Hello! Like the Adam Neumann of data-driven chart-based publishing, WeSimplyGoAgain — today we’re exploring:
Been wondering where all that extra money you've been shelling out on gas over the last year has been going? Well, there's a decent chance at least some of it ended up in the pockets of Saudi Aramco, the world’s biggest oil firm, which this week announced a staggering $48.4bn of net income for the second quarter — an eye-watering sum even by their standards.
The Saudi Arabian company, which is largely state-run, is the latest to benefit from rising oil and energy prices, as many countries attempt to wean themselves off Russian supplies.
There’s Big and there’s BIG
It's hard to convey how big Saudi Aramco truly is — but the best bet is to compare it against the behemoths of big tech. Incredibly, Aramco’s net income more than doubles Apple’s comparatively measly $19.4bn in their latest quarter — and it takes adding Microsoft, Meta and Tesla to get to a number that's even slightly comparable to what Aramco pulled in for Q2.
Aramco’s results this year will be a huge boon for the state’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) — the financial body that invests on behalf of the government and seeks to expand Saudi prospects beyond oil. The PIF’s portfolio is certainly diverse: so far they’ve bought a soccer team, set up a controversial golf series, and are even attempting to establish a mirrored metropolis to “revolutionize our current way of life”.
Under-R-rated
Expletive-laden scenes filled with sequences of graphic violence might be playing out between some movie producers in Hollywood this year, as our friends at Axios recently reported that R-rated movies have pulled in just 14% of the box office revenue in 2022 so far. That's the lowest count of any of the last 27 years, according to the latest data from The Numbers.
Jordan Peele’s new horror Nope is the only R-rated flick to hit the $100m+ domestic milestone so far this year, while 9 PG-13 movies have already achieved the same feat.
Violence in the streams
Although there have been some recent standouts like American Sniper, Deadpool, and Joker that have pulled in some very respectable numbers, distributors are increasingly looking to move their more-mature offerings away from theatres entirely and into the world of streaming. Many independent production companies and distributors, who tend to proffer a healthy portion of the R-rated films released each year, had to pivot to straight-to-streaming as a result of the pandemic — and it seems quite a lot have stayed there ever since.
When adjusted for inflation, almost all of the highest grossing modern R-rated movies are now 10, 15 or even 20 years old. The golden age of kids sneaking in to see the latest R-rated blockbuster smash could well be a thing of the past.
The Chinese property pop
The Chinese housing market has missed the inflation memo. New data out this week showed Chinese new-home prices in the country falling roughly 1% in the last year, breaking more than 6 consecutive years of rising prices.
Although a relatively small drop, the fall in new-home prices is just the latest piece of evidence that paints a concerning picture for the largest residential property market in the world. Sales of apartments by the country's largest developers have fallen for 13 months straight and hundreds of buildings that were presold have been left unfinished — leading some homeowners to stop paying their mortgage, a rare show of dissent in the country. All told, the WSJ estimates that billions of square meters of residential homes have been started, but not yet completed, in the last decade.
All hands on deck
Chinese officials are doing all they can with numerous policies aimed at reinvigorating the sputtering sector and keeping the increasingly indebted property developers in business. One Chinese party secretary even went as far as to play the role of realtor, urging the country's leadership to lead the charge in buying property, saying "If you’ve bought one, buy two. If you’ve bought two, buy three. If you’ve bought three, buy four" in a speech yesterday.
• Retailer Target missed the mark as they unloaded unwanted inventory at a discount, sending the company's Q2 net income down some 90% on this time last year.
• How two YouTube fraudsters tricked their way into $23m worth of music royalties.
• Elon Musk claims the Tesla Model Y is on-track to become the best-selling car in the world by revenue in 2022, and that it could take the top spot by volume in 2023 as well.
• The future of public trash cans is here, and they're expensive — these new designs cost $20k.
• Gong has analyzed 300,000 sales emails, uncovering everything the data actually tells us about how to write good sales emails. These 7 CTAs are scientifically proven to land more meetings (and fill up your pipeline).**
• Interesting visualization of the male-to-female population ratio at different ages.
• The world's 10 biggest pharma companies brought in more than $700bn in revenue last year, according to a report from Fortune.
• Live tracking Twitter’s most-used emoji.
**This is sponsored content.
