Market Loop - Results round up

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3rd August 2022

Bite-sized business news from the UK and beyond

Good morning Yesterday ridesharing app Uber announced it had recorded its first ever cash flow-positive quarter. It’s a significant milestone for company that has burned through $25bn since its founding 13 years ago in its rush towards rapid global expansion.

Today's stories

Results round up
Instagram boss swaps Silicon Valley for London

EARNINGS
Results round up

What happened?
We’re in the middle of peak earnings season with several UK businesses reporting mid-year results. Here’s a summary on how the big players are doing… the good, the bad and the ugly.

BP reported a profit of $8.5bn in the three months to June – three times higher than last year and the second highest quarterly profit in the oil giant’s long history. The good: shareholders will be in line for payments of £3.6bn in the next three months. The bad: BP has benefitted from the surge in oil and gas prices in the past year, exacerbated by the war in Ukraine. But the latest estimate of a typical household’s energy bill is over £3,000 until at least the end of 2023 — an unprecedented increase that would plunge millions into fuel poverty.

Purplebricks posted a £42m loss in the 12 months to April with the UK’s largest online estate agent blaming poor marketing campaigns and lower market share. The good: the company is considering diversifying revenue by launching mortgage and moving services products. The bad: it warned that it likely won’t breakeven until 2024 despite a surge in house sales after pandemic lockdowns lifted.

Greggs reported a 27% jump in revenue in the first half of the year as customers turned to cheaper meals during the cost of living crisis. The good: the bakery chain expects to add 800 stores in the UK taking the total to 3,000 despite fears over a consumer downturn. The bad: customers could face further price rises as the chain passes on rising costs.

Other stories to keep you in the loop

House prices climb 11% despite cost of living squeeze
Truss suffers setback as criticism of civil service pay plan brings U-turn
Financial watchdog opens Leeds office in regional push
Ferrari reports record profits as supercar sales boom
TikTok plans music app to challenge Spotify and Apple
Estee Lauder in talks to acquire Tom Ford
Millennial favourite Oatly stirs up revenue boost
Corporate insolvencies hit highest level since 2009

ONLINE
Instagram boss swaps Silicon Valley for London

The head of Instagram Adam Mosseri is relocating from the US to London meaning the UK capital will effectively become social media app’s base as parent Meta scrambles to compete with TikTok.

London is Meta’s largest engineering hub outside the US, with more than 4,000 employees including a dedicated Instagram product and creators team.

Mosseri’s move will be seen as a vote of confidence in the city, where Google is spending an estimated $1bn to construct a one-million-square-foot office in King’s Cross.

Meta said Mosseri would support the creator team which is focused on helping certain users make money from their posts and countering the rapid rise of TikTok.

It’s also been reported that Instagram wants to hire more London product staff because it is cheaper to recruit tech professionals in the UK than in San Francisco, where the company has its headquarters.

The news comes just a week after:

Instagram faced backlash from influencers including Kim Kardashian over changes to make it more like TikTok.
Meta, which also owns WhatsApp and Facebook, announced that its quarterly revenues declined for the first time ever due to a weak advertising market.

Stat of the day

More than 16,000 businesses which took out a type of government-backed Covid loan have gone bust without paying the money back

Interesting links from around the web

100 interesting questions to ask to get to know someone better
The soft skills employers want
5 ways to cope with rejection

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Market Loop - Results round up

Older messages

JD Sports takes loss on forced sale of rival

Octopus Energy’s £1bn request to buy failed rival

Shell and British Gas face backlash over bumper profits

Consumer businesses pass on higher costs to customers

Downgraded: IMF cuts UK growth forecast to the lowest in G7

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