Businesses are reporting their first-quarter earnings and the effect of the pandemic can be felt around the world. While the vast majority of the businesses are hurting, technology companies seem to be raking it in. We are not only talking about massive companies like Microsoft, Google, Apple, Salesforce, and Slack but newer competitors like Zoom and gaming companies as well.
People are stuck in their homes and are consuming more content than at any time before. Xbox and Playstation are reporting a massive increase in sales numbers, websites such as Lottoland which sell lottery tickets around the world is seeing a surge in new users, and collaborative experiences start-ups are literally springing out of everywhere.
Is this a pandemic only phenomenon or is this event going to cause a permanent shift in our behavior patterns around the world?
COVID-19 Acceleration
A lot of technology watchers around the world believe that the pandemic has just accelerated a lot of trends that we have been witnessing lately. The rise of e-sports and tournaments has been going on for quite some time now. Suddenly, though, a lot many more people have the time to try it out. There is also a lack of options which has pushed them to try out something that may be seen as unconventional.
Meetings and businesses have been moving online for a very long time now. It was the original way to cut costs and make businesses leaner, however, the change was slow. Now that no one can go anywhere, people are innovating at a faster pace and learning to work within the new parameters.
There are a lot of companies around the world that have already said that they are never going to bring back their full workforce into the office. Their efficiency is almost the same and the reduced cost of office space is a big bonus.
Online casinos and lotteries have been around for a very long time. In fact, this was one of the first industries to be able to replicate the entire experience of playing in a casino online. When the pandemic hit, online casinos were already in a perfect place to be able to react to the new customers. The sportsbooks would have been hit hard because the games were not being played but people found that they could enjoy casinos, virtual sports, and bet on them just like they had been betting on traditional love sports.
These are changes that are not going to be undone just because the pandemic is gong away.
What happens when things start to get back to normal?
We dont know when things will get back to normal. The most positive estimates say that it could be a few months from now while the negative estimates say that 2021 is not going to be very different. The longer the world remains affected by the pandemic, the longer people are going to get to change their lives around the technology/virtual replacements, and the more permanent those changes are going to be.
We think the world has been changed forever by the pandemic and technology companies are going to emerge as the biggest winners of this shakeup.