Caroline Hyde (2:46)

It's almost going back to its partners of old. Remember, Apple didn't always design its own chips. It used to rely upon intel and Samsung. And Samsung it still depends upon a lot for other parts of the iPhone, remember the screens, for example. But this is about the dominance of Taiwan. TSMC obviously has most of its manufacturing out of Taiwan. About 90% of all chips in the world are made in Taiwan. That is a huge potential choke point, bottleneck concern, particularly when Taiwan is in the eye of the storm. Not only weather storms, but also in terms of geopolitics. And what if China was to start making any sort of aggressive moves? This just means that for Tim Cook, the supply chain God over at Apple who's now moving to the chairman role, he's always trying to think ahead of how he can be less dependent. So remember, TSMC is manufacturing in the US More than likely to be committing ever more billions into Arizona. That is something President Trump wants. But Samsung too is investing in the United States and Texas. We understand that people have been from Apple to go and look around those fabs over in Texas. And then what about Intel, a company that the US Administration has skin in the game in? And this would also be a political move in many ways.

Alexis (3:54)

This is Apple's way of sort of insulating itself best it can. And one of the last major things I guess Tim Cook will do during his tenure as CEO before he passes the reins. What about supply shortages? We know there's a lot of demand for the, for the Mac. How are they, how are they doing with that? And also would this deal with, with an intel or a Samsung for these microprocessors, process producers help with that?

Caroline Hyde (4:17)

Well, I think that was what was surprised many was the admission that maybe the memory chip issue wasn't so much Apple's problem this time. It was more the sheer desire to buy Macs. Trying to buy basically Apple products to run your own open claw, run your own agents overnight, and suddenly they see Mac minis fly off the shelves. They just cannot get the equipment fast enough. And so, yes, that has been a bit of a blocker for Tim Cook. Basically, they've got a lot of demand and it's the supply that's the issue in terms of the previous quarter. How quickly this can get off the ground, that's a question, Alexis. And so whether or not we'll see Tim Cook make any moves while his CEO to fix that is still an Open book because look, they're still building fabrication points for Intel. This is a long term play coming from Lip Bhutan, but we know that the CEO of Intel has in many ways been the issue of look, I will build it if they come. If Apple is coming, they will start to build out that Ohio presence. For example, be able to become the fabrication partner of choice. Samsung already is building out in Texas how quickly they can start rolling off. But you're right, the supply chain issue has been what chips are getting into their Mac and their hardware products more broadly.

Paul Sweeney (5:22)

Apple is also preparing a new Create a Pass feature for its next major iPhone software upgrade allowing users to build and customize their own digital tickets and gift cards within the Wallet app. That seems pretty cool little it also seems pretty confusing. What does that mean for the stuff in my wallet? I mean that digital wallet, I'm putting more. It's more stuff in there, right?

Caroline Hyde (5:42)

Yeah, yeah. And that's with even certain events that you go to certain gift cards you might get not actually having the ability to put it on your Apple wallet. So this is the instead say you get a one off event down at Jones Beach. You're going in New Jersey. I know you're spending your summer by the shore there.

Alexis (5:59)

Caroline knows you.

Caroline Hyde (6:00)

Yes, I love working and I get to know the New Jersey love. But say that particular event doesn't have the feasibility of a relationship with iOS. You can take a QR code that they send you and just load it into your wallet. So there it is. So you can have all things in one place. They're trying to become more of a hub in that respect. So this is a nice little upgrade upgrade that we're going to see to this software operating system.

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Paul Sweeney (8:39)

Paramount Skydance reported first quarter sales and earnings that beat adults expectations as the company moves closer to acquiring Warner Brothers Discovery. Investors underwhelmed, I would say stocks off 6.5% today, off 22% year to date. So there's a lot of moving pieces at Paramount Skydance. Let's break it down with Geetha Ranganathan. She is the media analyst for Bloomberg Intelligence. She's down there in Princeton. Hey Geetha, first of all, let's just kind of go to the earnings here. How's the Paramount Skydance managing under new management?

Geetha Ranganathan (9:13)

They actually did a really good job Paul. So just from the results that they reported yesterday for the first quarter it was really strong. Both revenue as well as adjusted EBITDA came in well above consensus estimates. And you know, the really encouraging thing and what investors look at quarter in and quarter out is how well they are progressing on the streaming front. And they had pretty good subscriber growth. A lot of this has been driven by their new UFC deal, but more importantly they actually reported profits. Remember, this is a service that has been a very, you know, has been racking up loss after loss, quarter after quarter, but for the first time, you know, there was an inflection. They reported about $250 million in adjusted EBITDA and they are actually going to sustain momentum when it comes to that profitability. So across the board, actually pretty good numbers. But then as you said, there's just a lot of different moving pieces and a lot of investor anxiety about those moving pieces.

Alexis (10:10)

And I want to pick at some of those moving pieces right now, Geetha, because revenue from Paramount's film studios grew 11%. There was a strong theatrical performance from the horror movie Scream 7, so I guess lots of fans out there. But sales in Param TV unit fell 6%. Was that driven by just lost business or is there a fall off in advertising? Or maybe a little bit of both.

Geetha Ranganathan (10:34)

Yeah, there was definitely, you know, advertising. So remember, Paramount derives about 33% off its revenue from advertising. So huge, you know, very, very critical part of the business. And yes, you know, across the ecosystem, Alexis, we are seeing a weakness in TV linear advertising. And of course, no exception there at Paramount as well, they're obviously have a little bit more weakness for the second quarter. That's what they guided. They did not have the March Madness final four which they had the previous year. So, you know, we're seeing tough comps and this and just general core ad weakness.

Paul Sweeney (11:11)

So, Geetha, what are the companies saying here? I'm thinking about the big companies that own broadcast and cable networks. What are they? That's a declining business. It's in a secular decline. It kind of, kind of feels like newspapers 30 years ago, radio 20 years ago. What do they plan to do that structurally wise?

Geetha Ranganathan (11:28)

So structurally, Paul, what all of them are doing really is moving to digital. So, you know, it's the big shift from linear TV to what they're calling connected tv. That shift couldn't happen any faster. You know, they're all trying their best. It's a 60, 55 to 60 billion dollars linear market. But there really still remains this huge gap between eyeballs and monetization because we've seen all of the eyeballs move from linear TV to streaming. We haven't an equally fast or an equally rapid shift of that monetization from linear to. To streaming. And that's really what all of these companies are trying to capitalize on. You know, Netflix, of course, made its big move into advertising, but then all of the linear companies already have advertising relationships, you know, whether that's a Disney plus or a Paramount, you know, but again, it's about how fast they can get there. But they're all trying.

Alexis (12:21)

We know that Paramount, you know, clinched the $110 billion deal for Netflix. It hopes to close on that deal in the third quarter. But Par has asked the fcc, Geetha to sign off on a funding structure that includes more than a third of the company's equity coming from Middle east government entities. Are they going to get that FCC approval? And I'm wondering if the war in Iran is, you know, putting any of that in jeopardy.

Geetha Ranganathan (12:46)

I think they will get the FCC approval. I think so far all the indications that we've gotten from on the, on the regulatory front seem to indicate that, you know, the administration is definitely going to give them the go ahead. I think if at all they have any problems, it'll probably be in California. The California California AG has on numerous occasions stated that this is not a done deal, that, you know, he thinks that this is actually going to be bad for Hollywood. So I think there's definitely a little bit of, you know, regulatory nervousness when it comes to the California ag, but I think on the FCC front they should be fine. I think the reason why we are seeing so much of weakness in the stock today is really worries around post deal execution. You know, this is a tall order. This is a company pro forma that's going to have about $80 billion in debt. That's about seven times EBITDA. So highly leveraged company, you have only about $12 billion in EBITDA. Their goal is to get to above 20 billion because they need to get to a three times leverage ratio. But that's going to be possible only if they achieve about $6 billion in synergies and really bump up that EBITDA. So there's really a lot for them to do. Paul and Alexis and I think, you know, so execution, regulatory. And then there's the issue of, of dilution from a share count perspective because right now they have about 1.1 billion shares with Paramount. When they get the WBD deal that that's going to go to about 5 billion. So we are expecting massive share dilution there. And so that's another big reason.

Paul Sweeney (14:07)

30 seconds left. Geetha, when you put all these companies together, Paramount, Skydance, Warner Brothers, Discovery, is that going to be a streaming service of scale that can compete against Netflix and maybe even Disney?

Geetha Ranganathan (14:19)

It can, it can fall. And I think that's what investors, the bulls are definitely betting on that. I mean this is a service that's going to have over about 220,230 million subscribers. Definitely puts in within striking distance of both Netflix and Disney. And I think what we're really kind of betting on with this new management team is how they leverage technology. I mean this is David Ellison we're talking about. He's a tech kid, you know. Can they leverage AI to get all of those efficiencies?

Paul Sweeney (14:45)

Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Intelligence Coming up After

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Paul Sweeney (17:57)

Coinbase cutting 14% of its workforce citing volatile markets and AI let's break it down with Paul Goldberg, Bloomberg Intelligence Senior Equity Analyst. Paul, talk to us about what's going on with our friends at Coinbase.

Paul Goldberg (18:11)

Morning Paul. I think there is a change of heart. Obviously when they reported earnings in February and guided for the first quarter they were guiding for the expenses to be roughly flat, which kind of raised the eyebrows a little bit because the activity levels were trending down and there were some concern. But going back to December when they announced the build out of everything exchange, there are a lot of investments that they have been making. So they basically wanted to maintain those investments going forward. But clearly three months later we do get some change of heart here.

Alexis (18:45)

So we're talking about 14% of Coinbase's workforce being cut. I guess that amounts to about 700 jobs. Is AI behind this cut?

Paul Goldberg (18:59)

I would think that is probably part of the equation, but not necessarily the driver they did In Brian Armstrong's post on X they did mention the volatility as being the biggest issue. So even we've seen the bitcoin price dropping from 125,000 to 65,000 and it's probably what, 81,000 today. So it's coming back in the second quarter but but there is a lot of uncertainty so they trying to adjust to that mainly they're also as part of the transition they're cutting out some management level so they trying to optimize the business and maybe AI is the helper there where the managers can actually be individual contributors as well.

Paul Sweeney (19:39)

So you know, I think a lot of people know Coinbase as simply a platform to buy and sell cryptocurrencies. So is is this stock primarily entirely partially driven by the price of Bitcoin?

Paul Goldberg (19:54)

If you look at the stock chart, part of that reaction is kind of similar to what the bitcoin is doing. But if you look at the businesses that are in the subscription and services Businesses, the staking the payments and all those other things that they're building. There's really a lot of other things happening across the entire ecosystem, including the tokenization and getting even into more traditional markets like equities.

Alexis (20:20)

And certainly Coinbase is not alone, right? I mean you've got a number of companies in this space announcing job cuts recently. Block Gemini Space Station comes to mind, I think. Crypto.com what are the reasons why that these companies are offering for why they are tightening their belts?

Paul Goldberg (20:39)

I think so. I don't think it's necessarily a long term problem. I think it's more of a cyclical problem. And because the cycles are so short in those businesses, the technology develops so fast, they really have to adopt and adjust almost on an annual basis or every few years when things change very dramatically. So they do have to refresh their workforce.

Paul Sweeney (21:03)

So Paul, what's, what's the next step for Coinbase here? What's kind of the bull case for this stock here?

Paul Goldberg (21:11)

I think the bull case is the ecosystem on a blockchain and tokenization, the base layer program in that they're building that can allow their users to build on that blockchain, the tokenization of different kinds of assets. So we just haven't a lot of things in terms of payments market structure and things like that shifting very dramatically on the usage of blockchain. So I think that's where the opportunity is for them.

Intuit/Chase Advertiser (21:41)

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Paul Sweeney (24:31)

We also got some earnings out of PayPal and the earnings I'm looking at just at the earnings PayPal reported first quarter adjusted earnings about A$34 beating the average analyst estimate of the $27. And the company read it reiterated its full year guidance. PayPal did. But they're also cutting costs here and cutting some some jobs here. So let's break down what's happening at PayPal. Diction Guerra, senior fintech and payments analyst joins us. She's a Bloomberg Intelligence, she's based out there in San Francisco. Diksha, what you learned from PayPal with their earnings results.

Caroline Hyde (25:06)

Yeah hi.

Diksha Guerra (25:07)

As you can see Paul, revenue was up about 7%. It was a decent beat, about 6%. EPS beat adjusted EPS was ahead of consensus. Consensus volume was up 11%. Venmo volume accelerated to 14. So operationally it wasn't really a bad quarter. But the stocks are still down. So how I'd frame it is that this is a decent show me result. But the bigger issue here is around Credibility. And I think the market basically wants to see can new leadership really demonstrate some stabilization and execution. So not a blowout quarter especially given you know, the tough environment, but it was better than what we feared.

Alexis (25:50)

Was Wall street happy though with with guidance for the current quarter? Because I'm sort of reading some mixed things here on the Bloomberg terminal and also saw them guide toward a decline in earnings per share in the second quarter.

Diksha Guerra (26:03)

Yeah, you're right. Right. See this is what we had flagged in our react as well. I think there is a lot to prove yet like so this was a great quarter but one one point, one data point does not make a trend. We are still yet to see whether branded checkout growth can increase sustainably, ideally grow above low single digits. The second thing is whether transaction margin dollars return to growth after the second quarter dip. So guidance to that is also signaling weakness, you know, like it doesn't really inspire confidence in that sense. And thirdly, I think the market also wants to see whether the new CEO can convert this whole $1.50 cost program into product velocity rather than just like some EPS support.

Paul Sweeney (26:54)

What's the bear case here for PayPal? FinTech is a, it's an exciting growth segment but boy it just feels like competition is everywhere.

Diksha Guerra (27:03)

You're right. But I think see the bear case. Investors have heard several turnaround stories before with people and there is that fatigue setting in the second quarter. Guidance does not suggest that the reset is still ongoing. So the bear case is evident. Stocks and what I'd argue is that is there a bull case here? And especially like just looking at the valuation and the capital situation with PayPal. Like they have targeted 6 billion plus dollars of free cash flow this year and they plan to buy back as much of stock. So that is definitely very interesting for value investors. It's a, it's a very cheap, highly profitable company. But I think there is still nervousness around can new management turn it around.

Alexis (27:50)

And it really was considered a pioneer, wasn't it in the payment space and would you say that it just was too late to sort of change with the times and other companies in that space started to eat its lunch?

Diksha Guerra (28:05)

I think it's, I mean definitely there are a lot of new players that are coming in, Stripe being one of them. Adyen coming in with the more non branded kind of offering. So there are lapses particularly the challenges around the branded business for PayPal. But I wouldn't say the battle is lost. I just the scale and the size of this company and the two sided network These are very enviable attributes and I think there is still room for that. One thing I would kind of allude to is the whole job cut situation as well. We've been getting a lot of questions around that.

Alexis (28:43)

I mean that you brought that up because it's an unspecified number of job cuts, right? Or did they say how many they're looking to let go?

Diksha Guerra (28:49)

So I saw a newsline saying 20% job cuts.

Alexis (28:53)

Wow.

Diksha Guerra (28:53)

And people like 24,000 plus employees at the end of last year and that could mean around four and a half thousand jobs being culled. And I mean the job cuts technically are a double edged signal, right? On one hand they show that management is serious about taking costs and complexity out of the business. But on the other hand, when a company is cutting this deeply, investors tend to ask whether this is just margin repair or whether it actually fixes the growth problem. Basically, PayPal does not need to be smaller just for the sake of being smaller, right. It needs to be faster, more focused and more competitive at checkout. So that's the question. Like will they be able to deliver on that?

Podcast Host/Producer (29:34)

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