News, Figures

According to a report from Business Insider, Apple Inc has more money than the US government. The media portal said that "the world's largest tech company has more cash than the world's largest sovereign government."

Apple recently announced its financial results for the third quarter that revealed the company had $76.2 billion (£46.8bn) in cash and marketable securities at the end of last month.

According to the stats from the research firm Social Nuggets people use their computer tablets mostly for business purposes. Thus, business activity on Apple iPads and BlackBerry PlayBooks accounts for over 25%.

Meantime, owners of Android based tablets use them for business only at 20% rate. Shopping accounted for 23% of the activity on Android tablets while games accounted for 17.5% on iPads.

Social Nuggets gets the information from scanning both official reviews and comments in forums to see what people think of different tablets and what they use them for.

According to a new TransUnion analysis consumers made about $72 billion more in payments on their credit cards than on purchases within the period of first quarters of 2009 and 2010.

PricewaterhouseCoopers made a forecast that Australian offshore online shopping will increase by $AU1.2 billion to $AU6 billion this year.

The forecast predicts that online shopping will move up 13% to $AU13.6 billion. The report says that about 44% of those online sales will be gained by offshore e-tailers.

PwC forecasts that over the following 5 years online spending will increase by 12.6% annually to achieve $AU21.7 billion by 2015.
 

Amazon said that it will be using its ever increasing revenue to expand into areas such as Web content and cloud computing rather than boost its margins.

This week the Internet retailing giant reported a surge in its quarterly revenue gained on sales of Kindle e-book reader and other electronics, forecasting better than expected profits for the third quarter.

While Amazon saw big gains from growth in e-commerce its margins remained narrow as a result of heavy spending on distribution, technology and digital content.

Baidu Inc made a forecast for its revenues for the third quarter, outpacing well ahead Wall Street's expectations as large advertisers increased spending.

A Chinese top search engine has seen a significant growth of its profits as it has focused on online video and e-commerce over the past time.

Seeing large flows of money from big advertising customers in the largest Internet market in the world Baidu posted $252.6 million net profit in the second quarter of 2011.

Second quarter profits of American Express increased by 31% according to the report posted by the credit card network.

According to the data average spending by consumers on their American Express cards for the quarter rose by 15% to $3,767 from the same period a year ago.

Yahoo reported a decline in its net revenue for the second quarter as a result of unnecessary redundant efforts aimed at restructuring its sales force.

On Thursday a fourth-quarter report will be posted by Microsoft. The company will report a 9% increase in its profit while investors are not satisfied as they believe the Redmond company will never again recapture its old growth rates.

Microsoft’s shares have grown by 10% over the past month but they still remain in the mid-$20 range, a level they have circled since 1998, adjusted for splits.

According to the report made by Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing shut down over 1.3 million websites last year alone.

The ASS says that the shutdowns resulted in a 41% decrease of the total number of Chinese website by the end of last year. However, ASS spokesman Liu Ruisheng claimed China enjoyed a "high level of freedom of online speech."

Still, the number of web pages in China increased by 79% so far.

According to a survey conducted by Retrevo 34% of iPhone owners believe they have a 4G enabled smartphone because of “4” in the iPhone 4 name. Supposedly they are get deceived by the previous models 3G and 3GS.

Meantime, 42% of Blackberry users also believe their phones are 4G, but that is impossible. On the other hand, 61% of iPhone owners disregard if their phones are 4G enabled and they will buy the following iPhone model irrespective of the feature. Blackberry and Android users are also interested in the new iPhone, regardless of 4G speeds.

According to a new survey from the Pew Internet and American Life Project more and more American users have smartphones. However, a significant 40% of them still prefer simple mobile phones to make calls and do text messaging with no need in an app store or Angry Birds.

The survey found that over 35% of adult Americans use some models of smartphone including an iPhone, BlackBerry, Android, Windows Phone 7, or WebOS device.

A new stats from an industry report revealed that more consumers were in trouble paying on their credit cards and other debts during the first quarter of the year in view of increased prices for food and gas.

The report released by the American Banker Association shows that there was a deterioration compared to the prior quarters and described the most recent quarter as a "soft patch."

According to the stats provided by PayNet, borrowing by small businesses in the United States increased at a record pace in May, which is a good sign of that economic growth is accelerating.

Meantime, the Thomson Reuters/PayNet Small Business Lending Index which measures the overall volume of financing to U.S. small businesses increased by 26% in May from a year earlier.

Small businesses borrowing is a significant support for the economy because they give about 80% of hiring. The loans PayNet tracks are typically used to buy or update plants and equipment.