Tag: Italy

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Pasta, Wine and Inflatable Pools: How Amazon Conquered Italy in the Pandemic

NAPLES, Italy — Ludovica Tomaciello had never shopped on Amazon before being trapped at her parents’ house in March during Italy’s coronavirus lockdown. Bored one afternoon scrolling TikTok, she spotted hair scrunchies that she then tracked down and ordered on Amazon.

When the package arrived, she was hooked. She soon signed up for Amazon Prime and turned to the site to buy a tapestry and neon lights to decorate her bedroom; halter tops, jeans and magenta Air Jordan sneakers; and a remote to wirelessly take selfies for Instagram.

“My mom was like, ‘Can you stop this?’” Ms. Tomaciello, 19, who is pursuing a language degree, said while at a cafe near her home in Avellino, about 20 miles east of Naples. When stores reopened in May, Amazon remained her preferred way to shop because of the convenience, selection and prices, she said. One friend even asked her to use it to discreetly order a pregnancy test.

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Credit…Gianni Cipriano for The New York Times

Amazon has been one of the biggest winners in the pandemic as people in its most established markets — the United States, Germany and Britain — have flocked to it to buy everything from toilet paper to board games. What has been less noticed is that people in countries that had traditionally resisted the e-commerce giant are now also falling into its grasp after retail stores shut down for months because of the coronavirus.

The shift has been particularly pronounced in Italy, which was one of the first countries hard hit by the virus. Italians have traditionally preferred to shop in stores and pay cash. But after the government imposed Europe’s first nationwide virus lockdown, Italians began buying items online in record numbers.

Even now, as Italy has done better than most places to turn the tide on the virus and people return to stores, the behavioral shift toward e-commerce has not halted. People are using Amazon to buy staples like wine and ham, as well as web cameras, printer cartridges and fitness bands. At one point, orders of inflatable swimming pools through the site were so backlogged that some customers complained.

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Credit…Gianni Cipriano for The New York Times

“The change is real, the change is deep, and the change is here to stay,” said David Parma, who has conducted surveys about shifting consumer behavior in Italy for Ipsos in Milan. “Amazon is the biggest winner.”

North America is Amazon’s largest market, accounting for about two-thirds of its $245.5 billion global consumer business. But the Seattle-based company has been targeting Europe and other new markets to grow.

Amazon entered Italy in 2010; its first sale in the country was a children’s book. But the company had only muted success over the next decade. Fewer than 40 percent of Italians shopped online last year, compared with 87 percent in Britain and 79 percent in Germany, according to Eurostat, a European Union government statistics group.

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Credit…Gianni Cipriano for The New York Times

Amazon was hampered in Italy by a lack of widespread broadband and poor roads for delivering packages, especially in the south. Italy has the oldest population in Europe, and many people are also wary of providing their financial details online. E-commerce accounts for only 8 percent of retail spending in the country.

“There were some structural issues that we had to face,” said Mariangela Marseglia, Amazon’s country manager for Italy. “Unfortunately, our country was and still is one of those where technological understanding and tech culture is low.”

The turning point was the pandemic. Mr. Parma said 75 percent of Italians shopped online during the lockdown. Total online sales are estimated to grow 26 percent to a record 22.7 billion euros this year, according to researchers from Polytechnic University of Milan. Netcomm, an Italian retail consortium, called it a “10-year evolutionary leap,” with more than two million Italians trying e-commerce for the first time between January and May.

Hurdles remain for Amazon. Small and midsize businesses are an integral part of Italian society. They make up roughly 67 percent of the economy, excluding finance, and about 78 percent of employment, which are higher than E.U. averages, according to E.U. statistics.

In Gragnano, a hilltop town near the Amalfi Coast with a 500-year history of pasta manufacturing, Ciro Moccia, the owner of La Fabbrica della Pasta, said Amazon was a “dangerous” monopoly that could destroy businesses like his that rely on conveying the quality of a product.

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Credit…Gianni Cipriano for The New York Times
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Credit…Gianni Cipriano for The New York Times

But during the lockdown, his company had no choice but to sell on Amazon after many stores shut. Standing above the family’s factory recently, where semolina flour was mixed with spring water and pressed into 140 different pasta shapes, Mr. Moccia said, “I am very worried.”

His son, Mario, 24, who tried for years to get his father to sell more online, said he saw it as an opportunity.

“If you are not on Amazon, you don’t have the same visibility,” he said.

Amazon’s success has drawn scrutiny. Unions have also criticized Amazon’s labor practices, including staging a multiday strike in March over virus-related safety policies. Italian regulators are investigating it for price gouging during the pandemic. In 2017, Amazon agreed to pay €100 million, or roughly $118 million, to settle a government tax dispute.

Ms. Marseglia said Amazon was “a lifeline for customers” in the pandemic and provided a new way for businesses to reach people online.

Amazon has rushed to keep up with demand. It plans to open two new fulfillment centers and seven delivery stations in Italy. It also is aiming to hire roughly 1,600 more people by the end of the year, pushing its full-time work force to 8,500 from fewer than 200 in 2011.

“We are accelerating the rhythm with which we make investments and hire new people,” said Ms. Marseglia, who is originally from Puglia in southern Italy.

With unemployment about 9 percent nationwide — and closer to 20 percent in areas of southern Italy — many are eager for Amazon to expand.

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Credit…Gianni Cipriano for The New York Times
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Credit…Gianni Cipriano for The New York Times

When Francesca Gemma graduated from college in 2016, Amazon was the only company hiring in her area. She now works at an Amazon fulfillment center picking hundreds of products from the shelves every hour so the goods can be shipped to customers.

“On the first day, the muscles of my legs felt like I had done a marathon — I couldn’t climb up the stairs,” she said. “It’s not for everyone, but it’s a job.”

Ms. Gemma, who is also a representative for Cgil, a national labor union, inside the center, said orders had skyrocketed during the lockdown and remained high. But she said that besides some bonuses she received at the peak of the emergency, Amazon did not provide warehouse staff much else to share in its success.

“Nothing remained for workers,” Ms. Gemma said, adding that her work has become more monotonous because of the enforcement of the sanitary protocols.

Amazon said it paid higher-than-average wages for warehouse work.

Amazon has made an effort to win over Italians. Parents are encouraged to shop on its website through a program that can steer a percentage of their purchases to their children’s school.

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Credit…Gianni Cipriano for The New York Times

In Calitri, a village of 4,000 people in southern Italy, Amazon sponsored a Christmas festival last year as part of a marketing campaign to show it could reach even the most isolated areas. It paid for a Christmas tree in the town square and provided gifts to children. The mayor hoped it would lead more artisans and farmers to sell through the site.

But Luciano Capossela, a jeweler in Calitri, helped organize a protest of the Christmas festival with other shop owners, who closed their stores for the night and blacked out their windows.

He has watched as the community has embraced Amazon. One customer recently texted him a screenshot of a wristwatch for sale on Amazon, asking if Mr. Capossela could match the price. When he said the Amazon price was lower than what he could get from a distributor, the customer never replied.

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Credit…Gianni Cipriano for The New York Times
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Credit…Gianni Cipriano for The New York Times

“If we keep going this way in 10 to 15 years, we will only have Amazon and everything else will no longer exist,” Mr. Capossela said. In an area where depopulation is so bad that some property is for sale for just 1 euro, he said last year’s protest was meant as a warning: “A village with couriers and without shops.”

He pulled up a picture on his phone taken the morning after the Amazon festival. It showed that the Christmas tree had blown over in a storm.

“It was God’s will,” he said.

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The Artisans Behind Italian Fashion Tremble at Their Future

Until recently, some of most intricately embroidered fabrics in the world, like those found in garments designed by Giorgio Armani, Valentino, Etro and Prada, have come out of a duplex apartment complex in Milan, the home of a small business called Pino Grasso Ricami.

Under the watchful eye of Mr. Grasso and his daughter, Raffaella Grasso, several designers and 10 seamstresses created lavish fabrics emblazoned with impossibly detailed crochet stitching, beading and lace.

That came to a crashing halt at the end of February as the coronavirus took hold in Italy. “One by one, the brands all closed their doors. The phone stopped ringing,” Ms. Grasso said. “Suddenly, everything stopped.”

Almost three months later, the lockdown has started to ease, and the skilled seamstresses with decades of experience in their hands have returned. But so far, the work hasn’t. Orders from clients are down 80 percent.

“Nobody wants to spend money right now,” Ms. Grasso said. “Especially because we are expensive relative to rivals in countries like India. We will fight, of course, but it is going to be a struggle for businesses like ours to survive.”

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Credit…Federico Ciamei for The New York Times

Italy’s 165 billion euro ($180 billion) fashion industry is known to the world for its glamorous brands, but it is built on a vast and tightly woven network of designers, manufacturers, distributors and retailers, large and small, that help make up the backbone of Europe’s fourth-largest economy. For these companies, for this style of doing business, the future has never looked more uncertain.

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Credit…Federico Ciamei for The New York Times
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Credit…Federico Ciamei for The New York Times
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Credit…Federico Ciamei for The New York Times

Production of fashion collections have been either delayed or scrapped by large global fashion retailers and luxury brands. With the July couture shows in Paris canceled, and a cloud of uncertainty hanging over the fashion weeks in September, many specialist workshops like Pino Grasso remain in limbo.

Italy’s fashion manufacturing sector is expected to contract by up to 40 percent this year, said Claudia D’Arpizio, a partner at the consulting firm Bain & Company.

“It is a very worrying situation,” she said, adding that beyond luxury artisans was a vast ecosystem of export-orientated factories producing everything from metal hardware for accessories to rubber footwear soles.

“The big brands are enduring tough times but generally have some liquidity and a strong consumer profile,” Ms. D’Arpizio added. “However, they all have networks of small suppliers scattered all over Italy. Those are the businesses more likely to disappear.”

More than 40 percent of global luxury goods production takes place in Italy, according to the consulting firm McKinsey, with the “Made in Italy” label a source of passionate national pride (despite controversies in recent years).

But while the government has pledged €740 billion in loans, grants or payroll support to keep the national economy afloat, many small-business owners say red tape is holding up the assistance.

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Credit…Marta Giaccone for The New York Times

In the fashion sector, this has increased pressure on larger companies to offer support for smaller suppliers. The big brands, though, say they must also manage their own operations amid plummeting sales.

“This has been one of the toughest periods in our company’s history,” said the chief executive of Prada, Patrizio Bertelli. The company had to close most of its stores worldwide, and has begun to reopen manufacturing sites, some of which were used to make personal protective equipment.

Salvatore Ferragamo, which financed the refurbishment of two hospital wards in Florence and donated 50,000 units of hand sanitizer, shut down its global store network, and a 30 percent slump in sales in the first quarter prompted lease renegotiations with its landlords.

Ferragamo’s chief executive, Micaela Le Divelec Lemmi, said the company must find a way to phase in the fall collections to stores while dealing with high levels of unsold 2020 inventory — and support its suppliers by making prompt payments and restoring production as quickly as possible. It is, she said, a constant balancing act.

Ms. D’Arpizio of Bain said she expected a flurry of acquisitions by brands to help suppliers in distress, possibly saving jobs in a struggling communities and even strengthening the national luxury sector for the longer term.

But for now, these smaller companies have had to make heavy investments to meet government-mandated protections as workers return to their stations.

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Credit…Anna Catalano/Prada

Bonotto, for example, makes two million meters of fabric per year for clients such as Chanel, Gucci and Louis Vuitton. When the 200 workers returned two weeks ago to the factory, near Vicenza, the space had been fully sanitized, with masks and gloves for workers, staggered entrance and exit times, and strict social distancing measures.

“We want to get back stronger than ever, despite the fact we have received many cancellations for orders in recent weeks,” said Giovanni Bonotto, the creative director.

Other firms voiced similar concerns.

Sara Giusti, one of three sisters who run AGL, a women’s footwear brand that the family has owned for three generations, said the company had been relatively lucky: Most of its spring and summer orders had been shipped to retailers before the shutdown. The factory, in the hills of Marche overlooking the Adriatic, now has a health-monitoring system that’s like “another world,” Ms. Giusti said.

But between honoring orders made with suppliers, investing in the safety of AGL’s 110 employees and dealing with the cancellation of orders for fall collections, business is tough.

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Credit…Gavasso Marco/Bonotto

“In companies like ours, your workers are like family — some of them have known you since you were knee high — so you want to do everything in your power to protect them,” Ms. Giusti said. “But my greatest fear is if there was a second wave of infections and we had to completely close once more.”

“We managed to reopen this time,” she added. “I don’t know if we could do it again.”

Italy’s fashion retailers, too, are slowly reopening after a brutal spring season, when sales fell as much as 70 percent, according to McKinsey.

With tourist travel likely to be decimated this summer, and many locals tightening their purse strings, many shops could be forced to offer steep discounts or close for good.

Carla Sozzani, founder of the famed Milanese store 10 Corso Como, has spent weeks reconfiguring its layout (which includes a restaurant) to accommodate social distancing, and negotiating with the brands she stocked “on a case-by-case basis.”

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Credit…Federico Ciamei for The New York Times

One silver lining was that Italy’s starting date for summer sales has been postponed about a month, to Aug. 1, so retailers can try to recoup the two months of earnings that the lockdown cost them.

Still, Ms. Sozzani was unsure what to expect when shoppers return.

“I don’t know if people will just run out and buy three jackets or dresses anymore after being in lockdown for so long,” she said. “I think many people feel quite traumatized, and their priorities might have changed.”

Longer term, Ms. Sozzani added, there needs to be a re-evaluation of the seasonality and cycles that had already driven the industry near a breaking point.

“There were too many trends, too many collections, too many fashion weeks,” she continued. “Perhaps this crisis will create a new consciousness, a focus on moderation and better quality.”

The Italian fashion industry was already reassessing its social and environmental footprint before the pandemic. But the crisis has accelerated a shift in the balance of power away from the midsize independent luxury brands on which Italy had built its reputation and toward French conglomerates like Kering and LVMH, which have better financial resources and more flexibility across global supply chains.

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Credit…Federico Ciamei for The New York Times

For Ms. Grasso and her family embroidery atelier in Milan, the situation remains precarious. Although she has received some state support, orders have only trickled in. Her team had even considered starting its own dressmaking service, though that would require yet more money that it just did not have.

“We are tentatively making new sketches and swatches, but we don’t know yet what fashion designers are planning for the seasons. Will they be bright and hopeful, or somber?” Ms. Grasso said. “We cannot predict the future. All we can do is hope and wait.”

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European Slump Is Worst Since World War II, Reports Show

FRANKFURT — Europe is in the midst of a downturn not seen since the end of World War II, and the worst is yet to come, the president of the European Central Bank said Thursday after the release of a barrage of dismal economic data.

“The euro area is facing an economic contraction of a magnitude and speed that are unprecedented in peacetime,” Christine Lagarde, the president of the central bank, said as she warned that the eurozone economy could shrink by as much as 12 percent this year.

In a bid to prevent another financial crisis, the bank’s Governing Council decided Thursday to effectively pay banks to lend money and vowed to do whatever was necessary to counteract the economic impact of the coronavirus.

Ms. Lagarde’s stark assessment of the economic impact of the coronavirus came after the European Union’s statistics agency estimated that economic output in the eurozone fell 3.8 percent in the first three months of the year, the region’s worst performance since the common currency was introduced in 1999.

The French economy declined by 5.8 percent, Spain’s by 5.2 percent and Italy’s by 4.7 percent, their steepest downturns in the postwar period.

Under certain conditions the central bank will allow commercial banks in the eurozone to borrow at a rate of minus 1 percent provided the money is passed on to businesses and consumers. The negative interest rate means that banks could borrow up to 3 trillion euros, or $3.3 trillion, without having to pay all of the money back.

In a statement Thursday, the central bank also said that it was prepared to further increase its purchases of government and corporate bonds, a form of money printing intended to keep market interest rates low and make it easier for businesses and consumers to get credit.

The central bank had previously earmarked more than €1 trillion, or $1.1 trillion, for asset purchases. But the bank said Thursday it was prepared to raise that sum “as much as necessary and for as long as needed.”

“We are fully flexible and we will look at all options,” Ms. Lagarde said.

As bad as the data published Thursday looked, the next quarter could be even worse. Lockdowns did not begin until March, near the end of the three-month period covered by the report.

Unemployment in the eurozone rose only modestly in March, to 7.4 percent from 7.3 percent in February, interrupting a jobs recovery that had been underway since the low point of the eurozone debt crisis in 2013.

In France, Germany and many other countries, millions of employees are on government-subsidized furloughs and do not count as unemployed. But the jobless rate is almost certain to rise further as airlines, carmakers and other large corporations begin to lay off workers in reaction to plunging sales.

Inflation in the eurozone fell to an annualized rate of 0.4 percent in April from 0.7 percent in March as oil prices plunged. The rate is the lowest since 2016. However, prices for food, alcohol and tobacco surged.

Ms. Lagarde declined to speculate on whether the eurozone was in danger of slipping into deflation, a ruinous downward spiral of prices and demand.

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An estimated 330m people, 15% of the 9MM population, face risk of severe COVID-19, says GlobalData

Following the recent news that the coronavirus (COVID-19) has now spread across 176 countries with approximately 530,000 total confirmed cases worldwide as of 27.03.20;

Katie Wrenn, Associate Epidemiologists at GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company, offers her view on the current challenges facing the 9MM:

“We now know that severe and critical …

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Migrant Farmworkers Whose Harvests Feed Europe Are Blocked at Borders

PARIS — When Europe tightened its borders to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, France’s biggest farmers sounded an alarm: The workers they rely on from other countries to harvest much of the nation’s food could no longer make the trip.The concern is widespread. In Britain, farmers are …

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Airbnb to provide free or subsidized housing for 100,000 COVID-19 healthcare workers

The hospitality and travel industry may be reeling, but Airbnb is still doing what it can to support the global effort to fight the spread of the coronavirus causing a worldwide pandemic. The company announced today that it will provide “free or subsidized housing” for 100,000 people working as frontline healthcare, …

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Europe Pledges Billions in Economic Aid in Rare Sign of Unity

In an unusual show of unity and resolve, European leaders said they would spend hundreds of billions of euros to prevent the coronavirus outbreak from provoking a deep recession or financial crisis.Nearly simultaneous announcements by leaders in Berlin, Brussels, Paris and other capitals contrasted with the bickering and finger-pointing …

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Glovo exits the Middle East and drops two LatAm markets in latest food delivery crunch

The new year isn’t even a month old and the food delivery crunch is already taking big bites. Spain’s Glovo has today announced it’s exiting four markets — which it says is part of a goal of pushing for profitability by 2021.

Also today, Uber confirmed rumors late last year by announcing it’s offloading its Indian Eats business to local rival Zomato — which will see it take a 9.99% stake in the Indian startup.

In other recent news Latin America focused on-demand delivery app Rappi announced 6% staff layoffs.

On-demand food delivery apps may be great at filling the bellies of hungry consumers fast but startups in this space have yet to figure out how to deliver push-button convenience without haemorrhaging money at scale.

So the question even some investors are asking is how they can make their model profitable?

Middle East exit

The four markets Glovo is leaving are Turkey, Egypt, Uruguay and Puerto Rico.

The exits mean its app footprint is shrinking to 22 markets, still with a focus on South America, South West Europe, and Eastern Europe and Africa.

Interestingly, Glovo is here essentially saying goodbye to the Middle East — despite its recent late stage financing round being led by Abu Dhabi state investment company, Mubadala. (It told us last month that regional expansion was not part of Mubadala’s investment thesis.)

Commenting on the exits in a statement, Glovo co-founder and CEO, Oscar Pierre, said: “This has been a very tough decision to take but our strategy has always been to focus on markets where we can grow and establish ourselves among the top two delivery players while providing a first-class user experience and value for our Glovers, customers and partners.”

Last month Pierre told us the Middle East looks too competitive for Glovo to expand further.

In the event it’s opted for a full exit — given both Egypt and Turkey are being dropped (despite the latter being touted as one of Glovo’s fastest growing markets just over a year ago, at the time of its Series D).

“Leaving these four markets will help us to further strengthen our leadership position in South West and Eastern Europe, LatAm and other African markets, and reach our profitability targets by early 2021,” Pierre added.

Glovo said its app will continue to function in the four markets “for a few weeks” after today — adding that it’s offering “support and advice to couriers, customers and partners throughout this transition”.

“I want to place on record our thanks to all of our Glovers, customers and partners in the markets from which we’re withdrawing for their hard work, dedication, commitment and ongoing support,” Pierre added.

The exits sum to Glovo withdrawing from eight out of a total 306 cities.

It also said the eight cities collectively generated 1.7% of its gross sales in 2019 — so it’s signalling the move doesn’t amount to a major revenue hit.

The startup disclosed a $166M Series E raise last month — which pushed the business past a unicorn valuation. Pierre told us then that the new financing would be used to achieve profitability “as early as 2021”, foreshadowing today’s announcement of a clutch of market exits.

Glovo has said its goal is to become the leading or second delivery platform in all the markets where it operates — underlining the challenges of turning a profit in such a hyper competitive, thin margin space which also involves major logistical complexities with so many moving parts (and people) involved in each transaction.

As food delivery players reconfigure their regional footprints — via market exits and consolidation — better financed platforms will be hoping they’ll be left standing with a profitable business to shout about (and the chance to grow again by gobbling up less profitable rivals or else be consumed themselves). So something of a new race is on.

Back in November in an on-stage interview at TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin, Uber Eats and Glovo discussed the challenges of turning a profit — with Glovo co-founder Sacha Michaud telling us he expects further consolidation in the on-demand delivery space. (Though the pair claimed there had been no acquisition talks between Uber and Glovo.)

Michaud said then that Glovo is profitable on a per unit economics basis in “some countries” — but admitted it “varies a lot country by country”.

Spain and Southern Europe are the best markets for Glovo, he also told us, confirming it generates operating profit there. “Latin America will become operation profitable next year,” he predicted.

Glovo’s exit from Egypt actually marks the end of a second act in the market.

The startup first announced it was pulling the plug on Egypt in April 2019 — but returned last summer, at the behest of its investor Delivery Hero (a rival food delivery startup which has a stake in Glovo), according to Michaud’s explanation on stage.

However there was also an intervention by Egypt’s competition watchdog. And local press reported the watchdog had ordered Glovo to resume operations — accusing it and its investor of colluding to restrict competition in the market (Delivery Hero having previously acquired Egyptian food delivery rival, Otlob).

What the watchdog makes of today’s announcement of a final bow out could thus be an interesting wrinkle.

Asked about Egypt, a Glovo spokesperson told us: “Egypt has been a very complex market for us, we were sad to leave the first time and excited to return when we did so last summer. However, our strategy has always been to be among the top two delivery players in every market we enter and have a clear path to profitability. Unfortunately, in Egypt there is not a clear path to profitability.”

Whither profitability?

So what does a clear path to profitability in the on-demand delivery space look like?

Market maturity/density appears to be key, with Glovo only operating in one city apiece in the other two markets it’s leaving, Uruguay and Puerto Rico, for example — compared to hundreds across its best markets, Spain and Italy, where it says it’s operating out of the red.

This suggests that other markets in South America — where Glovo similarly has just a toe-hold, of a single or handful of cities, and less time on the ground, such as Honduras or Panama — could be vulnerable to further future exits as the company reconfigures to try to hit full profitability in just around a year’s time.

But there are likely lots of factors involved in making the unit economics stack up so it’s tricky to predict.

Food delivered on-demand makes up the majority of Glovo’s orders per market but its app also touts being able to deliver ‘anything’ — from groceries to pharmaceuticals to the house keys you left at home — which it claims as a differentiating factor vs rival food-delivery-only apps.

A degree of variety also looks to be a key ingredient in becoming a sustainable on-demand delivery business — as scale and cross selling appear to where the unit economics can work.

Groceries are certainly a growing focus for Glovo which has been investing in setting up networks of dark supermarkets to support fast delivery of convenience style groceries as well as ready-to-eat food — thereby expanding opportunities for cross-selling to its convenience-loving food junkies at the point of appetite-driven (but likely loss-making) lunch and dinner orders.

Last year Michaud told us that market “maturity” supports profitability. “At the end of the day the more orders we have the better the whole ecosystem works,” he said.

While Uber Eats’ general manager for Northern and Eastern Europe, Charity Safford, also pointed to “scale” as the secret sauce for still elusive profits.

“Where we start to see more and more trips happening this is definitely where we see the unit economics improving — so our job is really to figure out all of the use cases we can put into people’s hands to get that application used as much as possible,” she said.

It’s instructive that Uber is shifting towards a ‘superapp’ model — revealing its intent last year to fold previously separate lines of business, such as rides and Eats, into a single one-stop-shop app which it began rolling out last year. So it’s also able to deliver or serve an increasing number of things (and/or services).

The tech giant has also been testing subscription passes which combine access to a range of its offerings under one regular payment.

In some markets Glovo also has a ‘Prime’ monthly subscription, offering unlimited deliveries of anything its couriers can bike to your door, for a fixed monthly cost — which it launched back in 2018.

When it comes to the quest for on-demand profitability all roads seem to lead to trying to become the bit of Amazon’s business that Amazon hasn’t already built out and swiped.

Source: TechCrunch

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Graft versus host disease diagnosed incident cases set to reach 22,500 in 2028

The burden of diagnosed graft versus host disease (GvHD) is expected to increase at an annual growth rate (AGR) of 2.18% from around 18,000 cases in 2018 to 22,500 cases in 2028 in the seven major markets (7MM*), according to GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

GlobalData’s latest report, ‘Graft Versus Host Disease: Epidemiology Forecast to 2028’, reveals that the increase is partly attributed to the rising trend in transplantation in the 7MM, combined with underlying demographic changes in the respective markets.

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IMAGE FOR PUBLICATION: Please click here for enlarged chart

In the 7MM, both acute GvHD (aGvHD) and chronic GvHD (cGvHD) cases are expected to rise in the forecast period from 2018 to 2028.

Bishal Bhandari, Senior Epidemiologist at GlobalData, comments: “GlobalData’s research shows that cases of aGvHD and cGvHD are growing steadily in the 7MM. The incidence of both aGvHD and cGvHD is directly dependent on the contribution of transplant practice-related factors, including donor-recipient parity, graft source, donor source, age, and GvHD prophylaxis. As the transplant cases will continue to rise, we expect aGvHD and cGvHD cases to rise as well in the near future.”

In the 7MM, according to GlobalData, the majority of diagnosed incident cases of aGvHD were in grade II and fewer than 3% of cases were in grade IV in 2018. For severity of cGvHD cases, more than 80% of the cases were moderate or severe in 2018.

Bhandari concludes: “It is a promising development that the majority of aGvHD cases are now diagnosed at an earlier grade which would respond better to therapy to get the aGvHD under control.

“The majority of cGvHD cases were in moderate and severe grades suggesting that the threat of morbidity and mortality is high and targeted therapy is needed to control the more severe form of cGvHD cases.”

*7MM: The US, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the UK, and Japan

Source: GlobalData