Green Tea, Smoked Caviar & The Met 🍵
This Week in Review☕: Tea vs Coffee | The Met Gala 2024 | Starbucks doubles down on China | Johnson & Johnson to pay $6 billion to settle lawsuits | Hyatt x Peloton announce partnership globally | NYC
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Quick Bites:
Business☕️: Starbucks doubles down on China.
Starbucks is banking on foreigners, namely in China, as sales slump in other parts of the world, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Shares dropped as much as 18% last week as the company experiences its first sales decline since 2020.
Umm you mean sales are dropping of overpriced non-essential goods in an inflationary market with a customer base who are having to downsize is actually a cause for concern.. Who could've f***ing guessed??? 🙄
PS. Eat steak & eggs for breakfast and you're a freak show.
Drink 46g of sugar (Starbucks Frappuccino) for breakfast and you're normal.
MAKE IT MAKE SENSE PEOPLE 🤯🤯
Reasons people have stopped going to Starbucks globally:
1. Coffee sucks
2. Baristas are Skittle-haired
3. Customer service is non-existent
4. Prices have become RIDICULOUS
5. Space is no longer cozy
6. The economy is toast
However, Starbucks' plan to create a mark in China is no easy task because the competition is insane; The number of branded coffee shops in China jumped nearly 60% last year, to almost 50,000 outlets, per World Coffee Portal.
Competitors dominating the market include Tim Horton's, Luckin Coffee and KFC.
Despite the challenges Starbucks faces, the company says that, as a “premium brand,” it won’t cut prices.
In addition, there is tea, a competing beverage expanding at rapid speed with historic roots in China, WSJ reports.
A few tea chains have gone public but are struggling amid strong competition. Infact, the #3 tea chain in the country, 'ChaPanda', noted in its prospectus that:
Within each of China’s top 10 shopping areas, there are about 50 tea shops in a 1 km radius and 10 shops within each of China’s top 10 shopping malls.
Our Thoughts💡: We got a medium iced almond milk latte the other day. Paid $8 including tip. That's $240 a month. Yep, not happening. We fat and broke and looking to save money.
$8 coffee is an obvious place to cut 🤷🏻♀️
Health 💊: Johnson & Johnson will pay $6.5 billion to settle nearly all of the thousands of lawsuits claiming its talc-based products caused ovarian cancer.
A slap on the wrist for a company worth $360 billion.. but on a serious note: Why are people powdering their cooch? 🫢
J&J said the remaining pending lawsuits relate to a rare cancer called mesothelioma.
These cases have caused financial and public relations trouble for J&J for years, which has argued that its now-discontinued talcum baby powder are safe for users, CNBC reports.
In addition, the healthcare company that once enjoyed the trust of parents for decades has lost its credibility.
These criminals exposed people to cancer for decades all while accumulating an unimaginable asset base. Let's not forget that J&J also agreed to pay $5 billion in January 2022 for their role in the opioid epidemic! 😡
This is just another big company profiting at our expense. Time for the tables to TURN.
NEWS FLASH💡: You CANNOT put a price on people's lives and get away with it🖕🏻🖕🏻
The deal would allow J&J to resolve the lawsuits through a third bankruptcy filing of a subsidiary company, LTL Management.
It will begin a three-month voting period for claimants, in hopes of reaching a consensus on the lawsuits.
About 99% of the talc-related lawsuits filed against J&J and its subsidiaries stem from ovarian cancer.
Big Tech 📱: Gen Z is obsessed with Pinterest.
The San-Francisco based 16 year-old social media platform is back in the spotlight, thanks to Gen Z, Bloomberg reports.
Quite frankly, people are giving this generation too much credit for being tech savvy and all but why do people forget that Gen Z is ALSO eating Tide pods for likes on TikTok ?! 🤯
Users between the ages of about 12 and 27- make up over 40% of Pinterest's base; their obsession has helped drive the company to a highly profitable Q1 this year.
Umm we just wanna clarify💡: Millennials who say "I'm a 90s kid!!" are NOT part of this category. You're not a kid anymore Zach you're 30 years old, it's time to schedule your own doctors appointment
Key Highlights, reported by Bloomberg:
💡518 million monthly users; crossed the half-billion mark for the 1st time
💡The stock surged the most since 2020; shares went upto $40+ last week
💡Revenue rose by 23% to $740 million in Q1 2024
💡The company has been focusing on shoppable content, making it easy for users to buy the items they see on their pin boards
💡The shopping mindset separates Pinterest from other platforms
CEO Bill Ready says Gen Z appreciates the "more positive environment" users find on Pinterest than on other social-media sites, which can lead to comparison and depression among young adults.
Vogue Business suggests its appeal lies in fashion inspiration and shopping tie-ins.
Our Thoughts💡: We guess companies like Pinterest are benefitting off the new generation but we gotta admit..
We absolutely LOVED growing up in the 00s without an iPhone. Nowadays kids won't know the feeling of going home after school & watching Barney with a tub of popcorn and then playing Super Mario on the computer before tea
Fitness 🚴: Hyatt x Peloton.
Peloton is bringing its bikes to over 800 Hyatt hotels to make the equipment and classes available at hundreds of Hyatt locations globally.
Fantastic news. In the mornings, after housekeeping meticulously makes our bed, we can now ride our Peloton bike in the window of our high-rise suite and look down our nose on people 🥳
💡For Hyatt:
Members of the hotel group’s loyalty program will earn loyalty points for the workouts.
Hyatt’s move comes as it looks to strengthen its wellness credentials, particularly in light of its recent acquisition of luxury resort operator 'Apple Leisure Group', which attracts a more fitness-inclined guest, Yahoo Finance reports.
💡For Peloton:
This partnership comes as rumors of "financial distress" that could lead to bankruptcy have been making the rounds.
Peloton will get a chance to diversify its business as demand for its signature bikes has cooled down from the lockdown-era boom.
Background💡: Peloton had been one of the few winners during the pandemic as customers turned to at-home exercise to maintain their fitness.
Infact, the company was frequently roasted about their ads of 'bougie, overprivileged women riding their bikes at home' as it became a trend amongst rich housewives.
"I put the Peloton bike in the kitchen of our $20 million ocean-view loft so I can get a workout and also eat Salted Pringles with a jar of Caviar Co.’s Smoked Trout Roe" 💰💰
Nouveau riche living in their elite Hamptons homes, complaining about the lack of help, bringing their own toilet paper from the city, and eating $140 fish eggs on crisps 🙄🙄
However, with the world re-opening and Covid vaccines being released, demand for the expensive bike has fallen sharply.
People missed the sense of community and have gone back to the gym, leading to a massive decline in orders.
CEO Barry McCarthy is currently trying to revive the business by pivoting from pricey hardware to content subscriptions and partnerships with hotels like Hyatt.
Business 💻 : Apple to to unveil new iPads.
Previous models have struggled from Apple's fear that a fully capable iPad would eat into Macbook sales.
"The days of purposely holding back the iPad need to end," Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman says.
The high-end iPad Pro is expected to have Apple's new M4 processor, making it suited to AI tools- and more like a laptop.
Sales have been weak for both products, and it's a "critical moment" for the iPad in particular, Gurman.
Here’s how the new iPad line will look, reported by Bloomberg:
iPad (9th generation): 10.2-inch screen and a home button.
iPad (10th generation): 10.9-inch screen and no home button.
iPad mini (sixth generation: 8.3-inch screen.
iPad Air: 11-inch and 12.9-inch models, with M2 chips.
iPad Pro: 11-inch and 12.9-inch models, with M4 chips.
Quicker Bites:
Met Gala 2024: This year’s exhibit, “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion,” examined how technology can breathe new life into garments that are too old and fragile to be worn again.
33 million students have been told to stay home in Bangladesh, as temperatures soar above 100 degrees.
Noelia Voigt, regins as Miss USA, cites mental health.
Judge finds Trump in contempt for the 10th time after violating gag order.
FAA opens new probe into Boeing.
Hamas says it accepts a Qatari and Egyptian ceasefire proposal.
‘Mystik Dan’ wins the 150th Kentucky Derby.
The reason Starbucks sales have been declining recently are not because their coffee is expensive (it always has been). It's because it's a pro Zionist brand that supports genocide!