Mac And Cheese To Make Its Way To McDonalds Menu

McDonalds improvises its menu again by coming up with Mac and Cheese

McDonald’s Corporation is one of those companies that are not ready to give up under any circumstances. The company has been struggling since a fairly long span of time and has been making constant efforts to redeem its previous market share.

McDonalds recent made several changes to its menu where many new products were added to their menu. Some menu offerings were for a limited time whereas some were released to last for good.

MCD is currently in its infancy stage where they are working on launching Mac and Cheese for a limited time period. Mac and Cheese has a history of being a comfort food offering that has paved its way on the McDonalds menu. In the Cleveland region of Ohio, the company is coming up with an offering in 18 such restaurants where Mac and Cheese will be served.

Lisa McComb, the spokesperson belong to the fast food company stated, "We're always looking for new ways to offer relevant tastes to our customers, so we're giving mac and cheese a try and gathering valuable feedback from our customers.”

McDonalds is current selling the Mac and Cheese in a Happy Meal worth $3. The Mac and Cheese will serve as an entrée that will have fruit, fries and milk served as sidelines. The meal is also low on calories where four ounce of the serving offered will comprise of 200 calories. Moreover, 5 grams if whole and protein respectively will be present in the meal.

From November, it has also been reported that the company has been selling the Mac and Cheese for $1.75. so far the company has plans to continue serving the meal till February and then the company will decide if they want to continue with it or not.

The fast food behemoth will make its decision based on the feedback observed from consumers. She claimed, "It's premature to draw any conclusions from this test and it wouldn't be appropriate to speculate on it being offered anywhere else."

The move made by the company is quite aggressive and show that the company is adamant to redeem its position. They recently introduced an all-day breakfast menu that allowed all breakfast lovers to enjoy the menu whenever they wanted. Moreover, in the United Kingdom, the company is coming up with gourmet thicker patties that are simply tantalizing. Mac and Cheese is pure comfort if it tastes warm, oozing and delicious. McDonalds effort are commendable and deserve appreciation.

Apple Reduces iPhone 6s Price In India

Apple has decided to reduce the price of iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus amidst decline in sales.

Apple Inc. has almost reduced the price of iPhone 5s in India to nearly a half. So now, the company plans to deploy a similar strategy for its recent flagship smartphone – iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus – in the region. The reason why the tech behemoth has decided to slash the prices is that the sales are quite staggering in the region.

As per a local publication house in India, namely ‘Times of India’, during the fourth quarter, there has been a significant decline in demand although it was retailing quite well during the Diwali season. On an average, the difference in terms of pricing of all the Apple iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus from the day they were launched to date is almost 15%. The company had extremely strong sales in October; thus, it must be quite disappointing now since it had a high expectation from the emerging market.

India is considered one of the largest smartphone markets all over the world where the company shipped almost 32,000 units of its smartphones. According to the data gathered by the local analytical firms, the import figures have now dropped significantly by 62% in November. China, in terms of its economic growth, is far more important for Apple in comparison to India but India has extremely ‘fast growing’ grip on the smartphone fraternity that is of immense importance for the organization.

In India, tech giants, such as Facebook and Google, are trying quite hard to bring internet access to the masses in the region. Thus, the demand for smartphones and Internet compatible phones is likely to rise there. There are high import taxes because of which the locals have to pay hefty prices that have contributed to the decline in smartphone sales. Samsung was successful in reducing the cost since it established its factories in the region to excuse itself from such hefty taxes.

It is now assumed that Apple will follow the lead of Samsung and establish its factories in the region. In September, the Chief Executive Officer of Apple, Tim Cook, met the Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, to discuss the possibilities of establishing a factory and manufacturing products locally. Foxconn, known for manufacturing components for the iPhone, is likely to establish almost 10 to 20 factories in India. It is still not clear whether these factories will cater to iPhone components or not but the boost in economy is inevitable. 

Visa Signs Major Deals With USAA And Costco

Visa's new deals will guarantee the company to improve its market position in the upcoming year.

It is believed that Visa has experienced a dry year so far and this would create troubles for the upcoming year. Analysts predict that Visa Inc. has created a tough situation for itself prior to the fiscal year of 2016. It has happened due to lower commodity prices, which significantly influenced several markets, such as Australia, Brazil, Canada, and Russia. Furthermore, this will also affect the revenues generated from the cross border operations of the company. However, the payment service provider has taken steps accordingly ‘which could turn up better prospects’.

As of now, sources suggest that the multinational financial services corporation will soon be signing to mega deal in 2016, which includes deals with USAA and Costco. Analysts say that this would have a positive impact on the company’s overall performance that could be seen in the first half of the fiscal year 2016.

On the other hand, Deutsche Bank says, “net revenue growth will prove to be an accurate indicator of Visa’s long-term prospects as good contracts will result in multiplied effect in future when its clients expand their business.”

It is known that the Visa’s deals will be contributing heavily in the revenue growth of the company in 2017 as well. All of this is currently reflected by the market price of the company. The price to book value of Visa is 5.91x, which has slightly increased from October’s 5.15x when it had not announced the USAA and Costco deals. Regardless of the fact that it was not performing at its full potential and things were going bad, these deals have brought life back in company’s business.

So far, Visa stocks are rated as a Buy from the analysts working for Deutsche Bank and UBS. The current market price of the company’s shares stands at $79.82 but UBS has given a price target of $90. Various analysts are currently in favor of Visa stocks as 32 out of 40 analysts have rated Visa as a Buy whereas 8 rated the stocks as a Sell.

Apart from this, Visa is looking for ways to begin cost-cutting strategies in its European operations, which its thinks can easily be done through the integration of technology. Visa’s focus now is to bring the margins of Visa Europe near to what it is currently producing as well. Thus, it has a lot to do on its plate and is currently focusing to keep improving its business in the near future. 

Facebook Wants To Keep Its Employees Close To Itself

Facebook to offering monetary incentives to employees moving close to office.

Facebook Inc. is now making an offer to its employees present at the company’s headquarter situated in Silicon Valley where they will get $10,000 if they move close to the office.

All those employees who wish to get this payment need to rent or buy a house that is within 10 miles of the Facebook campus situated at hacker Way, in Menlo Park. The area is an uninhabited space of land close to a marsh that is almost 30 miles in the south of San Francisco. The massive amount being offered is a clear reflection of the barriers the tech behemoths have to deal with considering the expensive and congested spaces they get in the Bay area of San Francisco.

As per the former and present employees at FB, the social media giant started to offer this incentive a year ago. Those employees that have to support their families can actually get a onetime payment worth $15,000 or even more in certain cases as the housing benefit.

This initiative by the company is quite similar to the offerings being made by other tech giants. This includes Addepar –a company that deals in investment management technology; Palantir- a data company along with the unit of Salesforce.com Inc. known as SalesforceIQ.

Through such initiatives, the tension in the San Francisco region can be eased down to a great extent. The flow of rich and young employees that make their way to Silicon Valley by making use of private transportation make it very difficult for low waged residents to commute.

According to Daily Mail, “But Silicon Valley has a housing affordability crisis of its own, and if Facebook's program gains traction it could further accelerate the gentrification of nearby communities, especially the low-income city of East Palo Alto.”

Many of the local families in the region are destined to get hurt through this initiative. This creates a lot of concerns according to the Chief Executive Officer of Able Works- the East Palo Alto community advocacy group.

However, Facebook at this point of time is not really bothered about social consequences. According to a spokesman belonging to Facebook, “Our benefits at Facebook are designed to support our employees and the people who matter most to them at all stages of life.”

Many skeptics now believe that the initiative taken by the company is to make sure that employees spend more time at work. Also this will also help them to curb on the cost of the luxury bus service. 

Microsoft Might Not Be Able To Redeem Itself In The Smartphone Industry

Microsoft struggle in the smartphone industry seems like their destiny

Smartphones that are equipped with high end features are considered to be a necessity in the modern tech world. Apple Inc. through its flagship smartphone iPhone and Google Inc. through its Android powered smartphones are known for dominating the market with high end features that are offered to their consumers. These companies are presently dominating the smartphone market that causes other companies like Microsoft Corporation to stumble with the sales of its Windows Phones.

The company wishes to come out of the present state of obscurity by launching the Windows 10 smartphones. So by coming up with a new smartphone, the company vowed to cater to all those features which it initially failed to offer to its users previously. So by coming up with Windows 10 Mobile, the company might have dealt with the issues that were pending however, they have certainly not offered anything better to intrigue buyers. Moreover, by not offering the apps that are present on the ecosystem of Google, the company has actually again created a vacuum that needs to be filled.

The app store of Microsoft has succeeding in catching the big fishes like Twitter and Microsoft , however consumers are now spoilt since they are used to the availability of thousands of app on their smartphone. The Windows 10 Mobile certainly has apps that cater to the basic needs of consumers to stay connected. However, it still does not boast of other luxury app that make the entire experience worthwhile.  The app collection of Google Play Store and Apple App Store is far beyond what Microsoft is offering.

As per the recent reports published by IDC, the Windows 10 Mobile is not likely to improve the company’s standing in the operating system fraternity since their market share is quite stagnant. So now it seems like it actually quite late for the company to redeem itself in the smartphone fraternity.

Another issue that is encountered is that the company has failed to make its smartphones readily available in the market. So all those who even would want to get their hands on the Lumia 950 or Lumia 950 XLL might not be successful to do so. Apart from Microsoft’s online stores the smartphones are only available with AT&T. the company has also struggled with giving a tough time to Google and Apple thus their reign is likely to continue for the years to come. It is high time that they realize that its actually not their game.

McDonalds To Come Up With Its Coffee Shop

McDonald's is going to come up with a coffee shop to target caffeine lovers.

McDonalds Corporation has been trying its best to pave its way to redemption. Recently the company has come up with several offerings that are targeted to regain their loyal customers. It recently came up with all day breakfast that is doing quite well. It has also come up with a festive menu to add to the joy and spirit of the holiday season, including other incentives that are targeted to make people crave for McDonald’s all over again.

Clients have now started to become very reticent at any point of time when MCD starts to offer a new experience. However now, the company’s recent endeavor might just be worth the talk. Mickey D’s recently announced of establishing a McCafe in the Canadian market.

However, the McCafe is actually fading away the thin line, which used to distinct McDonald’s from renowned coffee shop Starbucks. Moreover, considering the paradigms of the Canadian market, this is actually a rival to Tim Hortons too.

This initiative is taken by the company to establish its image as a "build on its reputation as a leading coffee brand," which is actually a very charitable self-image. This is actually great news for all those consumers who consider it quite hard to look for a popular chain offering them the instant buzz they require from their coffee. According to Grub Street, “Coincidentally, franchisees might, too: One big complaint of theirs has been the difficulty of operating what's, in effect, a mini coffee shop over at the corner of the counter.”

This is one of a kind standalone McCafe being launched in Toronto, Canada. The café is situated at the transit of the Union Station conveniently. At this point of time, the company is just trying the concept out but another one will also be launched in the fiscal year of 2016.

Since it is a café, McDonald’s menu has to be tweaked where a range of pastries needs to be added. Items like croissants, tarts, cheese danishes, Mini Chocolatine, hot chocolates etc. need to be added to the menu to make it attractive. The company has come up with an affogato, which is derived from the Oreo McFlurry.

Coffee shops are doing quite well in the west since many consumers prefer to have their daily caffeine on the go. Moreover, business meetings, small gatherings are preferred at such locations. The idea of a McCafe is quite intriguing and is likely to disrupt the industry.

Google CEO Approaches Indian Consumers

Google wishes to tap on Indian consumers to increase user base

Alphabet Inc. is a tech behemoth that is reigning all over the globe through Google. The company since a long span of time has been serving the developed parts of the world on their PCs. However, now the company is trying to target a new genre of audience to bolster growth: these are the people using cheap smartphones in economically instable countries.

The search engine giant is now putting in efforts to reach out to the developing countries. The initiative was fueled when Mr. Sundar Pichai, the Chief Executive Officer of Google for the first time made an official visit to India since he has taken charge of the company back in August.

Mr. Pichai was born and brought up in India and now he is scheduled upon meeting the software developers to chalk out ways through which they can enable the masses in the region to come online for the first time. The idea is to provide them a new canvas and then motivate them to make use of services like YouTube and Gmail.

For the trimester that ended in September, the biggest digital advertisement firm across the globe has recorded a $3.98 billion in terms of net income. This has gone up by $2.74 billion in comparison to the same quarter a year back. India however does not contribute quite significantly to the earnings of GOOG. Irrespective of this, the company has been trying its bests to make a mark in India. This initiative is in compliance with their long term goal of capitalizing on the emerging markets.

As per the company’s quarterly earnings report, Google does not chalk out the revenues on the basis of countries particularly. However over the past two years they have been calculating the average according to which sales in United States accumulate to 45%, in United Kingdom its 10% and almost 45% in remaining parts of the world.

According to Wall Street Journal, “The bulk of the world’s four billion people not yet connected to the Internet reside in developing countries, according to the International Telecommunication Union. Consultancy McKinsey & Co. says about one billion people in India alone are still offline.”

This actually indicates that India is a potential market for Google to add on new users since most of the consumers remain untapped. Google has already bid farewell to the Chinese market since the company could not adhere to the nasty censorship laws implanted on foreign companies in the region.

Tesla's Powerwall Paves Its Way To Vermont

Tesla joins hand with GMP to distribute its Powerwalls in Vermont

Green Mountain Power (GMP) is considered to be the pioneer company in terms of utility products and service that has now partnered with Tesla Motors Inc. to distribute the company’s domestic powered batteries to its consumers. The firm has collaborated with Tesla so that the company offers its Powerwalls in a purchase or lease contract.

The electric car giant has come up with a battery product earlier this annum; this will help them in changing the way consumers make use of electricity domestically. GMP wishes to lower the rate of dependency on the grid based electricity thus they are now offering Powerwall products. this will also help them in storing the energy. The consumers can preserve the energy through the solar panels that are installed on the roofs and can be utilized whenever required later. Moreover, the batteries will also be able to save the electricity generated from the grid stations and later be used as a backup whenever required.

Mary Powell who is the Chief Executive Officer at GMP stated in a press release, “This is a game changer that will help fully leverage solar to the benefit of all with cost savings, while empowering Vermonters to generate, store and use energy closer to the home.”

GMP is considered to be a supplier of grid electricity to almost 75% of the local residents in Vermont. At this point of time, the company wishes to initiate the home powering battery initiative at a relatively low scale. The firm is expecting almost 500 of its batteries to reach by January. They are optimistic about running the enterprise with only 10 customers initially in Rutland before they can actually supply it nationwide.

People are now devoted to using the home powered batteries which can be bought by the company at a price of $6,500. You can also get the access to this product by paying around $37.50 in a month with no upfront costs as believed.

Tesla at this point of time is extremely optimistic about its Tesla Energy venture. The company has estimated to gather $45-50 million from the batteries during the fourth trimester of this year. Tesla Energy on its own is expected to lure almost $450-500 million in terms of revenues. This is likely to accelerate to a billion dollars by the fiscal year of 2017.  The estimates were shared by the Chief Executive Officer of Tesla during the second quarter’s earnings call. This will make them a diverse company churning revenues from automotive and energy sector together.

Alibaba Could Acquire SCMP Newspaper Before Christmas

Alibaba merger deal with the South China Morning Post could be completed before this Christmas, as reported by Quartz.

The rumors started to gather pace earlier this year that Alibaba Group Holding is interested in meeting the buyout of Hong Kong based newspaper, The South China Morning Post. The talks went quiet after a while but in the past month or so, it all has been reignited. However both parties declined to comment on these rumors and stated that there is no link in between them as of yet. According to Quartz, the merger deal could be completed as early as Christmas or before that would see the online retailer buying the Hong Kong newspaper company.

A person familiar with the matter stated in an interview to Quartz that the Chinese tech giant and Hong Kong based English newspaper will be signing their merger deal agreement before this Christmas. Alibaba Group is currently looking to bolster its media division. The company entered the entertainment media industry through Alibaba Pictures and now wants to invade the print media industry as well. This acquisition will see the company boosting its media division.

The company will add the newspaper division of the South China Morning Post Group in the list of its other media businesses that include Youku Tudou, CBN, and many other media properties that it owns and runs. This news came from another source that briefed Quartz with his/her information.

It was previously unclear whether the company, Alibaba, is willing to buy SCMP newspaper or the founder, Jack Ma, himself. The person has now cleared it that Alibaba is pushing the deal to happen as soon as possible and it is the driving force behind this merger deal which also has the support of its investment division. It is believed that the editorial side of the South China Morning Post newspaper would still be independent as the Chinese tech giant is not interested.

Quartz further adds, “In addition to the century-old daily newspaper, The SCMP Group also owns the Hong Kong distribution rights to Cosmopolitan and other magazines, an advertising and marketing unit, and a major stake in the Bangkok Post. It is unclear whether Alibaba will purchase these assets as well.”

When the deal is signed between both parties in the coming days, this deal would become the first acquisition of an international China news property by a Chinese owner. It would be exciting to see as of how the business would work out once the acquisition is completed as the status of Hong Kong, which says ‘one country two systems’ is tricky. 

Walmart Sues Puerto Rico For High Taxes

Walmart faces huge tax increases on imports, sues Puerto Rico. Michael Walsh is fired for returning a found cash.

Walmart sued Puerto Rico unit on Friday due to the taxes being shockingly high. It is Puerto Rico largest private employer and brings more sales tax to the island government in comparison to other businesses. The retailers call the taxes to be ‘unfairly high’.

This tax increase faced by Walmart stores Inc. is because of US commonwealth who is seeking to restructure $70 billion of debts, every state of America is the victim of the taxes except for California and New York; however, the government of USA has made a decision this week to look into the matter and reinstate a law. The retail chains complain stated, “to an astonishing and unsustainable 91.5% of its net income.”

The rise in taxes is three times more than before, which pushed the company to sue Puerto Rico. In other news regarding Walmart Wholesale, one of its employees claimed to be fired for giving the cash he found in the parking lot slowly. According to fox news, his name was Michael Walsh and he was 45 years old, the incident took place in Niskayuna, New York on November 6.

The old worker found cash and returned to the manager. The manager called him and showed him the recorded tape through the stores security camera. The recording showed Michael took half an hour after finding the cash to turn it in. After this, the worker was insisted to give his badge and the discounts card offered to workers of 10% off on items in the stores of the company.

Walsh said, “I enjoyed my job, I was a good employee and always got to work on time, I got treated like a common criminal.” This is not the first time the company makes the news due to mistreatment of the workforce, it frequently make reports regarding employees creating problems or reporting them to the public for sympathy and wage raises.

Walsh was a full-time employee making $14.96 per hour, after his recent raise in salary. He found the cash while he was cleaning and taking the garbage out, after finding the money he counted it and found out it was almost $350. He said he heard yelling and went inside and found a woman yelling at the manager for losing her money. He got nervous and gave the cash to the manager, regardless of him returning the money found. Eventually, he was fired.

Walmart stock closed at $59.66, going green by 1.05% on December 4. 

Future Of Yahoo Dangles Between Board Meetings

Yahoo board of directors will sit in a final meeting to discuss about all of the options and the company's future.

The next few days and weeks are very crucial for Yahoo! Inc., as the board of directors and executives will be deciding the future in the next few meetings. The internet company was once known as one of the most prominent companies of the Silicon Valley however now it is listed as one of the most troubled organizations in the industry. Reuters reported that all thinking and decisions might be done and dusted by Friday, as it will be the third and final meeting day regarding Yahoo’s future.

The meeting panel consists of nine board members of Yahoo that are thinking over the future of the business. One option that the board is thinking of is the same that analysts suggested Yahoo a few days ago, which is to sell its core business. It does not only include its core advertising business but also includes Yahoo Mail, sports websites, and advertising technology. The board also has to decide whether it plans to keep it stakes in the Chinese tech giant, Alibaba Group Holding, or sell all of them.

Robert Peck, who is one of the most reliable and trusted analysts at Sun Trust, suggested the board to hold off on any decision before finalizing due to the complexity of various options. He added, “While many investors may simply apply a mid-single-digit EBITDA multiple to value the core, we believe the value is more intricate.”

On the other hand, Re/Code reported a few days back that Yahoo’s board finished all of its meetings without any final decision on Alibaba stakes, whether to keep or sell. It further added that the final decision regarding the stakes and spinoff would come by the end of this week.

Reuters stated, “In January, Chief Executive Officer Marissa Mayer announced the plan to spin off the Alibaba stake into an independent business. Yahoo said the deal would be tax-free, but the U.S. Internal Revenue Service has declined to verify that. Taxes related to the spinoff could leave Yahoo shareholders on the hook for $12 billion.”

This was the reason that an activist investor, Starboard Value, requested the company to sell off its core businesses instead of selling stakes in Alibaba. This move has a lot of obstacles and in the end. The internet company will have to pay heavy taxes in order to get rid of Alibaba stakes. The Chinese tech giant was said to be one buyer of Yahoo’s core business along with various private equity, Internet, and media firms.