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Written by Louis Jurich and Sarina Isaac
Investing.com – Here’s your weekly Pro Recap on the biggest tech headlines this week: Thread’s massive Meta launch (and Twitter lawsuit warning); batch to Ali Baba ; And radioactive addresses for Rivian.
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Meta Threads launches with a bang — and a legal threat
The new “topics” app — which some are calling the “Twitter killer” — has already amassed 70 million subscriptions after launching Wednesday night, thanks in large part to its user profile, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:) said Friday. whopper on Instagram. a base.
The day before, Twitter had responded at all by threatening to sue Meta, according to a letter sent by Alex Spiro, Twitter’s attorney, obtained by Semaphore.
The letter accuses Meta of attempting to create a “copycat” app by poaching several former Twitter employees, and then entrusting those employees with developing the Thread app with the intent of leveraging Twitter’s trade secrets and intellectual property in order to expedite the creation of the app. The message prompts Meta to immediately stop using this information.
Meta, via its communications director Andy Stone, posted on the new app that no one on the Thread team is a former Twitter employee.
Elon Musk tweeted, “Competition is good, cheating is not.”
Bank of America analysts said Meta has a history of successfully replicating competing apps without serious legal challenges, adding:
Until other facts surrounding the claim emerge or either party takes further steps, we expect that the current threat of legal action will have limited immediate impact on the application ramp. However, if Threads were to grow to a size similar to or larger than Twitter, we could see the potential for antitrust issues with cross-platform data usage.
Meta shares gained 2% for the week.
Alibaba fined China less than expected
US-listed shares of Alibaba (NYSE) rose 8% on Friday after the Chinese government imposed a smaller-than-expected fine of 7.12 billion yuan ($985 million) on its financial technology arm Ant Group. Shares of Alibaba traded in Hong Kong (HK:) closed up 3.4% during the session.
Reuters reported earlier that Ant is set to be fined at least 8 billion yuan (about $1.1 billion).
The penalty — the largest imposed on a Chinese internet company since regulators fined ride-sharing app Didi Global (OTC:) for $1.2 billion last year — wraps up a multi-year revamp of Ant initiated by the People’s Bank of China after canceling the fintech company’s plans to float $1,000,000. $37 billion in 2020.
Ant said it would “comply with the sanction requirements in all seriousness and sincerity and continue to strengthen our compliance governance”.
The end of the reform could mean that Ant will be able to secure a financial holding company license, possibly boosting the IPO revival. Prior to the IPO fiasco, some investors valued Ant at over $300 billion.
Meanwhile, the NYSE-listed shares of Alibaba Paidu (NASDAQ:) and PDD Holdings (NASDAQ:) rose more than 3%.
Rivian An explosive week
electric car maker Rivian Motors (NASDAQ:) surged last week after several good news came out: better-than-expected production numbers, word that Amazon (NASDAQ:) will deploy its first Rivian trucks in Europe, and a warming of sentiment among Wall Street analysts.
First, Rivian stock rose more than 17% Monday after the company said it produced 13,992 vehicles — a 59% jump year over year — beating Street’s forecast of 12,640. The company, which has been grappling with supply chain hurdles, reiterated its annual production target of 50,000. lonliness.
Then, Amazon said Wednesday that 300 vehicles will hit the roads in a number of regions in Germany over the coming weeks, including Munich, Berlin and Dusseldorf. They mark Rivian’s first commercial shipments outside the United States
Amazon, which is also Rivian’s largest shareholder, had already ordered 100,000 of these trucks and began rolling them out to several US cities last year. By 2030, Amazon says it plans to operate 100,000 Rivian Trucks globally.
Amid positive headlines, DA Davidson upped the stock to Neutral from Underperform, arguing that the entry into Europe came “much earlier than we expected.” The analyst added:
Although deliveries in the second quarter were below our model, they exceeded consensus expectations (a low level, in our view). The recent acquisition of ABRP adds new capabilities and valuable data as well.
Separately, Needham & Company added Rivian to its list of convictions and raised its price target to $28 from a previous $26. Mizuho retained its Buy rating on the stock, but lowered its 12-month price target to $27 from $30 previously.
Finally, Rivian stock jumped about 52% for the week, to $24.70.
Scott Kanoski, Sinad Karamitovic, Michael Elkins, and David Kirakosian contributed to this report.