#7 Fitbit up 25%

San Francisco-based company Fitbit - mostly known for its smartwatches that help people track their steps, heartbeat and burned calories - went op 25% on Thursday after it beat both the revenue and earnings estimates, CNBC reports.

Fitbit’s smartwatch revenue grew a lot and represented no less than 49% of the company’s total revenue. According to Fitbit CEO James Park, the company now is number 2 in the market - compared to a market share of 0% only fourteen months ago.


#6 Volkswagen in talks with Ford

Car manufacturers Volkswagen and Ford are in talks to potentially develop self-driving cars and electric vehicles together, Reuters reports. They’re especially thinking about joining forces in terms of research and development and economies of scale.

The German and American carmakers aren’t the only companies entering this kind of agreement, a few weeks ago we mentioned General Motors and Honda doing the same thing. 


#5 The pound is finally up again

Thursday was a good day for the British pound. The Sterling had its biggest two-day rally since January, the Financial Times reports. The upward movement was mainly linked to rumors about Britain and the EU having reached an agreement on trade in financial services after Brexit.

So far, neither London nor Brussels has yet confirmed that a deal has been finalized, however.


#4 Baidu also goes into the AV business

If you hadn’t noticed it yet, there is - a lot - going on in the autonomous vehicle market. Chinese search engine giant Baidu already launched an open development platform for autonomous driving called Apollo.

This week, the company closed a deal with Swedish carmaker Volvo to develop level four self-driving passenger cars, TechCrunch reports. For those of you wondering what level four is; it means that the vehicles can drive on pre-mapped roads with little (or no) human intervention.

Baidu also made an agreement with American carmaker Ford to test self-driving vehicles on Chinese roads for two years, according to the same TechCrunch article.


#3 Netflix in theaters

Netflix, the American streaming giant, seems to have shifted its strategy and ambition a little. For a long time, the company said it wouldn’t release its films in traditional cinemas first, but now it's going to do exactly that, Yahoo Finance reports.

Instead of releasing its offerings online and in cinemas at the same time, Netflix will release three of its upcoming films in cinemas before they will be available on Netflix’s streaming offerings.


#2 Is cash still king?

Physical currency still is the most frequently used payment method. However, non-cash transaction volumes (in the US) continue to climb, Bloomberg reports. As such, more and more food chains ‘go cashless’ saying accepting paper money isn’t worth it anymore because their customer base hardly pays in cash and/or because it makes them gain in terms of efficiency.


#1 The race between robots and humans

Robotics spending is expected to reach $90 billion in 2018, the Wall Street Journal reports. While this may seem a lot - and is indeed a considerable increase compared to previous years - it’s not that much compared to the almost $3 trillion committed to capital investment.

Executives in many industries - healthcare and retail included - aren’t convinced about the technical revolution yet, the WSJ article continues. Their main concern is whether robots are really delivering on the productivity benefits they promise.

So it seems that for now, the race between robots and humans is far from over…


Voilà, another week all captured in Tweets. As always, we’ll continue to track Twitter and bring you the top financial micro-messages from the web. See you back here next Friday.


Source: www.scoopnest.com.