Tag: santa

Christmas cancelled at eBay

Posted on October 16, 2014 by - News

santa-naughty-listIt seems that eBay has been naughty and is worried that Santa will not visit it this Christmas.

The online auctioneer trimmed its full year revenue forecast because it expects a weaker than expected holiday shopping season.

EBay cut its full-year revenue outlook to between $17.85 billion and $17.95 billion from its previous range of $18 billion to $18.3 billion.

The company also forecast fourth quarter revenues of less than $5 billion, falling short of the $5.2 billion expected by Wall Street.

Weak economic data from the United States and China is fanning fears of another global slowdown, forcing investors to re-examine the world economy that is only just emerging from one of the worst recessions in history.

The fact is that analysts are not certain what will happen this Christmas, but signs from the luxury retailers indicate that things might be tight.

US retail sales, which account for about one-third of consumer spending, recorded their first fall since January last month.

eBay’s marketplaces division, which grew less than some forecast and the fear is that the company’s dependence on Europe might have also played a role in depressing its outlook.

Apple destroyed Santa’s home

Posted on October 14, 2014 by - News

screen480x480The fruity cargo cult Apple should be declared public enemy number one in Finland for the damage it caused to the nation’s economy.

The country’s Prime Minister Alexander Stubb said that Apple’s products have affected its mobile device and paper industries to such a level that it caused an economic downturn. It has  also caused the Nordic country to endure a sovereign debt rating downgrade.

Stubb said that Finland had two industrial problems and two champions which went down — Nokia in the ICT sector, and the other has to do with the forest and paper industry.”

“One could say that the iPhone killed Nokia and the iPad killed the Finnish paper industry, but we’ll make a comeback.”

Of course it is not Apple’s fault – there were shedloads of other technology companies which cleaned Nokia’s clock and the paper industry had been suffering for a while.

Statistics from the Finnish Forest Research Institute found that the forest and paper industry has contracted over the last few years, with the institute’s most recent report for 2013 warning of a “poor situation” for paper production, as well as a forecast that exports would continue to shrink in 2014.

The rise of electronic devices cannot be directly blamed for the paper industry’s issues in the country, the rise of online publications at the expense of newspapers could be seen as a contributing factor. Stubb hopes that instead of flogging trees to newspapers, they might make a nice form of bio energy. Perhaps the Finns should follow Sweden and move into flat pack furniture as a better use for its trees.