Latest / Bloomberg Intelligence / Walmart Falls After Warning Price Increases Are Coming
Transcript
- 0:02Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news, and Android auto with
- 0:09Speaker 1: the Bloomberg Business appum listen on demand wherever you get
- 0:12Speaker 1: your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
- 0:15Speaker 2: What I learned from our next guest years ago, which
- 0:18Speaker 2: shocked me and still to this day amazes me. The
- 0:21Speaker 2: largest supermarket chain in the United States is.
- 0:27Speaker 3: Walmartmart.
- 0:28Speaker 2: I never would have guessed that, And now that I
- 0:30Speaker 2: think about it, of course it is Jen Bartasha. She's
- 0:33Speaker 2: the one that kind of enlightened me on that. When
- 0:35Speaker 2: she's Bloomberg Intelligence Senior animost, she covers the retail staples
- 0:38Speaker 2: and the package goods companies. So, Jen, I'm thinking in
- 0:41Speaker 2: a world of tariffs, and I'm worried about if I'm
- 0:44Speaker 2: a retail investor, kind of the margins my retailers like
- 0:47Speaker 2: a Walmart might have having the grocery store business as
- 0:52Speaker 2: a traffic driver. That's got to be a good thing,
- 0:54Speaker 2: is Did we see that in Walmart's numbers today?
- 0:58Speaker 1: Yeah?
- 0:58Speaker 4: Hi, Paul absolutely saw that in Walmart's numbers. You know,
- 1:03Speaker 4: their growth in consumables and grocery mid single digit growth.
- 1:07Speaker 4: That means people keep coming back to Walmart to buy
- 1:10Speaker 4: their staples, and you know, that's a that's a foundational
- 1:14Speaker 4: type of thing because for Walmart, as they get these
- 1:17Speaker 4: customers doing that regular, repeat shopping and coming in consistently,
- 1:22Speaker 4: it really bodes well for how well they'll be able
- 1:23Speaker 4: to retain those customers once all of this market volatility
- 1:27Speaker 4: fades and people become a little less price sensitive.
- 1:31Speaker 5: How does Walmart just really in general raise the pressure
- 1:34Speaker 5: for competitors? We have Home Depot and Target reporting out soon.
- 1:38Speaker 5: How do you think they will fare well?
- 1:41Speaker 4: You know, I think that Walmart is really uniquely positioned
- 1:43Speaker 4: because it arguably has the best view into mainstream America
- 1:48Speaker 4: consumer of any retailer out there, because they touch such
- 1:52Speaker 4: a huge.
- 1:52Speaker 3: Number of households.
- 1:53Speaker 4: And so when somebody the size of Walmart says that
- 1:57Speaker 4: even their scale is a big enough to fully offset tariffs,
- 2:02Speaker 4: the read through on that is with for other retailers
- 2:06Speaker 4: who are smaller and have bigger exposure to imported goods
- 2:11Speaker 4: is rather dire because you know, you know, Walmart is
- 2:16Speaker 4: is the one that is probably best position to whether
- 2:18Speaker 4: it because of its scale. But that just means for
- 2:21Speaker 4: the smaller guys, it's going to be a really difficult battle,
- 2:23Speaker 4: and that there's going to be a lot more price
- 2:25Speaker 4: that has to be taken and a lot more operational
- 2:29Speaker 4: maneuvering to try to stay competitive in that in that
- 2:33Speaker 4: particular set. So Target has a lot of discretionary exposure.
- 2:37Speaker 4: Home depot lows they both do as well, So you
- 2:41Speaker 4: know it could be difficult season for those retailers.
- 2:44Speaker 2: All right, full disclosure, And John Socker knows this. My
- 2:47Speaker 2: last job in this illustrious career of mine will be
- 2:50Speaker 2: as a greeter at Walmart. We hope to see. I
- 2:55Speaker 2: have never been in one because they don't have near me.
- 2:58Speaker 2: Root seventy in Brick that's going to be. It's far
- 3:01Speaker 2: the next stop here on this one. Hey, Jen, you
- 3:03Speaker 2: mentioned it, and that's kind of where I wanted to go.
- 3:06Speaker 2: I can see wal Bart dealing with higher tariffs in
- 3:08Speaker 2: pricing because they're Walmart. But how about the mom and
- 3:12Speaker 2: pop retailers out there on Main Street USA? How tough
- 3:16Speaker 2: is it going to be for them?
- 3:17Speaker 4: Do you think it's It's incredibly tough, Paul, because you
- 3:22Speaker 4: know the mom and pop retailers, it's usually only a
- 3:26Speaker 4: handful of employees. It's a very set type of inventory
- 3:29Speaker 4: that they carry. They don't necessarily have the ability to
- 3:33Speaker 4: flex in and out of different product categories to to
- 3:36Speaker 4: lessen the impact of tariffs, because they're usually known for
- 3:40Speaker 4: a particular type of product, which is why their customers
- 3:44Speaker 4: come to them, and so you know, they're also they're
- 3:47Speaker 4: very reliant also on getting goods either directly or through
- 3:51Speaker 4: third parties that are that are imported, and so there's
- 3:55Speaker 4: just very little room in there in their operations to
- 4:00Speaker 4: be able to offset the power of what's come the
- 4:03Speaker 4: pricing that's going to come with these tariffs. And we've
- 4:06Speaker 4: heard anecdotally small businesses that are just saying they've had
- 4:09Speaker 4: to lay off employees already. You know, there could be
- 4:12Speaker 4: greater ramifications, you know, in terms of unemployment and things.
- 4:16Speaker 4: If small businesses are impacted to a large degree, Should
- 4:20Speaker 4: this tariff situation persist for longer than we're expecting?
- 4:23Speaker 5: Yeah, bring up a good point because they have CFO
- 4:26Speaker 5: John David Rainey saying the rage of outcomes is pretty
- 4:29Speaker 5: quote extreme, and it is. How has Walmart have they
- 4:32Speaker 5: hinted on how they're preparing for it? I mean, we
- 4:34Speaker 5: know that they're a good barometer of the US economy
- 4:37Speaker 5: and they're really really huge, but they must still be
- 4:40Speaker 5: impacted by tariffs.
- 4:42Speaker 4: Absolutely, they definitely will be impacted. But part of where
- 4:45Speaker 4: their advantage is is that the company has been investing
- 4:48Speaker 4: for some time behind technology like AI, and AI has
- 4:53Speaker 4: across retail, but especially for those retailers who have had
- 4:56Speaker 4: the time and the balance sheet to invest in it
- 5:00Speaker 4: gives them a lot of flexibility in their tools for
- 5:03Speaker 4: predicting what their need is going to be and for
- 5:06Speaker 4: responding quickly to changes in their supply chain. So you
- 5:10Speaker 4: know that investment in AI will actually pay some dividends
- 5:13Speaker 4: and probably help them navigate the tariff situation more easily.
- 5:18Speaker 4: And again that goes back to the smaller players who
- 5:20Speaker 4: don't have that kind of technology support or haven't been
- 5:23Speaker 4: able to make those investments. Will it'll be harder for
- 5:27Speaker 4: them to maneuver in that environment.
- 5:29Speaker 2: So Jennifer Kroger are some big, you know, grocery store,
- 5:33Speaker 2: and I don't know, craft Food comes in and says,
- 5:36Speaker 2: cheese Whiz is going to be ten or fifteen percent
- 5:39Speaker 2: higher price to you Kroger because of teriffs. How does
- 5:42Speaker 2: that conversation go? Who's got the leverage there? Who eats it,
- 5:45Speaker 2: who takes it?
- 5:45Speaker 6: Is it?
- 5:46Speaker 3: How does that go?
- 5:48Speaker 4: Yeah, it's it's usually a combination of a couple of things.
- 5:52Speaker 4: So the first thing is that because the grocers all
- 5:55Speaker 4: have private label programs, they are very very well in
- 6:00Speaker 4: formed on what cost of ingredients are, which ingredients are
- 6:03Speaker 4: being imported, you know, packaging costs. So when a counterpart
- 6:08Speaker 4: from a package food company comes to them and says
- 6:10Speaker 4: we need to increase prices because of X, Y, and z,
- 6:13Speaker 4: the retailer can call them out if they don't see
- 6:15Speaker 4: the same pattern that they're being given as an excuse. Now,
- 6:20Speaker 4: then there's a collaborative, a collaboration where ultimately both the
- 6:24Speaker 4: retailer and the food package the package foo company want
- 6:27Speaker 4: to you know, increase the volume sold and make sure
- 6:30Speaker 4: that their products are getting in the hands of customers.
- 6:32Speaker 4: So when it comes to pricing, usually there can be
- 6:35Speaker 4: a bit of a sharing in terms of cost, but
- 6:39Speaker 4: most of it does fall into the package food company
- 6:41Speaker 4: itself and that comes in the form of having to
- 6:44Speaker 4: do promotions you know, or or you know, offering discounts
- 6:49Speaker 4: and things like that to make sure that their products
- 6:50Speaker 4: are actually moving and that they're generating turnover and that
- 6:54Speaker 4: they're then getting some profit out of it.
- 6:57Speaker 2: Jen, thanks so much for joining us always appreciate it.
- 6:59Speaker 2: Always learned something speaking to you. Jen Bartash's senior retail
- 7:02Speaker 2: analyst from Bloomberg Intelligence. I mean Jen had a real
- 7:05Speaker 2: career at Bloomberg. She was managing departments, managing a bunch
- 7:08Speaker 2: of people in global data. And then we asked her,
- 7:11Speaker 2: like fifteen years ago, hey, come to Bloomberg Intelligence, that
- 7:14Speaker 2: we think you'd be a really good analyst. And she
- 7:16Speaker 2: did come over, she accepted, and she's been great, and
- 7:18Speaker 2: now she's one of the leading voices on retail. So
- 7:21Speaker 2: another success story coming out of Bloomberg Intelligence.
- 7:26Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live
- 7:30Speaker 1: weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple, Cocklay and Android
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- 7:40Speaker 2: Checking with Mariy Shore. She's a senior Ecodana's a Columbia threadneeder.
- 7:43Speaker 2: She's up in Boston. We'd love to talk to he
- 7:45Speaker 2: ed when we get the retail sales on her because
- 7:47Speaker 2: she really spends a lot of time looking at the retailers,
- 7:49Speaker 2: the consumer, that kind of thing, so a real helpful
- 7:52Speaker 2: voice to us. Mari what did you make of the
- 7:54Speaker 2: retail sales here. I mean, I guess there's some noise
- 7:57Speaker 2: here about you know, tariffs, and did that impact kind
- 8:00Speaker 2: of how consumers are spending money these days? What did
- 8:03Speaker 2: you make of the retail sales number today?
- 8:06Speaker 6: Yes, thanks Paulin Isabelle, thank you for having me. Absolutely
- 8:10Speaker 6: you said it better than I could have. The tariffs
- 8:12Speaker 6: are definitely creating some monthly noise.
- 8:15Speaker 3: When we look year over.
- 8:17Speaker 6: Year, the growth has been a little more consistent and
- 8:20Speaker 6: actually showed acceleration in April versus March.
- 8:24Speaker 3: But on a month over.
- 8:25Speaker 6: Month basis, we did see softness in April versus March,
- 8:31Speaker 6: given the pull forward that we saw in March ahead
- 8:34Speaker 6: of some tariff driven price increases that the consumer anticipated
- 8:39Speaker 6: in some big ticket categories like autos. And you know,
- 8:44Speaker 6: when I look and really step back and just getting
- 8:46Speaker 6: off of Walmart's earnings call, I think their tone on
- 8:50Speaker 6: the consumer is very consistent. Obviously, tariffs are creating a
- 8:53Speaker 6: lot of noise in the spending trends, but you know,
- 8:57Speaker 6: in their words, the consumer is still very focused on
- 9:00Speaker 6: value and speed of delivery, and that is what we've
- 9:04Speaker 6: been seeing for years now coming out of the pandemic.
- 9:07Speaker 5: I'm glad you brought up consumer because for Walmart, we
- 9:09Speaker 5: saw traffic, which is the number of shoppers less of
- 9:12Speaker 5: a boost to the figure than ticket. What does that
- 9:14Speaker 5: tell you that maybe there are less shoppers, but they're
- 9:17Speaker 5: buying more expensive things or at least higher amount of tickets.
- 9:21Speaker 6: Well, right, So that could either say they're coming in
- 9:26Speaker 6: less frequently and when they are in, they're buying a
- 9:29Speaker 6: lot more, right, they're stalking up more or to your point,
- 9:33Speaker 6: they're buying more expensive things. But we did see relative
- 9:37Speaker 6: weakness in their general merchandise category. We saw like their
- 9:42Speaker 6: you know, food categories up mid single digits, Health and
- 9:46Speaker 6: wellness was up high teams. A lot of that is
- 9:49Speaker 6: GLP ones, and general merchandise for them was actually down slightly,
- 9:53Speaker 6: which is worse than what we saw in.
- 9:58Speaker 3: Q four. And so I think it's a us that
- 10:00Speaker 3: the consumer is you know.
- 10:02Speaker 6: Coming to Walmart for their stock up trip, which is
- 10:05Speaker 6: typically what we've seen with Walmart.
- 10:08Speaker 3: But you know, I think a lot of that.
- 10:12Speaker 6: Intra week spend, those like fill in trips that we
- 10:16Speaker 6: talk about, you know, I think that the consumer may
- 10:19Speaker 6: be doing less of that just given their general caution
- 10:23Speaker 6: and uncertainty over what tariffs are going to do to
- 10:26Speaker 6: their spending ability in the future.
- 10:28Speaker 2: Hey, Mari, wh when you speak to the retailers that
- 10:30Speaker 2: you talk to across your coverage area, Let's see what's
- 10:34Speaker 2: the feeling today in terms of how much they want
- 10:37Speaker 2: to pass through to customers versus how much they're willing
- 10:41Speaker 2: to kind of take in their margin here.
- 10:43Speaker 6: Yeah, it's a great question, and it's so interesting seeing
- 10:46Speaker 6: like the uh, you know, the commentary from the retailers
- 10:50Speaker 6: versus what we see in the stock market is very different, right,
- 10:54Speaker 6: I mean, the stock market is acting as if these
- 10:56Speaker 6: tariffs are no big deal. We got some resolution, things
- 11:00Speaker 6: are going to be fine. Then you listen to the retailers.
- 11:03Speaker 6: I mean you listen to Walmart today. They're talking about,
- 11:06Speaker 6: you know, starting now, there will be less product on shelves.
- 11:09Speaker 6: They're going to do all they can to try to
- 11:11Speaker 6: protect pricing in their value position in faster turn categories
- 11:16Speaker 6: like food.
- 11:17Speaker 3: But there's certain.
- 11:18Speaker 6: Categories like toys, electronics, even some of the textile categories
- 11:23Speaker 6: like apparel and soft home where it's going to be
- 11:26Speaker 6: really hard for them to absorb the full impact of terraft.
- 11:31Speaker 6: So I think, you know, the ten percent rate for
- 11:34Speaker 6: a lot of companies is a lot more manageable. When
- 11:36Speaker 6: you talk to them about the ten percent we see
- 11:39Speaker 6: globally x China, they seem to feel a little bit
- 11:42Speaker 6: better about that. I think, you know, the thirty percent
- 11:46Speaker 6: in China is still too high, and the margin levels
- 11:50Speaker 6: and a lot of the categories that come out of
- 11:52Speaker 6: China are very low, and they just do not have
- 11:54Speaker 6: the ability to absorb that pricing themselves, share it with
- 11:59Speaker 6: their vendors who or their vendor partners, their manufacturing partners.
- 12:03Speaker 3: We're also operating on very low margin.
- 12:06Speaker 6: And so it's inevitable that some of that is going
- 12:08Speaker 6: to have to come through to higher prices. It's just
- 12:12Speaker 6: a question of you know, I think what the retailers
- 12:14Speaker 6: are really trying to they're really struggling with now how
- 12:17Speaker 6: to think about that trade off between price and volume.
- 12:21Speaker 3: You know, I mean.
- 12:22Speaker 6: During the pandemic, as everyone took pricing, we did not
- 12:25Speaker 6: see the kind of elasticity of demand that you would
- 12:28Speaker 6: typically expect to see when prices move up. And I
- 12:33Speaker 6: think how the retailers manage their unit inventories is going
- 12:36Speaker 6: to be a huge area of focus for them and
- 12:39Speaker 6: for investors during this really volatile period.
- 12:44Speaker 5: One thing that also caught my edw with Walmart is
- 12:46Speaker 5: it said it's online business posted a quarterly profit for
- 12:49Speaker 5: the first time. Are you seeing the same trend across
- 12:51Speaker 5: the board and what does that tell you?
- 12:54Speaker 3: No, this is very Walmart specific.
- 12:57Speaker 6: We have seen in the e commerce space Amazon and
- 13:01Speaker 6: Walmart taking incredible share. And so when you listen to Walmart,
- 13:07Speaker 6: and they've been kind of alluding to the fact that
- 13:09Speaker 6: they were nearing this inflection and profitability for some time,
- 13:13Speaker 6: I think it's really coming from two things. That's coming
- 13:15Speaker 6: from the scale that they are now seeing as that
- 13:18Speaker 6: business has grown so much. And also they've talked about
- 13:22Speaker 6: how consumers are increasingly willing to pay for delivery for
- 13:27Speaker 6: expedited shipment. So if you're making dinner tonight and you
- 13:32Speaker 6: realize you forgot a certain spice, you know, you could
- 13:35Speaker 6: pay five dollars to have Walmart deliver it.
- 13:38Speaker 3: To you in the next hour.
- 13:39Speaker 6: And in those cases, the consumer is more willing to
- 13:43Speaker 6: pay for delivery, and I think that's something Walmart had
- 13:47Speaker 6: not expected, but it is a key I think part
- 13:51Speaker 6: of the reason why they are able to achieve e
- 13:53Speaker 6: commerce profitability. They also have, of course, the benefit of
- 13:57Speaker 6: the growth in the marketplace and addizing and fulfillment services
- 14:02Speaker 6: and membership.
- 14:03Speaker 3: All of which are higher margin and are.
- 14:06Speaker 6: Really starting to move the needle for them as we
- 14:09Speaker 6: see with Amazon. But I think Walmart and Amazon are
- 14:13Speaker 6: in a league of their own as it relates to
- 14:15Speaker 6: what they're seeing in e commerce, both in terms of
- 14:18Speaker 6: the growth that they're putting up in that business and
- 14:20Speaker 6: the profitability that they're able to achieve.
- 14:23Speaker 2: Mari, thank you so much for joining us. As always,
- 14:25Speaker 2: Mario Sure, Senior Equity aas for Columbia Threadneedle Investment, she's
- 14:29Speaker 2: up there in Boston and she joined us. View that
- 14:31Speaker 2: zoom thing.
- 14:34Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live
- 14:37Speaker 1: weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple, Colocklay, and Android
- 14:41Speaker 1: Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. Listen on demand wherever
- 14:44Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
- 14:48Speaker 2: President Trump making lots and lots of news in his
- 14:50Speaker 2: trip to the Middle East, lots of economic deals of
- 14:54Speaker 2: being announced, big big dollar amounts as well. All that
- 14:56Speaker 2: is good for the companies involved, but it does call
- 14:58Speaker 2: out Apple a Tim Cook not there with him, as
- 15:02Speaker 2: Jensen Wang is in Nvidia also suggesting that Apple should
- 15:07Speaker 2: stop moving iPhone production to India. What is that all about?
- 15:10Speaker 2: Anurag Rana technologychannels for Bloomberg Intelligence, he covers Apple, he
- 15:14Speaker 2: covers all this tech stuff for us in the burgeoning
- 15:17Speaker 2: tech capital Chicago, Illinois, anurag Apple computer. They're trying to
- 15:23Speaker 2: diversify their supply chain, maybe get a little bit less
- 15:26Speaker 2: reliant on China taking some of that over to India.
- 15:30Speaker 2: There's a president not like that.
- 15:32Speaker 7: Yeah, we just heard that. In fact, it looks like
- 15:34Speaker 7: Apple cannot you know, catch a break right now. We
- 15:37Speaker 7: thought that the US China deal would probably put a
- 15:41Speaker 7: lot of those fears to rest. But you know, it
- 15:44Speaker 7: just looks like that. You know, it's not He's not
- 15:47Speaker 7: happy with the Apple moving some of that iPhone facilities
- 15:50Speaker 7: to India. Now that is the case because you know,
- 15:53Speaker 7: frankly speaking, you do need a low cost labor setup.
- 15:56Speaker 7: You do need really large factories and the amount of
- 16:00Speaker 7: labor to assemble some of these products. Remember, even in
- 16:03Speaker 7: an iPhone, you know, the chip can come from a
- 16:06Speaker 7: you know, high cost region, but the assembly of the phone,
- 16:09Speaker 7: you know, cannot be done in a high cost region.
- 16:11Speaker 7: So I think they are in a bit of a
- 16:13Speaker 7: jam as to what to do because we have Bloomberg
- 16:16Speaker 7: News reported that they wanted to double their capacity in
- 16:19Speaker 7: India to ensure that they don't have to pay the
- 16:21Speaker 7: high tariff strate coming out of China. But you know,
- 16:24Speaker 7: let's see what Apple does to counter that. You know,
- 16:27Speaker 7: our best gut feeling is that they will ramp up
- 16:30Speaker 7: the investments in the US and perhaps target more on
- 16:33Speaker 7: the higher margin items such as chips or really expensive
- 16:37Speaker 7: max But it will be tough for them to do
- 16:39Speaker 7: this on the on the iPhone level, frankly.
- 16:42Speaker 5: But that's the thing. Apple already promised to hire more
- 16:44Speaker 5: workers domestically here in the US and spend five hundred
- 16:47Speaker 5: billion over the next four years. So you think they
- 16:49Speaker 5: will need to add more to that.
- 16:52Speaker 7: Either they need to add more to that or support
- 16:54Speaker 7: some of the local manufacturing, perhaps in the chip capacity,
- 16:58Speaker 7: or explain to the president how they're doing it in
- 17:01Speaker 7: the US a lot more benefits to you know, the
- 17:04Speaker 7: local workers, because you know, for President Trump to call him,
- 17:09Speaker 7: call him out, you know, out in the open, you know,
- 17:11Speaker 7: dost put him in a tough position.
- 17:13Speaker 2: Right now, What is the Apple strategy here? Because again,
- 17:17Speaker 2: we think of some of the quote unquote China exposure.
- 17:21Speaker 2: The company that comes to the top of most people's
- 17:23Speaker 2: list is Apple because they get twenty percent of their
- 17:25Speaker 2: revenue from China. Their supply chain is fully enmeshed in China.
- 17:31Speaker 2: And I know we've talked to you, you know, for
- 17:33Speaker 2: the last several years about how they can diversify. Here
- 17:36Speaker 2: what is the reality in today's world for Apple?
- 17:40Speaker 7: See, the reality is the higher value products. So let's
- 17:44Speaker 7: say that the chip that they do or they make,
- 17:46Speaker 7: you know, those are all designed in the US. It's
- 17:49Speaker 7: made by TSMC. Those plants have been shifted, some of
- 17:53Speaker 7: them to Arizona. So the higher value products can be done.
- 17:57Speaker 7: But frankly speaking, think about it, you know, lower whether
- 18:01Speaker 7: it's an air pod or whether it's just an assembly
- 18:04Speaker 7: of the phone, it's not that easy to just you know,
- 18:06Speaker 7: come up and then make those things in the US.
- 18:08Speaker 7: I mean it's they've been trying to perfect that over
- 18:11Speaker 7: a twenty year period, across different parts that they get
- 18:14Speaker 7: from China. The factories that employs you know, hundreds and
- 18:18Speaker 7: thousands of people. You know, it's just not easy to
- 18:20Speaker 7: move those I think they will be pushing a lot
- 18:23Speaker 7: more on the R and D front over here hiring
- 18:26Speaker 7: more local workers to offset some of that actim which means,
- 18:29Speaker 7: on the at least over the next few years, there
- 18:32Speaker 7: could be some downward pressure on their gross margins, you know,
- 18:36Speaker 7: in order to you know, showcase that they are investing
- 18:38Speaker 7: heavily in the US.
- 18:40Speaker 5: How has it been like as an analyst covering all
- 18:42Speaker 5: the tire flip flops and all these big tech companies
- 18:45Speaker 5: that are at the mercy of some of Trump's pronouncements
- 18:48Speaker 5: that are sometimes really unexpected.
- 18:51Speaker 7: I mean, really listen, it is very tough, and frankly,
- 18:53Speaker 7: we're going to see how and if this leads to
- 18:56Speaker 7: some kind of demand destruction on any of the you know,
- 19:00Speaker 7: and markets we cover. So so far, it doesn't look
- 19:03Speaker 7: like it's having an impact on the cell phone market,
- 19:06Speaker 7: it doesn't look like it's having an impact on the
- 19:08Speaker 7: cloud market. But when you look at something like consulting market,
- 19:12Speaker 7: I mean it is having a second degree impact because
- 19:15Speaker 7: people or companies are not sure how they're going to be,
- 19:18Speaker 7: you know, what kind of economic environment they will see
- 19:21Speaker 7: down the road, whether they'll be a recession or not.
- 19:23Speaker 7: So there has been an absolute stop and a lot
- 19:25Speaker 7: of the consulting work and a consulting related you know,
- 19:29Speaker 7: bookings or contracts out there, and I think that's kind
- 19:32Speaker 7: of what we are seeing, you know, at least in
- 19:34Speaker 7: the overall tech space right now.
- 19:36Speaker 2: And Ron, thanks so much for joining us. Always appreciate
- 19:38Speaker 2: getting a couple of minutes of your time. On aur Agrana,
- 19:40Speaker 2: he's a senior technology analyst for Bloomberg Intelligency and Mandeep saying,
- 19:44Speaker 2: kind of lead our global technology research. It is a
- 19:49Speaker 2: global technology research team. We've got analysts on the ground
- 19:52Speaker 2: North America, Europe and most importantly Asia given where that
- 19:57Speaker 2: is in the supply chain there. So on Aurono Mende,
- 20:00Speaker 2: manage that business for us. What are you looking at?
- 20:02Speaker 5: I'm just really kind of I'm surprised because imagine Apple,
- 20:05Speaker 5: You're a big company, trillon dollar market cap and the
- 20:08Speaker 5: president said shift out of China, so you do that
- 20:10Speaker 5: and you go to India and now they saying why
- 20:12Speaker 5: are you in India? And I just don't want to
- 20:14Speaker 5: be Tim Cook right now.
- 20:15Speaker 2: Yeah, it could be a tough situation, but all companies
- 20:18Speaker 2: are dealing with and trying to adapt. And what thing
- 20:20Speaker 2: Tom Keen always says is companies adapt, whether it's a
- 20:26Speaker 2: global pandemic, or whether it's trade tensions. Companies adapt, consumers adapt,
- 20:32Speaker 2: and that's arguably what the tech industry and global trade
- 20:36Speaker 2: will do as well.
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- 21:04Speaker 7: YAHM