Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. This is Bloomberg Intelligence
Speaker 1: with Alex Steinah and Paul'sweenye.
Speaker 2: The real app performance has been in US corporate high yield.
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Speaker 2: The semiconductor business is a really cyclical business.
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Speaker 3: Do investors like the M and A that we've seen?
Speaker 4: These are two.
Speaker 2: Big time blue chip companies.
Speaker 3: The window between the peak and cut changing super fast.
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Intelligence with Alex Steinhall and Paul'sweenye on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2: Today's Bloomberg Intelligence Show, we dig inside the big business
Speaker 2: stories impacting Wall Street and the global markets.
Speaker 3: Each and every week we provide in depth research and
Speaker 3: data on some of the two thousand companies and one
Speaker 3: hundred and thirty industries our analysts cover worldwide.
Speaker 2: Today, well, look at why fast food chain McDonald's experience
Speaker 2: its first sales drop in four years.
Speaker 3: Plus, plainmaker Boeing has a new CEO. We'll discuss that
Speaker 3: in the company's second quarter earnings.
Speaker 2: But first we will begin with the big tech earnings
Speaker 2: and Microsoft. Microsoft reported fourth quarter earnings and revenue the
Speaker 2: top analysts expectations.
Speaker 3: But the company's Azure cloud competing service posted a slow
Speaker 3: down in growth last quarter, and this comes as investors
Speaker 3: are anxious to see a payoff from huge investments in
Speaker 3: AI products.
Speaker 2: For more, we were joined by Anna Agrana, Bloomberg Intelligence
Speaker 2: technology analyst.
Speaker 3: We first asked Animog for his key takeaways from Microsoft results.
Speaker 4: When Microsoft keep guidance for rasher last quarter, they said
Speaker 4: growth rate of thirty to thirty one percent in constant currency,
Speaker 4: and boy, they didn't hit thirty one.
Speaker 5: They hit thirty.
Speaker 4: People got disappointed, but they did a good job of
Speaker 4: explaining what's happening on the conference called at the end
Speaker 4: of the day, they are adding more capacity for their
Speaker 4: data centers, and the growth rate of the cloud, still
Speaker 4: very strong, will slow down slightly because of capacity issues
Speaker 4: and not demand issues. And as they get more data
Speaker 4: centers up, growth will accelerate.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, So to be clear, then they're saying, look,
Speaker 3: it's on us to build out all this stuff and
Speaker 3: then all of a sudden, the revenue will accelerate. This
Speaker 3: and not like a trend of slowing cloud revenue growth
Speaker 3: because of demand.
Speaker 4: Just to clarify for me, yes, absolutely. In fact, and
Speaker 4: the cloud growth is driven in part or I would
Speaker 4: say largely by AI bookloads because of their relationship with
Speaker 4: Opening Eye. That really is the biggest driving factor. And
Speaker 4: Microsoft has an edge there over others because of that
Speaker 4: unique relationship that I mentioned. So I think Microsoft remains
Speaker 4: the primary beneficiary on the software side, similar to what
Speaker 4: Nvidia has on the chip side.
Speaker 2: So an rag part of the discussion I guess probably
Speaker 2: over the last month or month and a half about
Speaker 2: AI has been Okay, I understand the spending aspect of it,
Speaker 2: to build out capacity, to build out you know, whatever
Speaker 2: I need. Remind me once again, what's the return on
Speaker 2: that investment? So there's been some questions about the returns.
Speaker 2: How do you answer that question?
Speaker 4: So you know, if you were in the semiconductor world,
Speaker 4: your return is pretty quickly because the people are going
Speaker 4: to buy chips immediately. But if you're in the software world,
Speaker 4: first you're going to get those chip, create a data center,
Speaker 4: add more servers, and then create your software products that
Speaker 4: which you're going to sell. Now, that thing's going to
Speaker 4: take time, whether it's going to take six months, twelve months,
Speaker 4: two years, and then you're going to realize that AI
Speaker 4: revenue and that's where the entire rest of the world is,
Speaker 4: whether it's on the software side or the services side,
Speaker 4: and people need to have a very good understanding of it.
Speaker 4: Otherwise they keep on harping on this capex issue, which
Speaker 4: is going to get much bigger, and which is why
Speaker 4: the chip stocks are doing very well because Microsoft communicated
Speaker 4: that they're going to increase their capex even.
Speaker 5: More this year.
Speaker 4: So this is really where people need to understand this
Speaker 4: and otherwise this confusion is going to continue going in
Speaker 4: a next quarter as well.
Speaker 6: Well.
Speaker 3: Then to that point, you know, we got AMD boosting
Speaker 3: at sales forecast for AI at the same time Intel's
Speaker 3: cutting thousands of jobs. Where is Intel in this party?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 4: I mean, I think the biggest party player really is
Speaker 4: in video with their GPUs that are truly required for
Speaker 4: these workloads, and AMD is also benefiting a little bit
Speaker 4: from that. Intel, I think is needs to do a
Speaker 4: lot more work before they can capitalize on this particular trend.
Speaker 3: So Intel's in like the quad, like not even not
Speaker 3: even closed to coming into the frat house. Basically, can
Speaker 3: we look at it that?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Exactly?
Speaker 2: How else in your space an A rag what else
Speaker 2: looks attractive here.
Speaker 4: I think the fun is going to be tomorrow evening
Speaker 4: when Amazon reports and they start talking about their AI strategy,
Speaker 4: because remember they do not have a relationship with open ai,
Speaker 4: but they are still the largest cloud infrastructure vendor and
Speaker 4: have more services than anybody else. They will come out
Speaker 4: and give the message that listen, it's not just OpenAI,
Speaker 4: but other large language models as well that people are using,
Speaker 4: and they're using AWS services for that. You know, whether
Speaker 4: that's anthropic or whether that's meta. All these companies have
Speaker 4: their models as well, and people should be trying that.
Speaker 3: And before I let you go, what I also found
Speaker 3: interesting was that eight percentage points of the increase in
Speaker 3: as your revenue and cloud revenue was attributable to AI.
Speaker 3: That was up about seven percentage points. How do you
Speaker 3: think that winds up looking like, are we going to
Speaker 3: start to see like double digit increases here? Is it
Speaker 3: going to be a slow grind higher?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 4: I think over time it will be double digits, But
Speaker 4: again the timing is difficult. When we extrapolated this number,
Speaker 4: we are coming to somewhere around one point four billion
Speaker 4: in this quarter. That's over ten times in just one year.
Speaker 4: It was, you know, it was roughly around one hundred
Speaker 4: plus million a year ago. This is all the AI
Speaker 4: workloads from open Ai, So I mean it is really
Speaker 4: a big number frankly. But over time what will also
Speaker 4: happen is there's going to be a blending between the
Speaker 4: workloads on AI and the non AI workloads. And for us,
Speaker 4: the net beneficiary are the three biggest cloud vendors, and
Speaker 4: in fact, even Oracle is going to benefit from this.
Speaker 2: Our thanks to anorog Rana Bloomberg Intelligence technology analyst, take.
Speaker 3: A look at the latest Bloomberg News Morning Console poll.
Speaker 2: It shows a Kamala Harris has wiped out Donald Trump's
Speaker 2: leader across seven battle ground states as a vice president,
Speaker 2: rise a wave of enthusiasm among young, black and Hispanic voters.
Speaker 3: For more, we are joined by Laura Davison, Bloomberg Politics editor.
Speaker 2: We first asked her for her key takeaways from this pole.
Speaker 7: This is the best that the Democratic challenger to Trump
Speaker 7: has ever done. You know, this is the first time
Speaker 7: we have polled Harris. It's a statistical tie essentially between
Speaker 7: the two candidates. She's technically up one percentage point, but
Speaker 7: that's within the margin of air. The other key takeaway
Speaker 7: here is that black voters, young voters, Hispanic voters are
Speaker 7: much more likely to vote now that Harris is on
Speaker 7: the ticket. So this is, you know, been something that
Speaker 7: that the Trump campaign has created their strategy around of
Speaker 7: trying to get you know, pull away at the margins
Speaker 7: and black voters and Hispanic support. But this would indicate
Speaker 7: that perhaps the tides are shifting in Harris's favor on
Speaker 7: that front.
Speaker 3: Well, that was sort of one of my questions too.
Speaker 3: Are these voters that are switching or are they new
Speaker 3: voters that are swinging these poles.
Speaker 7: So we don't yet know what that is based on
Speaker 7: how the poll works, but what we see is that
Speaker 7: voters who are unsure if they're going to vote are
Speaker 7: now saying they're much more likely that they're going to vote.
Speaker 7: So these may be people who voted in twenty who
Speaker 7: were not enthused by either candidate, who are going to
Speaker 7: stay at home, or people who maybe have never voted.
Speaker 7: But you know, a turnout election is expected to help
Speaker 7: Harris on this front versus Trump. You know, the Trump
Speaker 7: folks were you know, sort of hoping to pull away
Speaker 7: particularly black men Hispanic men, but you know, we're not
Speaker 7: hoping to see a big surgeon turnout that you know,
Speaker 7: really helped Biden in twenty twenty and could potentially help
Speaker 7: Harris in twenty four.
Speaker 2: Or you know, as a former Wall Street person, I
Speaker 2: tend to follow the money and Vice President Kamala Harris
Speaker 2: has had a pretty good run here in the last
Speaker 2: week or so raising money. Do we know where that
Speaker 2: money's coming from.
Speaker 7: Yeah, So, her campaign says they've raised about two hundred
Speaker 7: million dollars and that's in the first week or so
Speaker 7: of the campaign. This is largely from small dollar donors.
Speaker 7: These are people who are going and giving online and
Speaker 7: you know, increments of you know, anywhere from you know,
Speaker 7: just a couple of dollars to you know, up to
Speaker 7: a couple thousand dollars. We've also known that her super Pack,
Speaker 7: this is the group that can accept money in unlimited amounts,
Speaker 7: has gotten one hundred and fifty million in commitments since
Speaker 7: Biden has dropped out of the race. These big dollar donors,
Speaker 7: people who give millions of dollars, had decided to withhold
Speaker 7: a bunch of contributions, you know, in order to sort
Speaker 7: of pressure Biden to get off of the ticket. So
Speaker 7: now that money is coming back into the fore just
Speaker 7: for you know, kind of some in comparison here of
Speaker 7: Harris when she inherited the Biden campaign accounts that had
Speaker 7: about one hundred million dollars. Since then, she's raised another
Speaker 7: two hundred million dollars, So these are really big sums.
Speaker 3: How much of this could be also attributed just to momentum,
Speaker 3: as in, when you have the RNC, the candidate gets
Speaker 3: a boost, the DNC provides a boost. This is an
Speaker 3: unprecedented moment in political history, so no doubt the candidate
Speaker 3: would get a boosed.
Speaker 7: Yes, and the timing year is all really interesting because,
Speaker 7: of course Biden has dropped out two days after the RNC,
Speaker 7: so Trump was expecting to see a big polling boost
Speaker 7: coming out of that. Of course, just a week prior
Speaker 7: that had been the assassination attempt. Leaving the RNC, Republicans
Speaker 7: were very confident about their chances, and you know, even
Speaker 7: Republican operatives were saying one of the things they needed
Speaker 7: to be cautious of is that they weren't overconfident. Of course,
Speaker 7: that all switched, you know, just a couple of days later.
Speaker 7: What the Trump team is saying is, look, this is
Speaker 7: a Harris honeymoon. This is a surgeon momentum that will
Speaker 7: just be a flash in the pan and won't last
Speaker 7: until November. That's really what what we'll be looking for
Speaker 7: in the next couple weeks, if you know, is she
Speaker 7: able to maintain both this fundraising edge as well as
Speaker 7: this polling edge, or do we revert to where you know,
Speaker 7: the Biden Trump race was just with Harris on the
Speaker 7: ticket in a couple of weeks.
Speaker 3: What do we make about the situation in Israel and
Speaker 3: how that is polling for Kamala Harris, Because clearly there's
Speaker 3: a huge section of voters that is very unhappy of
Speaker 3: what's happening in Gaza right that we're maybe not voting
Speaker 3: at all for President Biden, But are they coming back
Speaker 3: in now? Do we know anything along those lines?
Speaker 7: Yeah, So what this poll shows is that people who
Speaker 7: are very concerned about the Israel Gaza war, and particularly
Speaker 7: young voters for whom this is a bigger issue, are
Speaker 7: more likely to vote for Harris. She's taken a softer
Speaker 7: tone on this and is you know, just doesn't have
Speaker 7: quite the same negatives on this issue that Biden does.
Speaker 7: You know, one of the things, you know, particularly just
Speaker 7: with the you know events of late of you know,
Speaker 7: kind of there being more unrest in the Middle East.
Speaker 7: Is you know that the Biden administration is still pushing
Speaker 7: for a ceasefire. Harris is still pushing for a ceasefire.
Speaker 7: Democrats really want this to be an issue that is
Speaker 7: working towards a resolution versus, you know, an issue that's
Speaker 7: flaring up, particularly as students go back to college campuses
Speaker 7: in a couple of weeks. They don't want to see
Speaker 7: the protests that we saw last spring.
Speaker 2: Did the Republicans have buyer's remorse for JD.
Speaker 1: Vance.
Speaker 2: I'm seeing some reporting all along those lines.
Speaker 7: Yes, there's there's a lot of conversations on that, even
Speaker 7: on a Bloomberg television mcmulvaney, who's a Trump ally, came
Speaker 7: on earlier this week and said, no, they're not looking
Speaker 7: to replace JD. Vance. But of course, if you're being
Speaker 7: asked about this, this means that this is at least
Speaker 7: a conversation that is circulating. You know, Vance has had
Speaker 7: a rough rollout, you know, just in about the you know,
Speaker 7: two weeks or so that he's been on the ticket.
Speaker 7: You know, some past comments he's made, you know, sort
Speaker 7: of degrading childless cat ladies have come up. He has
Speaker 7: had had some jokes on the campaign trail that have
Speaker 7: come across as crass and haven't really landed. So this
Speaker 7: is a conversation that's happening on the upon the sort
Speaker 7: of Republican elite to the mainstream Republican class, but isn't
Speaker 7: really reaching the Trump campaign. They have continued to say
Speaker 7: JD is our guy, and we're going to stick by him.
Speaker 2: Our thanks to Lard Davison, Bloomberg Politics Editor.
Speaker 3: Coming up, we're going to break down why wireless carrier
Speaker 3: Team Mobile added more subscribers last quarter.
Speaker 2: You're listening to Bloomberg Intelligence on Bloomberg Radio, providing inft
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Speaker 3: I'm Paul Sweeney and am Alex Steele, and this is Bloomberg.
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Speaker 3: Move next to the aerospace industry and Boeing. This week,
Speaker 3: Boeing announced its appointing Kelly Ordberg as its next CEO,
Speaker 3: replacing Dave Calhoun.
Speaker 2: Bobbing made the announcement as it reported burning through more
Speaker 2: than four billion dollars in cash last quarter. Well more
Speaker 2: and all this. We were joined by George Ferguson, Bloomberg
Speaker 2: Intelligence Senior Aerospace, Defense and Airlines analyst.
Speaker 3: He first asked, George, if it's new CEO, is the
Speaker 3: guy that Boeing needs to turn things around?
Speaker 8: Not so sure. I think it's the guy that Boeing
Speaker 8: needs for a small period of time, right because he
Speaker 8: was already retired, right, he has you know, he's a
Speaker 8: great career in aerospace working to Collins, help him put
Speaker 8: Collins into RTX, I mean, a great experience. He's sixty four,
Speaker 8: So my guess is he doesn't have a lot of
Speaker 8: runway to work at Boeing. I think it'd have been
Speaker 8: nicer to see a CEO that could have put I
Speaker 8: don't know, five, seven, ten years into Boeing. But look,
Speaker 8: I think the job is very difficult, and so I
Speaker 8: think it's going to take a lot out of the
Speaker 8: next CEO. And so maybe this is an interim as
Speaker 8: they continue to develop internal candidates for the job. Maybe
Speaker 8: it's very pretty difficult to recruit somebody into this job
Speaker 8: right now. Could be an interim because of that as well.
Speaker 8: So again, you know, the strong aerospace background at the
Speaker 8: component at the you know, parts maker level, but doesn't
Speaker 8: look like someone's going to be around for the next
Speaker 8: five seven years.
Speaker 2: All right, George, all right, so that's the CEO. How
Speaker 2: about on the fundamentals here, I'm looking at the second
Speaker 2: quarter negative adjusted free cash slow four point three billion dollars.
Speaker 2: You can't like that. Talk to us about kind of
Speaker 2: the cash flow, the dynamics and what they need to do.
Speaker 8: So we kind of expected that four point three billion
Speaker 8: dollars to be really honest, I'm not totally sure why
Speaker 8: the stock is up. I don't think it's Kelly because
Speaker 8: Kelly News started the day out and bowing anchors up
Speaker 8: about one so post earnings were up. You know, we've
Speaker 8: done this pop. I mean, you know, we heard from
Speaker 8: CFO Brian West during the call. He told us Burn
Speaker 8: was going to be pretty strong in three Q two,
Speaker 8: and then some the analysts tried to box him in
Speaker 8: on what Burn was going to be for the year.
Speaker 8: One said would be closer to five billion or ten billion.
Speaker 8: He said he wasn't. I think his quote somebody got,
Speaker 8: I'm not smart enough to tell you at this time.
Speaker 8: So there's just a lot of variability right now. That look,
Speaker 8: Boeing has to keep taking inventory, taking ship sets from
Speaker 8: their supplier base to keep their supplier base in business
Speaker 8: while they ramp up builds. And they had some good
Speaker 8: commentaries and builds. They talked about the factory kind of
Speaker 8: putting out twenty ish I think was the number, and
Speaker 8: I think total deliveries in the thirty ish range for
Speaker 8: seven thirty sevens rising to thirty eight shutting down those
Speaker 8: shadow factories. It's the factories that they have the inventoried airplanes,
Speaker 8: a lot of seven three sevens, some seven eight sevens
Speaker 8: in shutting them down by the end of the year.
Speaker 8: That was I think, great commentary. You know, we got
Speaker 8: to the commentary about what's going to go on with
Speaker 8: the union negotiations. Those are coming up in September. Dave
Speaker 8: Calhoun kind of told us he I think wasn't totally
Speaker 8: focused on that right now, or didn't have couldn't give
Speaker 8: us PU and takes there that's incredibly important. Right, So
Speaker 8: if we get into a situation where the union shuts
Speaker 8: this company down in September, the cash burn this year
Speaker 8: looks looks horrible. Their back going to capital markets looking
Speaker 8: for a bond raise, which I think everybody on the
Speaker 8: bond side is scared to death about because they don't
Speaker 8: want to see a fall to investment grade, or they're
Speaker 8: going to the equity side, which the equity guys don't
Speaker 8: want to hear about, right, because that's dilution, you know.
Speaker 8: So I think again commentary was good around deliveries and
Speaker 8: things like that, but a lot of variability coming, you
Speaker 8: know here around this cash flow burn, and it's super important.
Speaker 2: Thanks to George Ferguson Bloomberg Intelligence senior Aerospace, Defense and
Speaker 2: airlines analysts.
Speaker 3: We move next to earnings from Training Technologies, the maker
Speaker 3: of heating and cooling systems. So the company posted better
Speaker 3: than expected earnings in the second quarter and raise it's
Speaker 3: full your forecast.
Speaker 2: From Morewood, joined by Train's CEO Dave REGNERI. First the
Speaker 2: asked David why the company had such positive results.
Speaker 6: As far as what's driving our growth? You know, I
Speaker 6: always tell people we have a system of things that
Speaker 6: makes Train Technology is a great company. And whether it's
Speaker 6: the way we operate our facilities, through our business operating
Speaker 6: system ways, whether it's the way we innovate our new products,
Speaker 6: or whether it's our direct salesforce. Those are a system
Speaker 6: of things that make us a great company. And we
Speaker 6: have a service business that's a third of our company
Speaker 6: that's performing extremely well. In the second quarter, our service
Speaker 6: business was up mid teens from a growth perspective, and
Speaker 6: we have a culture that's you know, we believe in
Speaker 6: challenging what's possible and innovating for a sustainable world.
Speaker 3: So based on that, it's great to chat with you.
Speaker 3: By the way, I love love talking to you, because
Speaker 3: you have such a great read on the residential and
Speaker 3: commercial businesses. Basically a commercial HVAC unit and a near
Speaker 3: term residential HVAC unit, and of course that's heating, ventiletion,
Speaker 3: air and cooling. Where's the strength, where's the growth, where
Speaker 3: are the weak points?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I'll start with residential. We had a very strong
Speaker 6: quarter in the second quarter or revenue was up low teens,
Speaker 6: but that our residential business for the prior I'll say,
Speaker 6: you know, three quarters had really been struggling with a
Speaker 6: refrigerant change that wasn't clear. That's been clarified. It was
Speaker 6: really struggling with excess inventory kind of a hangover from
Speaker 6: the COVID days that was in the channel. Those both
Speaker 6: correct it, and we're off to a very warm start
Speaker 6: to the cooling season, which should have us all concerned
Speaker 6: for a different reason as the climate continues to increase
Speaker 6: in temperature. But I would tell you that it's a
Speaker 6: very strong start of the year, so very strong and residential,
Speaker 6: our commercial business really broad based growth. You know, certainly
Speaker 6: the high growth verticals like data centers. We do very
Speaker 6: very well in our education or in healthcare, but we
Speaker 6: had broad based growth in the Americas. We track fourteen
Speaker 6: different verticals and we were hard pressed to find a
Speaker 6: vertical that we were not strong in. So it was
Speaker 6: just it was a very strong quarter for Trained Technology.
Speaker 6: I'm very proud of what the team's been able to accomplish.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm reading the Bloomberg Intelligence research note on your earnings.
Speaker 2: North America's sixteen percent organic growth was much greater than
Speaker 2: the ten percent consensus.
Speaker 3: What drove that?
Speaker 6: Yeah, really two things. Our residential business perform better. Okay,
Speaker 6: we thought that was going to be. You know, in
Speaker 6: the beginning of the year, we thought our residential business
Speaker 6: would below single digits. We came in you know, low
Speaker 6: teams in the quarter, so we significantly outdrove that. And
Speaker 6: then our commercial HVAC business just continues to operate at
Speaker 6: a very high level.
Speaker 5: And like I.
Speaker 6: Said, services was up in the high teens actually in
Speaker 6: the Americas, and their equipment business just continues to exceed
Speaker 6: our customers' expectations. So very strong quarter. You know, I
Speaker 6: was listening to your show earlier. You were talking about sustainability,
Speaker 6: and I would tell you that Trained Technologies our purpose
Speaker 6: is built around sustainability. And what people are talking about
Speaker 6: right now as you're hearing a lot about, you know,
Speaker 6: how much power is going to have to be generated
Speaker 6: to meet the demand that's coming, and you'll hear a
Speaker 6: lot about data centers using a lot of the electricity.
Speaker 6: What nobody is talking about is the amount of power
Speaker 6: that's being generated that's being wasted. And I would tell
Speaker 6: you we call it demand side management. And we know
Speaker 6: because we've done hundreds of thousands of energy audits and
Speaker 6: buildings that most buildings operate about thirty percent inefficiently So
Speaker 6: just think if we could solve that problem, and if
Speaker 6: we can make buildings perform the way they were designed
Speaker 6: or assets performed the way they're designed. Just think about
Speaker 6: the amount that we could save and the energy that's
Speaker 6: being produced and which was obviously has a trickle effect
Speaker 6: to the carbon footprint. So that's what train technology is
Speaker 6: all about. People always ask me, where do you see
Speaker 6: the growth coming from. It's going to be on the
Speaker 6: demand side, management side, all.
Speaker 3: Right, thanks to train Technology CEO at Dave REGNERI.
Speaker 2: We move next to earnings from the wireless carrier T Mobile.
Speaker 2: The company reported new monthly mobile phone subscribers that exceeded
Speaker 2: analys estimates.
Speaker 3: For more on this, we were joined by John Butler,
Speaker 3: Bloomberg Intelligence Senior Telecom analyst, and we first asked John
Speaker 3: why T Mobile did have such a successful quarter.
Speaker 9: You know, it just boils down to this. They lead
Speaker 9: in five G and for any wireless carrier, the lifeblood
Speaker 9: of the network, the speed of the network, that download
Speaker 9: speeds that you get on your phone is dictated by
Speaker 9: how much spectrum you own. In plain English, how fat
Speaker 9: are your air waves? And the great news for T
Speaker 9: Mobile is they have the most spectrum of any of
Speaker 9: their competitors, and they have the right amount of spectrum
Speaker 9: for five G and we're now seeing it translate into
Speaker 9: better results.
Speaker 2: And I'll note that our own Charlie Pellett is a
Speaker 2: very happy T Mobile customer.
Speaker 5: Oh I'm okay, very good.
Speaker 2: I didn't really know any You're probably the only two
Speaker 2: I know, which says something about the circles I run in,
Speaker 2: John Butler, So is this just a share game?
Speaker 8: John?
Speaker 2: I mean, everybody's got a cell phone's got a cell phone?
Speaker 2: So is this just a share game between AT and T,
Speaker 2: Verizon and Timo?
Speaker 9: It is, Paul. You know, it's really in a way
Speaker 9: become a zero sum game. In some ways, there's natural
Speaker 9: organic growth as you know, young kids get phones, older
Speaker 9: people who have been getting phones post pandemic here. I
Speaker 9: think that really shook up enough of the market to
Speaker 9: lead to that little bit of growth on the edges.
Speaker 9: But the bottom line is it's a very slow growth market,
Speaker 9: and so it's all about not only protecting your share,
Speaker 9: but taking it away from your competitors. And T Mobile
Speaker 9: has you know, people forget that. Really wireless is almost
Speaker 9: a retailing game, right, So it's all about branding and
Speaker 9: T Mobile has done a brilliant job manufacturing a brand
Speaker 9: image that's all about being consumer friendly and low prices,
Speaker 9: and so quarter and in quarter out they tend to
Speaker 9: lead their peers at and Team Verizon in terms of
Speaker 9: net new subscriber growth, and this quarter, in my mind,
Speaker 9: they really hit the ball out of the park on
Speaker 9: that front.
Speaker 3: At some point, will I also get my Internet from
Speaker 3: Team Mobile? Like, is this the next area that they
Speaker 3: can just start gobbling up share?
Speaker 9: Possibly? Actually, if you live in New York, I would
Speaker 9: say a definite. Maybe. They've been very cautious in terms
Speaker 9: of managing expectations for where their broadband business is going
Speaker 9: to go. But T Mobile offers both over the air
Speaker 9: broadband called fixed wireless access. You basically put a modem
Speaker 9: in your window. It talks to the wireless network and
Speaker 9: provides you broadband that way. It's a real set it
Speaker 9: and forgeted thing. It's been a major hit with consumers.
Speaker 9: Verizon is also a major player there. But Tea Mobile
Speaker 9: is also getting into fiber broadband. And when you think
Speaker 9: the future of broadband and where it's headed, it really
Speaker 9: is going to come down to fiber in the long run.
Speaker 9: So I think they're placing the right bets. They're moving
Speaker 9: ahead with fixed wireless access for now because they have
Speaker 9: excess capacity on the network, but they're reluctant to really
Speaker 9: ramp up expectations there because broadband eats up a lot
Speaker 9: of that spectrum we were talking about on the network,
Speaker 9: So they don't want to endanger their core wireless mobile
Speaker 9: business by rolling out too much in the way of
Speaker 9: broadband over the air. But I think Fiber hedges their
Speaker 9: bets there, and by the way, they over index in
Speaker 9: New York. They really have great share in New York
Speaker 9: in mobile, so I think broadband is their next foray
Speaker 9: for that market.
Speaker 2: All right, Thanks to John Butler, Bloomberg Intelligence Senior TELECOMMENTA.
Speaker 3: List coming up on the program, a look at quarterly
Speaker 3: earnings from it again.
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Speaker 3: We move next to the fast food chain McDonald's. This week,
Speaker 3: the burger chainsaid it experienced its first sales drop in
Speaker 3: four years when it reported second quarter results.
Speaker 2: This comes as a company has pledged to launch new
Speaker 2: promotions to help offset a decline in customer visits, and
Speaker 2: this includes a five dollar value meal deal launched in
Speaker 2: the final week of last quarter.
Speaker 3: For more on all of this, we are joined by
Speaker 3: Michael Hale and Bloomberg Intelligence senior restaurant and food service analyst.
Speaker 2: We first asked Michael first key takeaways for McDonald's earnings.
Speaker 10: The biggest takeaway is that they still have work to do.
Speaker 10: I guess results and as bad as expected. You know,
Speaker 10: July data that we've seen is pretty bad, so the
Speaker 10: fact that they're still negative isn't really surprising, but they
Speaker 10: definitely still have work to do. The five dollars meal
Speaker 10: deal seems to be bringing in some traffic. They're hopeful
Speaker 10: that you know, the sales will follow, but it hasn't
Speaker 10: happened yet, you know, And they talked about the US
Speaker 10: really needing a revamp of its one two three dollar
Speaker 10: value meal. This company has scale that nobody else does.
Speaker 10: They can offer price points that nobody else can. They
Speaker 10: have a ton of marketing might So for those reasons,
Speaker 10: in this really competitive market where where chains are fighting
Speaker 10: hard to track low income consumers, you know, McDonald's definitely
Speaker 10: has the tools.
Speaker 5: To be in.
Speaker 2: For me, the McDonald's experience was always an airport experience
Speaker 2: because I always say I could justify it per say, hey,
Speaker 2: I'm rushed for time to gonna make my flake hid
Speaker 2: something quick. But now all the new airports and like
Speaker 2: the renovated Newark Airport, there's no fast food in those
Speaker 2: things anymore. You have to sit down and order and
Speaker 2: do all that kind of stuff. So that's why that's interesting.
Speaker 3: Isn't there fast food? But you it's like nice stuff
Speaker 3: like wraps.
Speaker 2: Well you get that stuff to go, But I mean
Speaker 2: you could always get like some fast food, serious fast food.
Speaker 5: All right.
Speaker 2: So, Mike, so what's the story for McDonald's here. Do
Speaker 2: they open stores, do they rationalize their footprint, what's kind
Speaker 2: of the strategy there? In terms of managing their footprint
Speaker 2: these days.
Speaker 10: Yeah, well they're there and they're investedtily. Late last year
Speaker 10: they pushed for more aggressive store openings, right, and so
Speaker 10: that's going to continue to be the focus. They're going
Speaker 10: to push hard to grow internationally. China obviously is a
Speaker 10: big point of focus for them. But yeah, it's going
Speaker 10: to be to open stores. But in order to motivate
Speaker 10: their franchisees to open stores, they're going to have to,
Speaker 10: you know, have a strong marketing program that's going to
Speaker 10: pull people into the restaurants, the existing restaurants, grow same
Speaker 10: store sales, improve profitability, and make it just a more
Speaker 10: attractive proposition for their international and US franchisees to open
Speaker 10: new stores.
Speaker 3: Didn't they unveil like a five dollars meal thingy, But
Speaker 3: that was at the end of the quarter, right, so
Speaker 3: we don't really know the full impact of that for McDonald's.
Speaker 10: Yes, yes, so on the call, management said that it's
Speaker 10: driving traffic but not sales yet. So it seems like
Speaker 10: there's some trade down from current customers saying, you know,
Speaker 10: well five dollars, I get a lot of food for
Speaker 10: that five dollars, So maybe instead of getting a big McNeal,
Speaker 10: I'll get this five dollars meal deal. But so it
Speaker 10: hasn't really impacted results yet, but they said that, you know,
Speaker 10: historically traffic comes before the sales boosts, and so they
Speaker 10: seem positive on it in this near term. You know,
Speaker 10: they said ninety three percent of franchisees in the US
Speaker 10: have agreed to extend this offer deeper into the summer.
Speaker 10: So they seem positive on it. But their real focus
Speaker 10: is going to have to be on the one, two,
Speaker 10: three dollars value menu. That menu isn't resonating with customers, right,
Speaker 10: and it seems like a full revamp is in the cards.
Speaker 5: You know, they've they've received a lot of.
Speaker 10: Shade on social media that you can't find anything on
Speaker 10: that menu for a buck, right, and so some reengineering
Speaker 10: is going to be necessary here in the United States.
Speaker 2: All right, dumb question of the day comes from me.
Speaker 2: Never at McDonald's, Burger King, even Starbucks, the drive through
Speaker 2: line or the twenty cars deep. I walk inside, I
Speaker 2: walk right up to the counter and boom, I'm served.
Speaker 2: And if I'm a McDonald's, isn't that a source of
Speaker 2: opportunity for me to figure out how to get them
Speaker 2: through faster.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well, I guess we're lazy.
Speaker 10: That's that's the problem, right, But uh no, to your point,
Speaker 10: you know, a big percentage. You know, historically the counter
Speaker 10: was like say fifteen percent of a drive through restaurant sales,
Speaker 10: and historically that's really just been used when the drive
Speaker 10: through line is too long and people say, you know,
Speaker 10: I don't want to wait that long. I'm gonna go
Speaker 10: inside and pick up my stuff. So there is an opportunity,
Speaker 10: there's and it's a it's a point of focus for
Speaker 10: all of the quick service restaurants we cover. Everybody is
Speaker 10: constantly trying to improve their throughput, you know, decrease the
Speaker 10: time waiting in line, because they know, if there's you know,
Speaker 10: at a certain number of cars for McDonald's, historically it's
Speaker 10: been you know, say five or six cars in the
Speaker 10: drive through, people will either you know, drive past the
Speaker 10: restaurant or maybe they'll say, you know what, I'll park
Speaker 10: and come in. But uh that's that's potentially business loss.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 10: So you know, improving throughput at the drive through, in
Speaker 10: at the counter is constantly a point.
Speaker 3: I mean in theory, right, you get like an I
Speaker 3: thing to do the drive through, right, But that has
Speaker 3: been really tough to manage right now, right, it's not
Speaker 3: really the best.
Speaker 5: It's not working.
Speaker 10: I mean, people have they're having a lot of trouble
Speaker 10: with accents, not only from you know, international customers, but
Speaker 10: also dialects across the United States, so voice ordering and
Speaker 10: a lot of these AI initiatives. You know, there's a
Speaker 10: lot of potential with them, but they haven't been able
Speaker 10: to really pay dividends just yet.
Speaker 2: All right, So what is the investment call here, Mike
Speaker 2: for some of these fast service McDonald's, Burger King, what's
Speaker 2: the investment call here for these names?
Speaker 10: Well, they're looking at you know, it's interesting because the
Speaker 10: year over your comparisons, base effects get easier into the
Speaker 10: second half, but the consumer's weakening, right, and so you
Speaker 10: know McDonald said they expect you know, more consumer weakness
Speaker 10: over the next few quarters, right, And so there's definitely
Speaker 10: concern about about restaurants spending here in the second half.
Speaker 5: You know, I think I mentioned it at the top.
Speaker 10: McDonald's is well positioned though in you know, periods of distress.
Speaker 10: You know, during the Great Recession, they outperform by offering
Speaker 10: value that competitors couldn't match, right, and so it's a
Speaker 10: very tough environment. But we think McDonald's is positioned pretty
Speaker 10: well for such a tough environment.
Speaker 3: In the value war where everyone's chasing a smaller part
Speaker 3: of everyone's wallet. How do these guys remain profitable? I'm
Speaker 3: not saying McDonald's, but like all its competitors too, like
Speaker 3: it's sort of a race to the bottom to some perspective,
Speaker 3: how does that play out?
Speaker 10: It's not just a race to the bottom. So in
Speaker 10: terms of the loan, they're trying hard to keep that
Speaker 10: low income consumer business, and there's no doubt that that's
Speaker 10: a big focus right now, but they're also bringing in
Speaker 10: you know, middle income and higher income consumers into the fold, right,
Speaker 10: So you also get this traded down effect where you know, yes, sure,
Speaker 10: low income consumers are trading down into grosser restore, but
Speaker 10: McDonald's and some of their competitors, Jack in the Box
Speaker 10: being one, you know, Chipotle, have been able to attract
Speaker 10: these higher income consumers that actually come in and buy
Speaker 10: premium items and spend more when they come. The problem
Speaker 10: is they're just a much lower percentage of the of
Speaker 10: the overall traffic. But that's what we've seen over the
Speaker 10: last year and a half or so's chains that have
Speaker 10: been able to attract these higher income consumers are definitely outperforming.
Speaker 2: So where in your overall space there mic on the
Speaker 2: restaurant side is the best place to be these days.
Speaker 10: It's companies that provide a lot of value and a
Speaker 10: very good price point, right and so, you know, like
Speaker 10: most earning seasons and industries, you know, a lot of
Speaker 10: the top performers end up reporting earnings first, and we've
Speaker 10: seen that Chipotle and Texas Roadhouse are two They outperform
Speaker 10: everybody on seamsore sales over the last five years and
Speaker 10: it's not even there's not even a close second. And
Speaker 10: a big reason why they've outperformed by so much is
Speaker 10: that customers see a lot of value on that plate
Speaker 10: for the price that they pay right and there, and
Speaker 10: they're provided a pret good customer experience, and that's what's
Speaker 10: bringing people in the door. If you're providing very strong
Speaker 10: everyday value and a good in restaurant experience, you know,
Speaker 10: clean restaurants, good service, when everything that that entails, then
Speaker 10: you're winning, all right.
Speaker 3: Thanks to Michael Halen, Bloomberg Intelligence Senior restaurant and food
Speaker 3: service analyst, we next.
Speaker 2: Take a look at earnings from the Dutch brewer Heineken.
Speaker 2: This week, the company report a quarterly profit and revenue
Speaker 2: that fell short of analyst expectations.
Speaker 3: Heinegansited a nine hundred and forty nine million dollars hit
Speaker 3: as at stake in China's largest brewer has fallen in value.
Speaker 3: For more on this, we were joined by Duncan Fox,
Speaker 3: Bloomberg Intelligence consumer staples analyst.
Speaker 2: We first asked Duncan to take us through the laundry
Speaker 2: list of things that were a problem for Heinegen.
Speaker 11: Well, I suppose the main one was consumer sentiment was
Speaker 11: still quite weak, so what they were hoping for was
Speaker 11: a bit of a bounce back in Europe for volume
Speaker 11: with the euro twenty four, but unfortunately the weather was
Speaker 11: just again four in northern Europe, so that was a
Speaker 11: his In China, it's just that China Resources a share
Speaker 11: price has been below the price they bought it for
Speaker 11: about four or five months now, and the accounting system
Speaker 11: means they have to take that hit. So if if
Speaker 11: that share price goes back up again whenever the Chinese
Speaker 11: economy recovers, then they'll get some sort of recovery from that.
Speaker 11: But I can't tell you when that will be, so
Speaker 11: it's just double consumer.
Speaker 2: So what is Heineken saying about just underlying demand in general?
Speaker 2: What are they saying about the consumer and is there
Speaker 2: regional differences?
Speaker 11: I guess basically the consumer's been hit by inflation curvac
Speaker 11: years from double digit pricing, and I think they're just
Speaker 11: pairing back. The big problem is that people are not
Speaker 11: really going to the partner as much the entrade that's
Speaker 11: where they make great profit. Well in Europe, it's certainly
Speaker 11: been the case in places like Africa where you've had
Speaker 11: devaluation as well. You've just got a working way through
Speaker 11: that and they've done a very good job actually, but
Speaker 11: you still have short term issue where you know, Nigeria
Speaker 11: is a big, big market for them and you get
Speaker 11: a massive devaluation and so they're just working their way
Speaker 11: through all these issues. They're doing actually quite a good
Speaker 11: job on the ground. But weather was the real thing
Speaker 11: that was a surprise. I mean, the upgraded guidance a little,
Speaker 11: but I think people are expecting a bit more because
Speaker 11: of the Euro twenty four.
Speaker 3: So Paul brought up sort of those mixed infused cocktails
Speaker 3: and stuff. I can get the mimosa in a can.
Speaker 3: It's not terrible at all. Does Heineken have exposure to
Speaker 3: that kind of stuff and is that sort of eroding
Speaker 3: the appeal of beer at all?
Speaker 11: Well, beers getting it from each from every angle really,
Speaker 11: because you're seeing a lot of these new odd drinks.
Speaker 11: I probably grew with.
Speaker 8: Poorn and that once.
Speaker 11: Some of them are a bit weird. But they've got Desperado,
Speaker 11: which is a spirit tasted beer, tequila based beer, which
Speaker 11: is doing very well. So they have got things that
Speaker 11: they can attack these products with. But you need to
Speaker 11: keep basically innovating with new things all the time. You know,
Speaker 11: Diazu're doing a pretty good job on trying to do that.
Speaker 11: But the problem is some of these don't last very
Speaker 11: long the eighteen months and then things sort of fall
Speaker 11: off a cliff, So you've got to sort of keep
Speaker 11: replacing them otherwise you're getting to a bit of trouble. Actually,
Speaker 11: the Hearneken one's doing well, but they just haven't come
Speaker 11: up with innovation in that area. It's probably not their
Speaker 11: key area for them.
Speaker 2: Is Hanegan calling out different regions of the world behaving
Speaker 2: differently as the US market stronger than the European.
Speaker 3: If you have a nice beach, your sales are up exactly.
Speaker 11: Well, certainly it's the suns out. They're not that big.
Speaker 11: In the US Latin America, they're big, and they've they've
Speaker 11: been they've taken quite a lot of costs out. They
Speaker 11: were importing bottles to Brazil, for instance, which is a
Speaker 11: huge market for them, so they've taken the cost down.
Speaker 11: So it's not particularly great consumer environment there, but the
Speaker 11: profits are improving because you know, they've realigned their cost space.
Speaker 11: In Asia, they're bouncing back from a really horrid time
Speaker 11: last year where.
Speaker 6: The economy is.
Speaker 11: Vietnam in particular, had a terrible time in sort of
Speaker 11: Q two and Q three last year. That's bouncing back.
Speaker 11: I wouldn't say the beer market because of regulation, is buoyant,
Speaker 11: but they're gaining share and they've done innovation on the beer.
Speaker 11: Beer market there there seems to be working very well.
Speaker 11: So there are a few issues in Asia that they've
Speaker 11: still got to overcome. China some quite a chunky bit
Speaker 11: of their market now, so they need to see that
Speaker 11: economy improved. Places like Cambodia have got a bit of
Speaker 11: an issue in the short term because of the economic growth.
Speaker 11: So just a case of good old policies from governments
Speaker 11: turning the economies around. I'm surely get a bit happier
Speaker 11: with book. We'd life and people then go out and
Speaker 11: buy beer.
Speaker 3: Thanks to Duncan Fox, Bloomberg Intelligence Consumer Staples Analyst.
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