Archives for November 2019

Deloitte has predicted that holiday sales this year could climb 5 percent and exceed $1.1 trillion. The e-commerce sector is expected to enjoy another bumper year, with digital sales expected to clock in at $144 billion-$148 billion, good for 14-18 percent growth compared to 11.2 percent last year. 

Meanwhile, shoppers are not all that jazzed about lining up for hours in retail stores, jostling with other sweaty shoppers or throwing down with someone over the last doorbuster. Instead, shoppers are planning to spend 59 percent of their 2019 holiday budgets online vs. 36 percent in brick-and-mortar stores.

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So, what will all this shopping translate into in terms of our internet usage? Specifically, how many barrels of oil will the planet need to burn to power the deluge of data moving between data centers and user devices on Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday?

Growing Digital Storm

The internet is growing so big and so fast that its scale is already awe-inspiring.

It’s estimated that there are 4.4 billion internet users across the globe with the figure expected to reach 4.7 billion in another two years. Yet, it’s the sheer amount of data that flows through the so-called cyber network that’s hard to wrap your head around. 

A few years ago, Cisco predicted that the world would enter the ‘Zettabyte era’ in 2016 and double internet traffic over the next three years. Turns out the networking giant was right on the money: Statista estimates global internet traffic at 186,453 Petabytes per month, which works out to 2.2 Zettabytes or 2.2 trillion Gigabytes per year.

That’s a mind-boggling amount of data.

However, it’s almost certain that the data usage still goes up considerably during the holiday season; what with all that online shopping, watching videos and binging on Netflix. Last year, J. Crew, Walmart, Lululemon, Ultra Beauty and Lowe’s all suffered an internet retailer’s worst nightmare after their websites crashed on Black Friday with holiday sales in full swing.

Alibaba Singles Day sales smash another record

To get an idea of how the holiday traffic compares to other days, we can look at holiday sales vs. normal day sales.

Statista comes to the rescue once again, with estimates that people spend $996,956 online every minute. That works out to $1.44 billion every single day.

While that sounds like a whole lot of cash to spend online over the course of just 24 hours, it still pales in comparison with what people spend on Black Friday and the holiday season in general.

Last year, shoppers spent $6.2 billion online on Black Friday (23.6 percent growth); $3.7 billion on Thanksgiving (28 percent growth) and a staggering $7.9 billion on Cyber Monday, the highest one-day tab of all time.

In other words, people spent 4.3x online on Black Friday as they do on normal days. If this year’s Black Friday sales grow at the midpoint of Deloitte’s estimates, then that figure is likely to grow to ~5x.

While that heightened spend is partly due to bigger shopping baskets during the holidays, it’s likely due in large part to more people shopping online as evidenced by rampant website failures as well as this claim by Bob Buffone, CTO at Yottaa, a web-optimization software company: 

“If you have not load tested your site at five times normal traffic volumes, your site will probably fail.” 

In a past article, we surmised that it takes approximately 55,432,000 barrels of oil per year to power the internet. If we use online shopping activity as a rough proxy of overall internet activity during Black Friday, then we can surmise that we will need 759,342 barrels of oil to power the Internet on Black Friday.

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But as we have seen above, Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday are no slackers either. Using the same logic used here for Black Friday, we will require a grand total of 2.2 million barrels of oil to power the internet on Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

That’s nearly a fifth of daily oil output by the United States, the world’s largest producer.

Again, it’s important to bear in mind that these figures are only rough estimates since online shopping does not consume as much data as watching videos and Netflix and also because a 5x increase in e-commerce traffic does not necessarily translate into a corresponding increase for other forms of traffic.

This article was originally published on Oilprice.com

Article source: https://www.rt.com/business/474615-powering-black-friday-shopping-spree/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

“Once we invite bids, then we’ll see how many bids will come in,” he told Parliament.

A group of officials is currently finalizing the process of inviting bids from the private sector. Last year, the government failed to attract any bidders when it tried to sell a 76 percent stake in the airline and offload about $5.1 billion in debt. Air India is saddled with an $11 billion overall debt.

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According to Puri, the government is now re-evaluating some of the terms and is open to selling the airline in its entirety. One of the biggest hurdles, he said, is its large number of employees.

Air India has about 9,400 permanent staff and 4,200 contract workers.The minister said the government is committed to securing a deal that is favorable for the employees.

The carrier has struggled to pay salaries and buy fuel, with losses mounting following earlier privatization attempts. Air India spokesman Dhananjay Kumar told AFP the company is unable to pay its debts and its outlook is gloomy.

Also on rt.com India set to eclipse US with global economic growth share by 2024

“We are concentrating on day-to-day operations and not focusing on the future,” he said, adding “Whatever resources we have, we are trying to use them in an optimum manner and trying to run our flights.”

Air India, which started as Tata Airlines in 1932 and later became state-owned, has been losing money for more than a decade. The company, which was once known as the ‘Maharaja of the skies’, has lost market share to low-cost rivals in one of the world’s fastest-growing but most competitive airline markets.

For more stories on economy finance visit RT’s business section

Article source: https://www.rt.com/business/474563-air-india-carrier-debt-survival/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

“I think there is a lot of potential in the Russian market for UK companies and while the bilateral relationship between the two countries remains difficult, nevertheless trade is something very tangible that we can focus on as there both sides can make a really positive impact for good,” Barker said in an interview on the sidelines of the annual Russian-British business forum in London.

The business event shows that both UK and Russian companies are seeking opportunities for cooperation, he stressed. Thus, British businesses can grow their footprint in markets outside Europe, which will be especially important after the looming Brexit, and Russian firms can find reliable European partners.