Tag Archives: Social Media Platforms/Tools

Business

Facebook Seeks Recusal of FTC Chair Lina Khan in Antitrust Case

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WASHINGTON—

Facebook Inc.

sought the recusal of Federal Trade Commission Chairwoman Lina Khan from the agency’s deliberations on whether to file a new antitrust case against the company, arguing she couldn’t be impartial because of her long history of criticizing it and other big-tech firms.

“Chair Khan has consistently made public statements not only accusing Facebook of conduct that merits disapproval but specifically expressing her belief that the conduct meets the elements of an antitrust offense,” the company said Wednesday in a formal recusal petition filed with the FTC.

“When a new commissioner has already drawn factual and legal conclusions and deemed the target a lawbreaker, due process requires that individual to recuse herself,” Facebook said in the petition.

An FTC spokeswoman didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Ms. Khan has said previously that she would consult with FTC ethics officials if recusal questions arose.

Facebook’s request comes two weeks after a similar recusal petition was filed by

Amazon.com Inc.,

which is facing multiple investigations at the FTC, and is the latest sign that giant technology companies are favoring aggression over a conciliatory approach with Ms. Khan, who built her career advocating for bold antitrust action to rein in the dominant players in Silicon Valley.

President Biden installed Ms. Khan as the head of the FTC last month, part of a growing administration effort to restrain corporate power.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Google CEO Sundar Pichai stopped short of endorsing changes proposed by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to Section 230, a law that spells out who is legally responsible for content on the internet. Photo: C-SPAN

The FTC soon must decide whether to file a new antitrust lawsuit against Facebook after a judge threw out the FTC’s previous complaint as legally insufficient. Because of the approaching deadlines in the case—the judge’s June 28 ruling gave the FTC 30 days to file an amended lawsuit—it could force Ms. Khan to confront the recusal issue on an accelerated timeline.

Ms. Khan has been a prolific writer about antitrust issues, especially as they related to big tech companies. She previously worked for a progressive antitrust advocacy group and was a key staffer on a congressional antitrust panel that conducted a 16-month investigation of large online platforms and last year recommended that lawmakers take steps to rein them in.

The FTC’s vote on a new Facebook lawsuit is likely to be a divided one. Democrats hold a 3-2 commission majority; if Ms. Khan sat out, there likely wouldn’t be a majority to sue Facebook again. The commission’s two Republican commissioners voted against the first lawsuit the FTC filed against Facebook in December.

The FTC, along with 46 states, had alleged Facebook was engaged in illegal monopolization, including by buying up other companies such as WhatsApp and Instagram to prevent them from challenging Facebook’s market position. The company denied the allegations, saying it competed fairly and achieved success because its services are popular with consumers.

In last month’s ruling, U.S. District Judge

James Boasberg

in Washington dismissed the FTC’s case at the outset of pretrial proceedings, saying the FTC didn’t plead enough allegations to support monopolization claims against Facebook. He also said the FTC didn’t have a valid challenge to Facebook’s policy of refusing to grant interoperability permissions to competing apps. The judge gave the commission 30 days to file a new lawsuit that attempts to make more detailed allegations.

Under the governing legal standards for recusal, a company seeking a commissioner’s disqualification on the grounds of prejudgment must show that a disinterested observer could conclude that the commissioner had already judged both the facts and the law in advance of a proceeding.

Ms. Khan gets to decide in the first instance how to address Facebook’s request for her disqualification. Past FTC practices show that, at least in some circumstances, the whole commission can weigh in.

Disqualification requests haven’t seen much success in modern times, but there are older court rulings that vacated FTC enforcement actions on the grounds that a commissioner should have been disqualified.

Write to Brent Kendall at brent.kendall@wsj.com

Copyright ©2021 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

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Business

President Biden’s Executive Order Opens New Front in Battle With Big Tech

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WASHINGTON—President Biden’s sweeping new competition order targets big tech companies in ways that could fundamentally alter how they do business.

But it will fall to government agencies to carry out the order, and they could take years to put its ideas into action. The Federal Trade Commission that already has Big Tech companies in its sights is likely to become a particular battleground.

A core thrust of the order is to encourage regulatory agencies such as the FTC to adopt new rules and policies to rein in the growing size and power of large tech platforms such as Amazon.com Inc., Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Facebook Inc. That could prove to be a tall order for the FTC, the principal federal regulator of internet commerce. Some observers say the agency—which had its sails trimmed by Congress in the deregulatory era of the 1970s and 1980s—has struggled to keep up with unfair practices online, particularly in the areas of user privacy, big data and tech mergers.

As the White House detailed its executive order, one Democratic FTC commissioner, Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, said in a tweet, “So excited about @POTUS’s EO on competition; it is an ambitious agenda that will help our markets work better and create a more equitable economy for all people – esp workers, marginalized communities, entrepreneurs, small biz.”

Gary Shapiro, chief executive of the Consumer Technology Association that counts Apple Inc., Facebook and Google among its members, defended the tech industry as competitive and vibrant and took issue with the White House’s action.

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World

Facebook, Twitter, Google Threaten to Quit Hong Kong Over Proposed Data Laws

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HONG KONG—

Facebook Inc.,

FB 0.09%

Twitter Inc.

TWTR 1.60%

and

Alphabet Inc.’s

GOOG 1.86%

Google have privately warned the Hong Kong government that they could stop offering their services in the city if authorities proceed with planned changes to data-protection laws that could make them liable for the malicious sharing of individuals’ information online.

A letter sent by an industry group that includes the internet firms said companies are concerned that the planned rules to address doxing could put their staff at risk of criminal investigations or prosecutions related to what the firms’ users post online. Doxing refers to the practice of putting people’s personal information online so they can be harassed by others.

Hong Kong’s Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Bureau in May proposed amendments to the city’s data-protection laws that it said were needed to combat doxing, a practice that was prevalent during 2019 protests in the city. The proposals call for punishments of up to 1 million Hong Kong dollars, the equivalent of about $128,800, and up to five years’ imprisonment.

“The only way to avoid these sanctions for technology companies would be to refrain from investing and offering the services in Hong Kong,” said the previously unreported June 25 letter from the Singapore-based Asia Internet Coalition, which was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

Tensions have emerged between some of the U.S.’s most powerful firms and Hong Kong authorities as Beijing exerts increasing control over the city and clamps down on political dissent. The American firms and other tech companies last year said they were suspending the processing of requests from Hong Kong law-enforcement agencies following China’s imposition of a national security law on the city.

Jeff Paine, the Asia Internet Coalition’s managing director, in the letter to Hong Kong’s Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data, said that while his group and its members are opposed to doxing, the vague wording in the proposed amendments could mean the firms and their staff based locally could be subject to criminal investigations and prosecution for doxing offenses by their users.

That would represent a “completely disproportionate and unnecessary response,” the letter said. The letter also noted that the proposed amendments could curtail free expression and criminalize even “innocent acts of sharing information online.”

The Coalition suggested that a more clearly defined scope to violations be considered and requested a videoconference to discuss the situation.

A spokeswoman for the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data acknowledged that the office had received the letter. She said new rules were needed to address doxing, which “has tested the limits of morality and the law.”

The government has handled thousands of doxing-related cases since 2019, and surveys of the public and organizations show strong support for added measures to curb the practice, she said. Police officers and opposition figures were doxed heavily during months of pro-democracy protests in 2019.

“The amendments will not have any bearing on free speech,” which is enshrined in law, and the scope of offenses will be clearly set out in the amendments, the spokeswoman said. The government “strongly rebuts any suggestion that the amendments may in any way affect foreign investment in Hong Kong,” she said.

Representatives for Facebook, Twitter and Google declined to comment on the letter beyond acknowledging that the Coalition had sent it. The companies don’t disclose the number of employees they have in Hong Kong, but they likely employ at least 100 staff combined, analysts estimate.

China’s crackdown on dissent since it imposed a national security law a year ago has driven many people in Hong Kong off social media or to self-censor their posts following a spate of arrests over online remarks.

While Hong Kong’s population of about 7.5 million means it isn’t a major market in terms of its user base, foreign firms often cite the free flow of information in Hong Kong as a key factor for being located in the financial hub.

The letter from the tech giants comes as global companies increasingly consider whether to leave the financial center for cities offering more hospitable business climates.

The anti-doxing amendments will be put before the city’s Legislative Council and a bill is expected to be approved by the end of this legislative year, said Paul Haswell, Hong Kong-based head of the technology, media, and telecom law practice at global law firm Pinsent Masons.

The tech firms’ concerns about the proposed rules are legitimate, Mr. Haswell said. Depending on the wording of the legislation, technology companies headquartered outside Hong Kong, but with operations in the city, could see their staff here held responsible for what people posted, he said.

A broad reading of the rules could suggest that even an unflattering photo of a person taken in public, or of a police officer’s face on the basis that this would constitute personal data, could run afoul of the proposed amendments if posted with malice or an intention to cause harm, he said.

“If not managed with common sense,” the new rules “could make it potentially a risk to post anything relating to another individual on the internet,” he said.

Corrections & Amplifications
Doxing was prevalent during protests in Hong Kong in 2019. An earlier version of this article incorrectly said the year was 2109. (Corrected on July 5)

Write to Newley Purnell at newley.purnell@wsj.com

Copyright ©2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

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Technology

Microsoft Is in Exclusive Talks to Acquire Discord

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Microsoft Corp. is in advanced talks to acquire messaging platform Discord Inc. for $10 billion or more, according to people familiar with the matter, as the software giant seeks to deepen its consumer offerings.

Microsoft and Discord are in exclusive talks and could complete a deal next month, assuming the negotiations don’t fall apart, the people said.

Originally favored by gamers, San Francisco-based Discord offers voice, text and video chatting. The platform’s popularity has surged since the pandemic took hold as people stay home and connect online—as has that of other chat services, like Facebook Inc.’s WhatsApp and Signal Messenger LLC. Discord has been considering an IPO.

Microsoft, which has a market value of more than $1.7 trillion, has been on the hunt for an acquisition that would help it reach more consumers. Last summer, it held talks to buy the popular video-sharing app TikTok amid a high-profile geopolitical standoff prompted by the Trump administration, before abandoning the effort.

VentureBeat reported this week that Discord was exploring a sale and had entered exclusive discussions with an unnamed suitor.

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Business

Why the Next Big-Tech Fights Are in State Capitals

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Tech companies are turning their attention to statehouses across the country as a wave of local bills opens a new frontier in the push to limit Silicon Valley’s power.

Arizona, Maryland and Virginia are among states where lawmakers are seeking to limit the power of tech companies like

Alphabet Inc.’s

GOOG -2.50%

Google and

Apple Inc.

AAPL -0.76%

on a range of issues, from online privacy and digital advertisements to app-store fees. State policy proposals have bipartisan support from lawmakers who want to temper companies’ influence and financial clout, which have grown during the pandemic.

Google, Apple and others are hiring local lobbyists and immersing themselves in the minutiae of proposed legislation, according to state representatives. Tech companies face potential rules that would curb the reach of their platforms, crimp revenues with taxes or force them to facilitate additional privacy disclosures.

Prominent tech companies are embracing remote work amid an exodus of skilled labor from Silicon Valley. WSJ looks at what that could mean for innovation and productivity and what companies are doing to manage the impact.

While federal lawmakers have held hearings and are in discussions about policies to regulate tech companies, debates and votes could occur in states first. If passed, state laws matter because they can become de facto national standards in the absence of federal action, as with California’s 2018 privacy law, which gave consumers both the right to access personal information that businesses collect from them and the right to request that data be deleted and not sold.

Facebook Inc.

FB -2.00%

initially opposed the California measures, but supported them after they took effect. Companies such as

Microsoft Corp.

have opted to honor the new rules across the country.

“So much has happened since California passed the original [data] privacy act” in 2018, said

Sam McGowan,

a senior analyst at policy research firm Beacon Policy Advisors LLC. Lawmakers’ concerns now stretch well beyond privacy to such topics as anticompetitive behavior and how social-media companies police content, he said.

In Arizona, a closely watched bill regarding app-store payments has cleared the state House and is expected to be debated in the Senate in the next several weeks. The legislation would free some software developers from fees that Apple and Google place on apps, which can run up to 30% of sales from paid apps and in-app purchases. App developers would be able to charge people directly through the payment system of their choice. The bill would apply to Arizona-based app developers and consumers yet could set a wider precedent.

Republican state

Rep. Regina Cobb,

the legislation’s chief sponsor, said the bill is about “consumer protection and transparency,” and said a final vote could take place within the next month. Ms. Cobb said she believes there are sufficient votes to pass the bill in the narrowly divided Senate. Apple and Google have lobbied heavily against the bill, Ms. Cobb said.

Apple declined to comment on lobbying in Arizona. A company spokeswoman said Apple “created the App Store to be a safe and trusted place for users to download the apps they love and a great business opportunity for developers. This legislation threatens to break that very successful model and undermine the strong protections we’ve put in place for customers.”

Google declined to comment on the legislation or any lobbying efforts in the state.

In February, Maryland lawmakers passed legislation that would tax the revenue of companies such as Google, Facebook and

Amazon.com Inc.

from digital ads. This month

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam

signed into law new privacy rules similar to those in California, with added limits on the consumer data that companies can collect online.

Washington state has introduced privacy legislation. Some states have targeted online content moderation, with Texas proposing a measure that would prohibit social-media companies from banning users based on their viewpoints. New York state recently looked into changing its antitrust laws to make it easier for it to sue tech companies.

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States may have an easier path to pass laws than Congress does, Mr. McGowan said, because many state governments have fairly short legislative sessions lasting a few weeks or months, meaning bills can swiftly make their way through committees and to votes.

Tech companies’ soaring growth and influence during the pandemic has raised urgency at the state level, according to

Robert Siegel,

a lecturer in management and a business-strategy researcher at Stanford University.

The biggest five companies—Amazon, Google, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft—all saw staggering growth in 2020, as stuck-at-home Americans and businesses turned to online shopping, software and cloud-computing services, smart devices and video streaming. Those companies’ combined revenue grew by a fifth, to $1.1 trillion, and their collective market capitalization soared to $8 trillion during the pandemic.

Given the stakes and what some view as the inevitability of more regulation, tech companies must play a more active role in influencing legislation, Mr. Siegel said. Facebook and Google are among tech companies now calling for federal rules on issues such as data privacy and artificial intelligence.

“Large technology companies have no choice but to engage,” Mr. Siegel said. “So much money has been made by these companies, and that has everyone gunning for them. They have a size and scale and reach that nobody has.”

Facebook Vice President of State and Local Policy

Will Castleberry

said the company “will continue to support bills that are good for consumers, but a patchwork approach to privacy doesn’t give the consistency or clarity that consumers or businesses need. That’s why we hope Congress will pass a national privacy law.”

Technology companies have stepped up legislative spending at different levels of government recently. Facebook and Amazon outspent all other U.S. companies in federal lobbying last year, The Wall Street Journal reported in January.

Facebook spent nearly $20 million, up about 18% from the previous year, while Amazon spent about $18 million last year, up about 11%. Apple disclosed $6.7 million in lobbying spending, down from a record $7.4 million in 2019, and Google also reported a drop, spending $7.5 million. Google and Facebook are facing multiple antitrust lawsuits, and Amazon and Apple have been the subject of preliminary inquiries that could advance further under the Biden administration.

States are also using courts to seek change. A Colorado-led coalition of attorneys general filed an antitrust suit against Google in December over its dominance in online search. Meanwhile, California is looking into how Amazon treats sellers in its online marketplace, and authorities in Connecticut are investigating how Amazon sells and distributes digital books.

Amazon declined to comment.

Write to Sebastian Herrera at Sebastian.Herrera@wsj.com and Dan Frosch at dan.frosch@wsj.com

Copyright ©2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

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World

Facebook’s Tussle With Australia Over News Is Just the Beginning

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Facebook Inc.’s

FB 2.12%

battle with publishers and regulators around the world over how the social-media giant handles news is far from finished after striking an agreement this week with the Australian government to pay for content.

The agreement Facebook reached Tuesday with Australia’s government to restore news content to its platform comes as political leaders elsewhere have pledged to increase scrutiny on tech giants, and as news outlets also plan to amp up pressure on the company to cut deals. The matter also raises questions about which publishers should get paid for news content and how much.

Facebook’s deal with Australia gives it a path to avoid required payments to publishers for news content, so long as the company works toward reaching agreements with publishers on its own accord.

“We appreciate the government has created flexibility to move forward making deals with publishers, while giving us 30 days’ notice before a designation,” said

Campbell Brown,

Facebook’s vice president of global news partnerships. If Facebook’s negotiations with individual Australian publishers fail to satisfy the government, the company could reimpose its news ban rather than be forced to comply with the new law’s terms for setting payments.

“I am hopeful there will not be a need for that step,” Ms. Brown said.

The compromise as envisioned would be an alternative to the voluntary payments that Facebook has made to “partner” news outlets for its News Tab product for mobile users in the U.S. and other countries.

The payments Facebook has made to date aren’t overly costly for the company, whose ad business drove it to a record $86 billion in revenue last year. News content accounts for only 4% of what people see in their main newsfeed, Facebook said when it announced that it would remove news from the platform in Australia last week.

Facebook blocked people in Australia from viewing or sharing news articles as lawmakers debated a bill to compel social-media companies to pay for content. The legislation is being watched globally and could offer a model for other countries. Photo: Josh Edelson/Getty Images

News publishers rely on the audience that Facebook and

Alphabet Inc.’s

Google deliver. In the hours after Facebook’s decision to shut off news sharing in Australia, news publishers in the country saw traffic from readers outside Australia decrease by about 20%, data from analytics firm Chartbeat showed.

Roughly 36% of Americans get their news from Facebook, according to a fall 2020 study from Pew Research, compared with 23% who get it from Alphabet’s YouTube and 15% from

Twitter.

If Facebook were to have to pay for news content on a global basis, the cost would be significant, said Cascend Securities analyst

Eric Ross.

“Margins disappear when you have to all of a sudden pay for things that were free,” he said.

“
There is finally a much greater appreciation of the value of credible journalism.
”


— USA Today Publisher Maribel Perez Wadsworth

The brouhaha between Facebook and Australia’s news providers comes as it and Google face antitrust lawsuits in the U.S. and regulatory scrutiny elsewhere. Australia and other countries seeking payment for news content on behalf of publishers argue that Facebook is abusing its market power by trying to minimize or avoid such expenses. A 2019 Australian report deemed the large platforms threatened upstart social-media companies as well as advertisers and the news industry at large.

Both Facebook and Google say that their platforms help journalism. As Facebook itself has noted, publishers world-wide already seek to maximize the attention their work receives on social media without any promise of compensation.

One U.S. news publisher said the Facebook dispute in Australia suggested the social-media company has renewed interest in paying publishers after being previously reluctant to do so.

“We’re at a tipping point,” said

Maribel Perez Wadsworth,

publisher of USA Today, the flagship title of

Gannett Co.

, the largest newspaper chain in the U.S. “There is finally a much greater appreciation of the value of credible journalism.”

USA Today participates in the Facebook news tab offering in the U.S. via a licensing agreement.

News Corp,

owner of The Wall Street Journal, has a commercial agreement to supply news through Facebook. Last week the company reached a three-year deal with Google to license content from its publication and produce new products for Google platforms.

Australia’s efforts could prompt nontraditional media, such as independent journalists who publish articles on writing platforms like Medium, to demand payments, said Bernstein analyst

Mark Shmulik.

“The concern is, what if we no longer draw a line at media conglomerates? … That’s a pathway Facebook doesn’t want to go down,” he said.

Earlier this month Australian officials talked with their counterparts from Canada, Germany, France and Finland about those countries making similar rules on tech platforms paying news publishers, said

Steven Guilbeault,

Canada’s minister in charge of cultural policy, adding that the coalition of countries could expand over time.

Mr. Guilbeault said he’s encouraged by developments in Australia, and intends to introduce measures this spring that have the support of its global allies and relevant stakeholders. On Monday Canadian Prime Minister

Justin Trudeau

spoke with his Australian counterpart,

Scott Morrison,

about potential cooperation in pursuing regulation of online platforms, according to a summary of the conversation released by Mr. Trudeau’s office.

”We need to find a solution that is sustainable for news publishers, small and large, digital platforms, and for the health of our democracy,” Mr. Guilbeault said.

The battle over payments to news outlets has simmered—and at times boiled over—in Europe for more than a decade. A new European Union copyright law passed in 2019 and the involvement of antitrust regulators have given news media fresh leverage by, among other things, creating new copyright control for press outlets over the use of their publications on the internet by tech companies, except in the case of very short extracts and hyperlinks.

In France, the only country that so far has so far implemented the EU law, Google last November signed licensing agreements for its News Showcase product with several publications, including Le Monde. The agreements came after a French court reaffirmed an order from the country’s antitrust regulator that Google must negotiate.

Google said it has signed News Showcase deals with more than 500 publications in a dozen countries, including Germany, the U.K. and Australia. Google last October pledged $1 billion over three years to such licensing deals, but declined to say Tuesday how much of that amount has been spent.

“We have hundreds of partnerships with news publishers large and small, making us one of the biggest funders of journalism,” a Google spokeswoman said.

Facebook said that publications’ posting of their articles to its platform constitutes a license under the French law, and remains unchanged. The company currently only shows links, rather than rich previews, when users post news articles from French publications themselves, unless the publication has given Facebook explicit permission.

A Facebook spokesman said the company is in talks in France and Germany to launch its Facebook News product, which pays to license articles from news outlets. The product launched last month in the U.K. with articles from publications including the Guardian.

Facebook has previously said it provided hundreds of millions of dollars to publications through its various tools for advertising and subscriptions.

—Sam Schechner and Paul Vieira contributed to this article.

Write to Jeff Horwitz at Jeff.Horwitz@wsj.com and Sarah E. Needleman at sarah.needleman@wsj.com

Corrections & Amplifications
Facebook generated a record $86 billion in revenue last year. An earlier version of this article incorrectly said Facebook generated $70.7 billion in revenue. (Corrected on Feb. 23)

Copyright ©2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

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Business

Apple, Tesla and Facebook ready to report record sales in busiest week of earnings

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U.S. companies have barely managed to eke out positive earnings growth so far in this quarterly results season, but the big test arrives in the week ahead.

Nearly a quarter of the S&P 500
SPX,
-0.30%
is set to report results, with those companies representing 39% of the index by market value, according to calculations based on FactSet data. Given that the S&P 500 is weighted by market capitalization, this roster of companies will have an outsize impact on the profit trajectory for the index.

Earnings are expected to decline for the fourth consecutive quarter once all results are in for the latest period, but those companies that have reported thus far have been beating expectations in aggregate.

The FactSet consensus now models a 5% earnings decline for the index, compared with the 6.3% drop projected a week ago. If profit growth for the S&P 500 ultimately ends up positive, it would mark an end to the current earnings recession, which takes place when corporate profits drop for two or more consecutive quarters.

Apple Inc.
AAPL,
+1.61%
and Facebook Inc.
FB,
+0.60%
are among the highlights of next week’s slate, along with Tesla Inc.
TSLA,
+0.20%,
which will deliver results for the first time since it became a member of the S&P 500. All three high-profile companies are scheduled to report Wednesday afternoon and expected to have produced record revenue in the holiday quarter.

The holiday quarter is always crucial for Apple, which releases new iPhones in the fall. With a slightly later launch than usual this year due to the pandemic pushing sales into the period, Apple is widely expected to post its largest quarterly revenue total ever and its first ever total above $100 billion. The technology giant likely also continued to see benefits from remote-work and remote-schooling trends, which have driven strong iPad and Mac sales throughout the COVID-19 crisis.

Full preview: Get ready for Apple’s first $100 billion quarter in history

Facebook is also expected to post what should easily be a record quarter given strong digital advertising trends during the holiday period. Still, the company will face questions about user engagement and a decision to ban Donald Trump from the platform indefinitely over his role in inciting the violent riot at the U.S. Capitol. Bernstein analyst Mark Shmulik points to “continued usage fatigue” across social media as well as a “conversation skewed towards unmonetizable political events.”

Full preview: Facebook earnings still flourishing amid pandemic, economic slowdown and antitrust scrutiny

Tesla already disclosed delivery numbers for the full year that came in ahead of analyst expectations, and all eyes will be on the company’s outlook for 2021. RBC Capital Markets analyst Joseph Spak anticipates a delivery forecast of 825,000 to 875,000 million units for the full year, even though Chief Executive Elon Musk said on Tesla’s last earnings call that an analyst was “not far off” for expecting 840,000 to a million deliveries during 2021.

Full preview: Can Tesla’s sales growth match stock’s rise?

Here’s what else to watch for in the week ahead, which brings reports from 117 members of the S&P 500 and 13 Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA,
-0.57%
components.

Up in the air

Boeing Co.’s
BA,
-0.76%
journey remains turbulent even as the company’s 737-MAX jets were recertified after being grounded for almost two years. Though the company began deliveries of these aircraft, “the pace of delivering all 450 parked 737-MAX will be dictated by airline customers ability to absorb aircraft as well as air traffic demand,” according to Benchmark Company analyst Josh Sullivan.

Boeing’s Wednesday morning report will offer perspective on the company’s recovery expectations amid the pandemic, though Sullivan sees volatility ahead stemming from a recent equity offering and the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on airlines.

The fourth-quarter reports from U.S. airlines have been bleak so far, and American Airlines Group Inc.
AAL,
-0.06%
and Southwest Airlines Co.
LUV,
-0.80%
offer more on Thursday morning.

Can you hear me now?

Verizon Communications Inc.
VZ,
+0.35%
leads off a busy week of telecommunications earnings Tuesday morning, followed by AT&T Inc.
T,
+0.35%
Wednesday morning and Comcast Corp.
CMCSA,
-0.92%
Thursday morning.

For the wireless carriers, a key issue will be the impact of iPhone 12 promotions on recent results. Investors will also be looking for information about a recent wireless auction offering spectrum that will be crucial for 5G network deployments. Though the bids haven’t been made public yet, the auction drove record spending and AT&T and Verizon are both expected to have paid up handsomely to assert their standing. The question for investors is what impact these bids will have on the companies’ financial positioning.

Full preview: AT&T earnings to kick off a defining year for telecom giant

AT&T and Comcast have more media exposure than Verizon, and those two companies have been trying to contend with the new realities brought on by the pandemic. Both companies have made moves to emphasize streaming more with their film slates given theater closures, and the financial implications of these moves will be worth watching.

Paying up

The evolving situation with the pandemic is reflected perhaps no more clearly than in the results of Visa Inc.
V,
-1.52%,
Mastercard Inc.
MA,
-1.63%,
and American Express Co.
AXP,
-1.01%,
which have a pulse on the global consumer spending landscape. The companies should provide insight on a travel recovery toward the end of the year, as well as the impact of recent lockdowns.

Susquehanna analyst James Friedman wrote recently that his Mastercard revenue projection of $3.97 billion is slightly below the consensus view, though he also asked: “does anyone really care about Q4 2020?” Friedman is upbeat about mobile-payments and online-shopping dynamics that suggest “positive trends ahead” for Mastercard, which reports Thursday morning. Visa follows that afternoon, while American Express kicks of the week with its Tuesday morning report.

The chip saga continues

Advanced Micro Devices Inc.
AMD,
+1.38%
is poised to keep benefiting from Intel Corp.’s
INTC,
-9.29%
stumbles, which analysts expect to last for some time even as Intel prepares for a new, technology-oriented chief executive to take the helm.

“We have low confidence that Intel will be able to close that transistor gap quickly, and therefore expect it to continue to lose share for the foreseeable future,” Jefferies analyst Mark Lipacis wrote after Intel’s latest earnings report. AMD will show how that dynamic has played out on its side of the equation when it posts numbers Tuesday afternoon.

Full preview: If Intel gets its act together, can AMD maintain swollen valuation?

Other chip makers reporting in the week ahead include Texas Instruments Inc.
TXN,
-1.31%
on Tuesday afternoon; Xilinx Inc.
XLNX,
+1.26%,
which is in line to be acquired by AMD, on Wednesday afternoon report, when it will be joined by chip-equipment maker Lam Research Corp.
LRCX,
-0.06%
; and Western Digital Corp.
WDC,
-5.23%
on Thursday afternoon.

Busy week for the Dow

Among the 13 members of the Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA,
-0.57%
set to report this week are 3M Co
MMM,
-0.96%.
, Johnson & Johnson
JNJ,
+1.13%,
American Express, Verizon, and Microsoft Corp.
MSFT,
+0.44%,
all of which report Tuesday.

“Near term, we see the company’s COVID-19 vaccine readout as a key upcoming catalyst and believe efficacy in the 80%+ range would suggest a clear role for the product in the market,” J.P. Morgan analyst Chris Schott wrote of Johnson & Johnson.

Cowen & Co. analyst J. Derrick Wood sees tough comparisons for Microsoft especially in its Azure and server businesses, though he expects a more favorable situation going forward.

Full preview: SolarWinds hack may actually be a good thing for Microsoft

Wednesday brings results from Boeing and Apple, while Thursday features McDonald’s Corp.
MCD,
-0.07%,
Dow Inc.
DOW,
-0.10%,
and Visa. Honeywell International Inc.
HON,
-1.45%,
Chevron Corp.
CVX,
-0.30%,
and Caterpillar Inc.
CAT,
-0.13%
round out the week Friday morning.

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