#BiggerBiteOfTheApple
Apple put three quarters of sales declines behind them this week as record iPhone 7 sales pushed them towards their first revenue growth in a year. Shares in the Californian company were up more than 3% after the bell on Tuesday as they announced that they sold 78.29 million iPhones in the last quarter, breaking previous sales records by about 4 million. Apple’s joy wasn’t just limited to record device sales however. Service revenue - which takes into account features like digital music sales and app revenue - is seen as a crucial area for the company to build upon given the increasingly saturated device market. Sales in Apple services jumped an impressive 18% in the last quarter, far surpassing analyst expectations. This increase is in-line with the company's intention of diversifying revenue into higher-margin software products, many of which offer a more predictable revenue stream through subscription-based services.

#OhSnap
It might seem like an eternity since ‘floatation’ was first whispered, but this week Snap Inc finally filed for IPO on the New York Stock Exchange. The creators of the massively popular Snapchat app hope to raise $3 billion on its flotation valuing the company above $20 billion. In the regulatory filing, Snap said that its advertising business is booming, with revenue growing from $58.7 million to $404.5 million in the past year. This growth came at a sobering cost however, as they also happened to lose $514.6 million in 2016 alone. And although they now call themselves “a camera company”, it looks as though they might be hitting the market at a time when the influence of their flagship product is waning. Facebook are on the warpath and have shamelessly stated their intention to overwhelm their newest competitor. Worryingly for Snap, it looks like they’re on the right track, as growth for the Snapchat app dropped 82% the same month Facebook launched Instagram Stories. Coincidence?

#OutOfShape
Shares of Fitbit closed nearly 16% lower on Monday after the company confirmed rumors of disappointing fourth-quarter results and significant job cuts. Reports had begun circulating earlier in the day that the company would downgrade their guidance for their earnings call later this month. This came as a surprise to many as the company had only recently announced that they had commanded roughly 75% of industry holiday sales. The wearables company substantiated these reports later on in the day, stating that fourth-quarter revenue was now expected to be in the range of $572m to $580m - a far sight off the $725m to $750m guidance previously anticipated. On top of this, Fitbit also revealed that they will be cutting 6% of their workforce - or 110 employees - across multiple departments. This tops off an annus horribilis for the company, with more than 63% now shed from their stock price in the past 12 months.

#GoingMobile
Take-Two Interactive - the makers of popular video games including 'Grand Theft Auto', 'Bioshock', and 'Red Dead Redemption' - have made their first move into the mobile gaming business with the acquisition of Social Point for $250 million. The Barcelona-based games developer has been on the scene since 2008 and has frequently been referred to as the ‘Zynga of Europe’ - albeit a bit more stable. The company’s biggest hits to date have been 'Monster Legends' and 'Dragon City', which have already accumulated over 180 million downloads. This is the first significant move T2 have made into the lucrative mobile gaming market, which has been attracting heavy interest from games developers for some time now. Most famously, Tencent shelled out a record-breaking $8.6 billion last summer for Supercell, the makers of the massively popular ‘Clash of the Clans’. The question now is - which of T2’s massive games will be first to hit the mobile market?

#AndFinally…
Speaking of mobile gaming…. remember Pokemon Go? It was the app that took the globe by storm last summer as millions of people finally got the chance to live out their childhood dream of becoming a Pokemon trainer. As happens with these things though, interest began to wane and the hype was soon over… or so we thought! Sensor Tower released metrics this week that prove that, far from being just a flash in the pan, Pokemon Go was actually the fastest mobile game ever to reach $1 billion in revenue. The Niantic produced game hit the $1 billion mark just six months after its release, coming in significantly faster than other games in the $1 billion club like 'Candy Crush Saga' and 'Puzzles & Dragons'. The report does concede that Pokemon Go is far less lucrative now than when it was earning $18 million a day, but it’s still pulling in on average $1.5 million to $2.5 million per day. Not bad!