Morning Brew Daily
Walmart Warns of Slow Sales in 2025 & Amazon Takes Over James Bond
Fri, 21 Feb 2025
Episode 524: Toby and Kyle chit-chat about Amazon’s continuing pursuit as America’s #1 retailer as it surpasses Walmart in quarterly revenue for the first time, while Walmart warns of slowing sales. Then, James Bond has a new home in Amazon as its creative studio is taking over the rights of the franchise. Also, since the UnitedHealthcare CEO killing, executives have turned to increased securities and one company is making armed bodyguards available via app. So…Uber with guns? Meanwhile, Hims & Hers is the Stock of the Week, and Palantir is the Dog of the Week. Finally, headlines to start the weekend! LinkedIn will even give you a $100 credit on your next campaign so you can try it yourself. Go to LinkedIn.com/MBD Terms and conditions apply. Only on LinkedIn ads. Subscribe to Morning Brew Daily for more of the news you need to start your day. Share the show with a friend, and leave us a review on your favorite podcast app. Check out https://linkedin.com/MBD for more! Listen to Morning Brew Daily Here: https://link.chtbl.com/MBD Watch Morning Brew Daily Here: https://www.youtube.com/@MorningBrewDailyShow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
What are the highlights of today's podcast episode?
So Walmart still technically leads the way in annual sales, but obviously Amazon is gaining ground there. But I do just want to zoom out a little bit because I've... Walmart is an $800 billion business. It's a microcosm of the entire economy. So you saw that filter through the market yesterday. The Dow was down 1% yesterday. S&P 500 dipped as well. The NASDAQ dipped as well.
So even though Walmart is just one company in the retail sector, it does give you a kind of a lens into what they think consumers will be feeling like over the next year. And they think consumers will be feeling a little bit apprehensive.
Yeah, you mentioned the Walmart-Amazon distinction. Walmart, since 2012, has made the most annual revenue of any company in the U.S. I looked at when they first started tracking this in the S&P 500. Do you know, in 1955, what the top company was for revenue?
I assume it's some oil company.
It's actually General Motors, and they made $9.8 billion in revenue. We have accelerated. We have accelerated. So let's move on to the big screen. James Bond has dodged over 4,000 bullets, gone up against 20-plus supervillains, and even once had to skydive into an airplane.
However, he might have pulled off his greatest feat yet, wriggling out of the stalemate between the Broccoli family, who has had creative control of the franchise for decades, and Amazon, who after their purchase of MGM controlled the distribution rights of the Bond franchise. That's right.
In a new deal announced yesterday, Amazon and the Broccoli family have formed a new joint venture to house Bond IP with Amazon MGM Studios, gaining creative control. Now, why is this news? Well,
The relationship between Amazon and the Broccoli family has been contentious since 2022, with the Broccoli family viewing Bond as a family heirloom to be handled delicately and skeptical that the algorithm-focused Amazon would do Bond justice. Amazon definitely didn't help themselves.
They kept referring to Bond as, quote, content, which, according to a friend of Barbara Broccoli, felt like a curse word. So what does the new deal open up for Amazon? Well, the Bond franchise, it's one of the highest-grossing IPs series in history with over $7.6 billion in box office sales, with the latest Bond film, No Time to Die, raking in $775 million.
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