After well-received second quarter results yesterday online retailer Amazon has surpassed Wal-Mart to become the biggest retailer in the world.
Of course, who receives that accolade probably depends on your frame of reference. In terms of paying taxes, for instance, Amazon probably is not the biggest retailer in the world.
In terms of market capitalisation, however, it moved past Asda-owner Wal-Mart in pre-market trading, and is now worth US$267bn, as against US$236bn for Wal-Mart.
It is an impressive achievement for the retail giant, which only came into existence 20 years ago, starting life in a garage in Seattle.
During that time the company has concentrated on growing the top line more than declaring profits, but it made a post-tax profit in the second quarter, earning US$92mln, or 19 cents a share, which surprised analysts who had forecast a loss per share of 13 cents.
Closer to home, drinks brands giant Diageo (LON:DGE) is being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in the US for allegedly boosting sales figures by means of shipping excess inventory to distributors.
“Diageo is working to respond fully to the SEC’s requests for information in this matter,” the Johnnie Walker-maker said in a statement.
The company is due to release its second quarter results next week.
Optimal Payments (LON:OPAY), owner of the Neteller online payments service beloved of online poker players, is increasing the number of shares it is issuing to the sellers of Meritus to take account of the dilutive impact of a recent 5 for 3 rights issue by Optimal.
Optimal will now issue 12.84mln shares in connection with the Meritus acquisition, up from 6.95mln previously.
The shares have reacted positively to the news, rising 2.9%, which is something I would not have bet on.
Talking of betting, the strategy update from bookie Ladbrokes (LON:LAD) has not been well-received by the market.
The company has announced a three-year marketing-led plan in which it pledges to “aggressively” – “vigorously” is a much better word, don’t you think? Especially for a bookie – grow its UK digital recreational sports betting customer base; encourage more punters into its shops; deliver multi-channel revenue growth; accelerate growth in Australia.
There’s not much to disagree with there, in terms of ambition, and what the market has taken issue with is the news that these initiatives will lead to operating profit in the current financial year being about £20mln lower than previously expected.
Finally, spoken-word media platform Audioboom (LON:BOOM) crashed and burned this morning, despite announcing a record number of users in May.
Around 200,000 new users joined the platform in the month, with 1mln added in the first half of the year.
Revenue was just £46k in the first half of the year, and loss before tax widened to £3.27mln from £2.13mln, which some unkind souls suggested could be accounted for by the company recruiting comedian Russell Brand to be the face of the company.