content properties, but that has not stopped the company from being ranked fifth among viewership of online video ads. >>>

eBay’s Strong Growth Continues

Online marketplace eBay (NASDAQ:EBAY) continues its recovery over the course of the previous year. The stock grew 77% last year, compared with an overall S&P 500 index growth of 15%. The recent quarter’s results again reassure the market’s faith in the stock as it continues to climb.

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Can You Make Money in Music?

The digital music business has been really tough to make money in. I often scratch my head and wonder whether anyone can make money in this business. We cover the usual suspects, including the Swedish music streaming service, Spotify. As we have discussed earlier, Spotify remains unprofitable despite international reach, revenues of $889 million projected for the current year, and valuation of close to $4 billion. Let’s look at Pandora and how it is faring in the face of strong mobile advertising forecasts, rapid subscriber growth, and other positive trends.

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Snapchat: Yet Another Valuation-Without-Revenue Company

According to the most recent Social Media report by Nielsen, the time spent on social media networks in the U.S. such as Facebook and Twitter grew 37% over the year from 88 billion minutes in July 2011 to 121 billion minutes in July 2012. The rise is attributed to an increase in the use of mobile devices. In July of last year, time spent by users on social media sites using mobile apps grew 63% over the year. While Facebook may be the leader in social networking, other sites and applications are also seeing stellar growth, at least in terms of the number of users.

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Xoom Files for 2013 IPO

According to the World Bank’s Migration and Development Briefs, the international money transfer market grew 12% annually to $513 billion in 2011 from $234 billion in 2004. The market is expected to grow annually at 7% over the next three years to $685 billion by 2015. The growth of online and mobile banking channels is also helping to steer market growth.

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RIM Banks on BlackBerry 10

According to an IDC report released recently, the global mobile market is estimated to record growth of a mere 1.4% in 2012, which would mark the slowest growth in three years. But within the market, the smartphone segment is growing much faster. The researcher estimates that smartphone shipments will help drive growth in mobile revenues. During the last quarter, smartphone shipment is estimated to have grown 39.5% over the year to 224.5 million. Globally, Android phones remains the leaders with a 68.3% market share, which is projected to shrink to 63.8% by 2016. iOS phones will see marginal improvement, with market share growing from 18.8% in 2012 to 19.1% in 2016.  The Windows Phone is expected to see the most growth, with market share rising from 2.6% in 2012 to 11.4% in 2016. BlackBerry should continue to struggle as its market share slips from 4.7% in 2012 to 4.1% in 2016. But RIM (Nasdaq:RIMM) is trying to reverse that trend with the release of several new BlackBerry phones this year.

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For-Profit Education Industry Falters

During the past year, online education services provider Apollo Group (NASDAQ:APOL) has seen its stock fall more than 67%. Even though the company outperformed market expectations, according to the recent quarterly result announcement, worries about student enrollment continued to pull their stock down as it touched 52-week lows. For-profit education companies enjoyed a boom when the recession first hit as people began to upgrade their skills. But the continued depressed economy, tighter federal norms on educational institutions and student loan financing and reduced consumer spending patterns have hurt the sector. Apollo hasn’t been spared.

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