BlackBerry shares skyrocketed today after announcing it had signed a multi-year agreement with Amazon Web Services to develop and market its IVY platform for intelligent vehicle data. Shares of BlackBerry rose as much as 58% on the news, a daily record for the company. 

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• IVY is a cloud-connected software platform that is designed to let automakers read vehicle sensor data and enhance the cloud-connected vehicle's performance. 
• BlackBerry's “Intelligent Vehicle Data Platform,” called IVY, could boost sales of BlackBerry’s QNX which is its software platform for cars. 
• There are about 175 million vehicles already using BlackBerry's QNX software. 

Black Friday 2020 saw online shopping increase 22% YoY while in-store shopping fell 52.1% YoY. Cyber Monday spending also reached record highs with over $10.8B in sales. 

E-Commerce:

• Consumers spent ~$9B online on Black Friday. Data shows that $6.3M was spent per minute on Friday in the U.S. 
• The average American spent $27.50 online on Black Friday.
• Spending on Black Friday increased most noticeably for personal care products (up 556% YoY), groceries (up 397% YoY), and pet products (up 254% YoY). 
• 47% of all e-commerce sales on Thanksgiving were made via smartphones.
• $3.6B was spent on smartphones, making up about 40% of all e-commerce activity. Smartphone sales rose by 25.3% YoY.

Retail:

• Sensormatic Solutions estimated a decrease in overall in-person retail store shopping of 22-25%.
• Traffic on Thanksgiving itself was down 94.9%, primarily due to some retailers, including Walmart, deciding to remain closed.
• Due to the pandemic, curbside pickup rose by 52% YoY while online grocery sales were up 397% on Black Friday.
• According to the National Retail Federation (NRF), online Black Friday shoppers totaled 100M, an increase of 8% versus 2019.
• Online-only shoppers increased +44% versus 2019 to a total of 95.7 million during the holiday weekend.
• In-store shoppers on Black Friday declined an unprecedented 37% versus 2019 with more than 40M Americans shopping in physical retail locations over the weekend. In-person shoppers declined 55% on Thanksgiving Day specifically. 

Between Black Friday and Cyber Monday, small and medium-sized third-party sellers on Amazon’s platform had over $4.8B in worldwide sales, a 60% from 2019. Amazon shattered records during its Black Friday weekend sales as the company announced its largest-ever holiday sales weekend. 

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• On average, Amazon's small and medium-sized third-party sellers sold more than 9,500 products per minute during the long sales weekend. 
• More than 71,000 third-party sellers on Amazon’s platform made more than $100,000 since Amazon’s holiday season began in October.
• Overnight, Amazon reported its total Cyber Monday sales exceeded $10.8B, in-line with an earlier forecast of $10.8-$11.4B.

Former Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh died at 46 due to injuries sustained from a house fire.  Hsieh started the online shoe retailer in 1999 before selling it to Amazon for $1.2B in 2009.

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• Hsieh stepped down as CEO in August and was replaced by then COO Kedar Deshpande. Before founding Zappos, Hsieh sold his marketing company LinkExchange to Microsoft for $265M in 1998.
• Despite being acquired by Amazon, Zappos was allowed to operate as its own independent subsidiary as the e-commerce giant was impressed by Hsieh's management style.
• Hsieh's death resulted in an outpouring of tributes from prominent names in tech, retail, and politics. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said Hsieh left an "indelible mark," while Ivanka Trump called him a "deeply original thinker."

QUICK HITS:  

• During this holiday season, find out how SimpliSafe is protecting over 3 million homes with less markup and more security.*
• An Amazon delivery driver saved an elderly man from a burning house in Florida.  
• Amazon Web Services and Zoom expanded their partnership with each other as Zoom made AWS its preferred service provider. 
• AWS launched Trainium, a custom machine learning chip. 
• Amazon was placed in the top 5 best global brands by YouGov for 2020. 
• AWS revealed AWS Panorama, which can transform existing on-premises cameras into computer vision-enabled surveillance devices. 
• Self-care products and cozy comfort products were top holiday sales trends in the U.S. with Amazon's Beauty, Home, and Fashion categories among the most shopped over its Black Friday weekend.  
• Revtown’s changing the denim game by applying the best parts of workout clothes—comfort, flexibility & durability—to jeans.

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