1.MC DONALDS: -McDonald’s Corp said on Thursday it has nearly achieved its goal of sourcing all of its paper food packaging in restaurants from recycled or sustainable fiber.
The Chicago-based global burger chain said in its annual sustainability report that in 2020 99.6% of the paper bags, food wrappers, napkins, cup carriers and other fiber-based materials it used to package meals for customers came from recycled or certified sustainable fiber sources, up from 92% in 2019.
Many restaurant chains are working to reduce environmental harm from packaging, including using more recyclable or compostable materials and letting customers reuse cups or bowls.
An Adweek-Harris Poll survey of U.S. adults in April about single-use fast-food packaging found that 62% of respondents said they would think more highly of a brand that switched to recyclable packaging, and 81% were concerned about litter and pollution from fast-food restaurants.
Because McDonald’s has more than 39,000 restaurants globally, small changes can ripple into other companies and industries.
McDonald’s has set a larger goal for all of its customer packaging to come from renewable, recycled or certified sources by 2025. Currently, 80% of its packaging comes from such sources. It is also using paper straws and wooden cutlery in multiple markets, it said, and is exploring fiber lids and reusable cups.
2.FACEBOOK:The U.S. Federal Trade Commission refreshed its antitrust case against Facebook Inc on Thursday, adding more detail on the accusation the social media company crushed or bought rivals and once again asking a judge to force the social media giant to sell Instagram and WhatsApp.
At 80 pages, the new complaint is significantly longer than the original one and includes additional data intended to support the FTC’s contention that Facebook is a monopolist. An expanded portion of the complaint argues that Facebook dominates the U.S. personal social networking market with more than 65% of monthly active users since 2012.
The FTC voted 3-2 along party lines to file the amended lawsuit and denied Facebook’s request that agency head Lina Khan be recused. Khan participated in filing the new complaint.
The agency also repeated its request that a court order Facebook to sell Instagram, which it bought in 2012 for $1 billion, and WhatsApp, which it bought in 2014 for $19 billion.
The FTC accused Facebook of an “illegal buy or bury scheme to crush competition” in the headline of the press release on its complaint Facebook said it would continue to fight the lawsuit.
“It is unfortunate that despite the court’s dismissal of the complaint and conclusion that it lacked the basis for a claim, the FTC has chosen to continue this meritless lawsuit,” a company spokesman said. “Our acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp were reviewed and cleared many years ago, and our platform policies were lawful.”
3. MICROSOFT:- Microsoft stock rose 2% Thursday as the company said it will hike prices of Office 365, its “first substantive pricing update” in a decade of the suite of applications.
The price hike, of as much as 20%, will be effective March 1 and cover only commercial products. Prices of education and consumer products will remain unchanged.
Basic business plans will be costlier by 20% and will come for $6 per user, while the highest-end versions of the suite will have a smaller increase of 12.5% to $36 per user.
Office 365 now has over 300 million commercial paid seats, said Jared Spataro, corporate vice president for Microsoft 365, who announced the price hike in a blog post.
The suit of applications under Microsoft Office 365 includes Windows, Office (MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint), MS Teams, Outlook and Enterprise Mobility and Security solutions.
The Microsoft 365 suite had sales of $53.9 billion in financial year 2021, almost a third of Microsoft’s overall $168.1 billion in sales.
4.AMAZON:– Amazon.com Inc is planning to open large physical shops in the United States that will operate like department stores, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, as the e-commerce giant expands its footprint in brick-and-mortar retail.
Some of Amazon’s first department stores are expected to open in Ohio and California, the report said, adding that the shops will be about 30,000 square feet in size and offer products from well-known consumer brands.
Amazon declined to comment on the report.
Sales at large department stores, which were shopping havens until the entry of online players especially Amazon, have since taken a beating, even leading to the bankruptcy of once popular retail chains such as Sears, Neiman Marcus, and J.C. Penney.
Amazon, which dominates the online shopping space, had made its biggest bet in the brick-and-mortar format with its acquisition of upscale grocer Whole Foods in 2017.
The e-commerce giant has benefited from a surge in online purchases from homebound shoppers as COVID-19 forced millions to stay indoors over the past year. Traditional retailers also saw online sales surge, though total sales fell as they were forced to shut stores, which make up the bulk of their revenue.
Steady vaccine rollouts are now encouraging more Americans to return to brick-and-mortar stores to buy clothes, footwear, and electronics.
.5.SOFTBANK – SoftBank Group Corp sold 11.4 million shares of food delivery company DoorDash Inc, marketed via Goldman Sachs Group Inc , a source familiar with the matter said on Thursday.
They were priced at around $182.95 each, a Bloomberg report said, valuing the sale at around $2.2 billion. Shares of DoorDash were last down around 5.3%.
The share sale comes a week after DoorDash, in its quarterly earnings report, predicted a seasonal decline in order rates and new customer addition in the current quarter.
The company had reported a bigger loss in the second quarter than expected as it spent heavily to expand internationally and into a crowded market for groceries during the pandemic.
