Toyota (NYSE: TM) announced an additional $1.3 billion investment in its Kentucky factory to produce its new three-row all-electric SUV for U.S. consumers, the company said Tuesday, bringing its total investment to nearly $10 billion factory since 2021. The additional funds will support assembly of the new SUV and add a battery pack assembly line to the plant. The Kentucky facility is the company's largest manufacturing site, employing nearly 9,400 workers and has the capacity to manufacture up to 550,000 vehicles per year, including the Avalon, Avalon Hybrid, Camry, Camry Hybrid and the Lexus ES 350 models. Toyota's EV investments come as the carmaker has been criticized in recent years for falling behind other leading automakers in its EV offerings. The company currently has two EV models in the U.S. market -- the Toyota bZ4X and the Lexus RZ 4503 -- both of which are manufactured in Japan.
Snap (NYSE: SNAP) announced plans to layoff 10% of its global workforce, the company said Monday, representing about 500 employees based on recent headcount figures from the social media company. “In order to best position our business to execute on our highest priorities, and to ensure we have the capacity to invest incrementally to support our growth over time, we have made the difficult decision to restructure our team,” the company in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). “As a result, we currently estimate that we will incur pre-tax charges in the range of $55 million to $75 million, primarily consisting of severance and related costs, and other charges, of which $45 million to $55 million are expected to be future cash expenditures.” Snap said the majority of those costs will be incurred in the first quarter of 2024. The company is set to deliver its fourth-quarter earnings on Tuesday.
Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) officially launched its Vision Pro virtual reality headset in the United States on Friday, with customers now having access to more than 600 apps and games designed to be experienced in VR. The tech giant said Vision Pro has an "infinite canvas" for apps to be used within a three-dimensional interface that users can navigate using their eyes, hands, and voice. “With more than 600 new spatial experiences to explore in the all-new App Store, alongside more than 1 million compatible apps across iOS and iPadOS, users can discover a wide array of apps that expand the boundaries of what’s possible," said Susan Prescott, VP of Worldwide Developer Relations at Apple, in a statement. "These incredible apps will change how we experience entertainment, music, and games; spark our imaginations with new ways to learn and explore; unlock productivity like never before; and so much more. Developers are already capturing the promise of spatial computing, and we can’t wait to see what they create next.”
Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) on Thursday announced the launch of its new AI shopping assistant named Rufus to the e-commerce giant's mobile shopping app, offering consumers a new tool to help find products, compare reviews and prices and receive recommendations on what to buy all in one place. The generative AI was trained using Amazon's product catalog, customer reviews, community questions and answers, and other information sourced from around the web relevant to shoppers' needs. “It’s still early days for generative AI, and the technology won’t always get it exactly right,” Amazon said in a blog post. “We will keep improving our AI models and fine-tune responses to continuously make Rufus more helpful over time. Customers are encouraged to leave feedback by rating their answers with a thumbs up or thumbs down, and they have the option to provide freeform feedback as well."
Walmart (NYSE: WMT) announced a three-for-one stock split and plans to add more than 150 large-format locations across the United States in recent news as the retail giant's shares rise near their all-time high. The company said on Tuesday the additional shares will be payable after market close on Friday, Feb. 23 to shareholders of record as of Thursday, Feb. 22, with CEO Doug McMillon saying in a statement that Walmart "felt it was a good time to split the stock and encourage our associates to participate in the years to come." On Wednesday, the company unveiled plans to build or convert more than 150 brick-and-mortar storefronts over the next five years in the U.S. Walmart is currently the country's largest private employer, with about 1.6 million employees working at its more than 4,600 stores. Moreover, about 90% of the U.S. population lives within 10 miles of a Walmart. The stock closed at $165.59 on Tuesday, slightly below of its all-time high of $169.94 reached in November.
United Parcel Service (NYSE: UPS) shares fell on Tuesday after the company reported declines in both international and domestic shipping volumes in its fourth-quarter earnings reports. The company also announced 12,000 layoffs, which will save the company about $1 billion in costs. "2023 was a unique, and quite candidly, difficult and disappointing year. We experienced declines in volume, revenue and operating profits and all three of our business segments," CEO Carol Tomé said during the company's earnings call on Tuesday. The package delivery giant reported a 7.4% decline in average daily volume in the United States and a 8.3% in international shipping last quarter, with global shipping impacted in-part by freight supply chain issues in the Red Sea region, as well as the Panama and Suez canals, Tomé said. For its full year 2024, UPS expects revenue in a range of $92 billion to $94.5 billion, alongside an adjusted operating margin of between 10% and 10.6%.
Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) announced on Monday it has decided to scrap its planned acquisition of Roomba maker iRobot (NASDAQ: IRBT), as the two companies were met with antitrust scrutiny from the European Commission. Separately, iRobot announced it will cut about 350 employees, or 31% of its workforce, and its chair and CEO Colin Angle will step down effective immediately as the company implements an operational restructuring plan. "The termination of the agreement with Amazon is disappointing, but iRobot now turns towards the future with a focus and commitment to continue building thoughtful robots and intelligent home innovations that make life better," Angle said in a statement. iRobot's Executive Vice President and Chief Legal Officer Glen Weinstein has been appointed Interim CEO, while Andrew Miller will now serve as Chairman of the Board.
Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) is laying off 1,900 employees across its gaming divisions, TechCrunch reports, representing about 8.6% of staff at those units. Separately, Blizzard president Mike Ybarra also announced he will stop down, leaving his position after Microsoft's $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard was finalized. According to an internal meme from CEO Phil Spencer, the layoffs stem from "an execution plan with a sustainable cost stricture," which have "identified areas of overlap" following its acquisition of the gaming company. Microsoft's layoffs follow a string of similar job losses in the gaming industry in recent weeks, with Unity (NYSE: U) cutting 25% of its employees and Amazon's (NASDAQ: AMZN) Twitch laying off 35% of its positions
Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) shares jumped in extended trading on Tuesday after the streaming giant reported a much stronger-than-expected 13.1 million subscriber additions in its fourth-quarter. The company now has a record 260.8 million paid subscribers, with its latest quarter growth topping its 8.76 million paid account additions in the third-quarter. The surprise subscription growth also came alongside fourth-quarter net income of $937.8 million, or 2.11 per share -- compared with $55.3 million in the prior period last year. Netflix also increased its 2024 full-year operating margin forecast to 24% from a previous range of 22% to 23%, citing the weakening U.S. dollar and its strong fourth-quarter results.
ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM) filed a lawsuit against United States and Dutch activist investors Arjuna Capital and Follow This in a bid to stop the groups from submitting climate proposals during Exxon's annual shareholder meeting. The complaint, filed in Sunday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, accuses the activist firms of conducting an "extreme agenda" and claimed they both submit shareholder proposals to undermine the oil giant's business. “We are simply asking the court to apply the SEC’s proxy rules as written to stop this abuse and eliminate the significant resources required to address them," Exxon Mobil said in an emailed statement to CNBC. “With this remarkable step, ExxonMobil clearly wants to prevent shareholders using their rights,” Follow This’ Mark van Baal said in a statement, quoted by CNBC. “Apparently, the board fears shareholders will vote in favour of emissions reductions targets.”
Wayfair (NYSE: W) announced on Friday it plans to layoff 13% of its global workforce as part of its continued efforts to cut costs, layers of management and reverse staff growth stemming from the coronavirus pandemic. The job cuts will impact about 1,650 employees, including 19% of its corporate team, Wayfair said, with focus on positions in management. "The changes announced today reflect a return to our core principles on resource allocation," CEO Niraj Shah said in a statement. "Although persistent category weakness makes revenue growth challenging, we remain encouraged by the share of gains we continue to see." The company expects to save about $280 million from this restructuring effort.
Macy's (NYSE: M) on Thursday announced it will cut about 3.5% of its workforce and close five of its brick-and-mortar locations as the department store giant looks to turn around warning sales and streamline operations. “As we prepare to deploy a new strategy to meet the needs of an ever-changing consumer and marketplace, we made the difficult decision to reduce our workforce by 3.5% to become a more streamlined company,” the company said in a statement. The layoffs will impact about 2,350 employees, The Wall Street Journal reports, citing a memo sent to employees. The news also comes after Macy's was pressured to go private in a $5.8 billion bid from an investor group consisting of Arkhouse Management and Brigade Capital, Reuters reports.
U.S. holiday sales rose 3.8% year-over-year to a total of $964.4 billion, according to U.S. Census Bureau data compiled by the National Retail Federation (NRF) released on Wednesday. Beneath the headline, nearly every sales category saw annual gains during the 2023 holiday season, with electronics and appliance stores and health and personal care stores seeing gains of 9.3% and 9%, respectively. Meanwhile, online sales and other non-store sales rose 8.2% compared to 2022. This sales data, which represents consumer purchases between November and December, was not adjusted for inflation and includes both in-store and online sales and comes in-line with preseason estimates for total sales between $957.3 billion and $966.6 billion by the NRF. "Consumer spending was remarkably resilient throughout 2023 and finished the year with a solid pace for the holiday season," said Jack Kleinhenz, chief economist at NRF, in a press release.
Uber (NYSE: UBER) is closing its alcohol delivery service Drizly, Axios reported on Monday, with the brand becoming discontinued by the end of March 2024. The ride-hailing company had acquired the service three years ago for $1.1 billion with the intentions of integrating Drizly into Uber Eats. "After three years of Drizly operating independently within the Uber family, we've decided to close the business and focus on our core Uber Eats strategy of helping consumers get almost anything -- from food to groceries to alcohol -- all on a single app," said Pierre-Dimitri Gore-Coty, SVP of Delivery at Uber, in a statement to multiple news outlets. "We're grateful to te Drizly team for their many contributions to the growth of the BevAlc delivery category as the original industry pioneer."
Anheuser-Busch InBev (NYSE: BUD) has entered a sponsorship partnership for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, making its the first ever beer brand to sponsor the global sporting event. The International Olympic Committee announced its worldwide partnership on Friday, extending from the Paris Summer games to Los Angeles 2028 Summer games. The organization highlighted the Corona Cero, one of the brand's non-alcoholic beers, as the beer of choice for the partnership. This new sponsorship comes as Anheuser-Busch continues its recovery efforts after the beer giant faced backlash for its Bud Light advertising partnership with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney in 2023, which led to boycotts and sales declines. The company has previously announced it would be focusing on sporting and music events for the majority of its marketing campaigns.