While streaming is the music industry's cash cow these days, CDs aren’t dead yet. According to the Recording Industry Association of America's annual sales report, revenue from CDs grew by 21 percent to $584 million in 2021. That marked the first annual increase in CD revenue in the US since 2004. The RIAA notes that many record stores opened back up and artists sold music at shows again after COVID-19 put everything on hold in 2020.

As has been the case for the last 15 years, vinyl sales are continuing to grow too. Revenue rose by a whopping 61 percent in 2021 to $1 billion. It's the first time vinyl sales have reached that milestone since 1986. Including other formats, physical music sales totaled $1.66 billion in the US last year.

The RIAA notes that the only major recorded music format to see a revenue decline last year was digital downloads. Sales dropped by 12 percent to $587 million — only $3 million more than CD revenue for 2021.

Streaming revenue, unsurprisingly, is still soaring. Including platforms like digital radio, total revenue rose by 23.8 percent to $12.4 billion last year. Paid subscriptions accounted for $9.5 billion of that (an increase of 23 percent from 2020). The RIAA said the number of paid subscriptions jumped up by 11 percent to 84 million on average. Figures can vary throughout the year as people cancel and sign up for memberships.

Even though artists have long been demanding higher per-play payouts from platforms, streaming is easily the most important moneymaker for the music industry, accounting for 83 percent of overall revenue. Despite that, the rise in physical media sales is encouraging for fans of that format, and should give artists some assurances they can still make money by selling CDs. Record stores are going to stick around for a while yet.

Bumble has joined a growing list of American companies pulling out of Russia amid the country’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine. On Tuesday, the company announced it was discontinuing operations in Russia and removing its family of dating apps from the Apple and Google app stores in Russia and Belarus.

What’s notable about Bumble’s announcement is that the company details how the decision will affect its business. In addition to Bumble, it owns and operates two other dating apps, Badoo and Fruitz. Those two are popular in Europe and they’re where Bumble anticipates it will see the most impact from its decision.

In 2021, approximately 2.8 percent of Badoo’s revenue came from Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. By contrast, users from those three countries contributed to less than 0.1 percent of the revenue Bumble earned through its main app that same year. The company anticipates it will lose about $20 million in fiscal 2022 due to the conflict. To put that in perspective, the company recorded $208.2 million in revenue in fiscal 2021. 

Google has todayannounced that it has signed an agreement to buy Mandiant, a notable cybersecurity company, for $5.4 billion. The unit, once acquired, will be folded into Google’s Cloud team to ensure that it can offer an “end-to-end security operations suite” for its business customers. Mandiant CEO Kevin Mandia says that the deal will enable “organizations [to] effectively, efficiently and continuously manage and configure their complex mix of security products.” Google's cloud platform is used by a number of major companies, and an outage towards the end of 2021 briefly knocked out Spotify, Snapchat, Etsy and Discord, amongst others.

Mandiant isn’t likely to be a name on everyone’s lips, but it’s one of those companies who gets called in whenever bad things go down. It discovered the SolarWinds hack, and it was hired by Equifax to look into its security practices after its massive security snafu in 2017, and T-Mobile entered into partnership with the company after its 2021 breach. It also works with major banks and governments to work on high-profile attacks involving state actors. Mandiant was previously a part of FireEye after being acquired in 2013, but the company was spun back out last year.

The news comes just a month after Bloomberg reported that Microsoft might be interested in acquiring the company. It said that any deal would enable its new buyer to offer “unparalleled cybersecurity knowledge,” although Microsoft — obviously — subsequently pulled out of negotiations. But Google clearly feels that the deal is worth it, and is the second most expensive purchase the company has ever made, after its $12.5 billion purchase of Motorola.

Microsoft has closed its $19.7 billion takeover of speech-tech company Nuance Communications. It announced the acquisition last April and cleared the final regulatory barrier this week when the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority signed off on the deal. Regulators in the EU, US and Australia rubber stamped the buyout last year.

Mark Benjamin will remain as Nuance CEO, though he now reports to Microsoft Cloud and AI executive vice president Scott Guthrie. The duo wrote in a blog post that Microsoft and Nuance will build on "AI, digital and cloud advancements to create solutions that transform how we – as global citizens – work, shop, bank, engage and receive care." Healthcare will be a major focus of their work.

Microsoft has another massive deal in the works: its proposed $68.7 billion takeover of Activision Blizzard. It expects the deal to be completed by mid-2023 if regulators give the thumbs up.

Hyundai plans to release 17 full electric vehicle models by 2030 as part of its efforts to strengthen its lineup and to catch up to rival automakers. The company's CEO Jaehoon Chang has made the announcement when he unveiled Hyundai's electrification roadmap in an investor presentation. Out of 17, 11 models will be under the main Hyundai brand, while 6 will be released under its Genesis luxury brand. 

The automaker announced last year that Genesis will switch to electric powertrains completely by 2025, though at the time, it said that it expects to have eight EV models available for sale in 2030. Chang's latest announcement includes more concrete details about Hyundai's electrification plans. He said the company is investing 19.4 trillion won ($16.08 billion) in its EV-related endeavors, including setting up more manufacturing plants with the capability to produce EVs. The automaker is also aiming to capture a 7 percent market share in the global EV market and to sell 1.87 million electric vehicle units per year by 2030.

The company has yet to reveal the exact models it's releasing within the next eight years, but it did say that three of them are sedans, six are SUVs, one is a light commercial vehicle, while the last one is a new vehicle type. The first release will most likely be the IONIQ 6, an all-electric sedan that will be available for purchase this year. In 2024, Hyundai will be releasing the IONIQ 7, as well. 

While $16.08 billion is a considerable investment, analysts told Reuters that it's in in no way "aggressive" when compared to the commitments made by some rival companies. Toyota, for instance, plans to invest 8 trillion yen ($70 billion) for its electrification projects by 2030, while GM had earmarked $35 billion for its EV and automated vehicle investments from 2020 through 2025.

General Motors has sold its stake in struggling electric pickup maker Lordstown Motors, TechCrunch has reported. It reportedly unloaded its 5 percent investment (worth $75 million originally) in the fourth quarter of 2021, as originally disclosed by The Detroit Free Press and confirmed by GM.

Lordstown recently reported a loss of $81.2 million for the fourth quarter, and said in an earnings call earlier this week that it planned to sell only 3,000 of its Endurance electric trucks through 2023 — a far cry from the 32,000 it predicted when it went public via a SPAC deal back in 2020. It aims to build 500 of those this year, but it will need to raise an additional $250 million to do so. 

Last year, Lordstown warned that it didn't have enough cash to produce its electric trucks. Later in 2021, the SEC announced that it was investigating the firm, and then-CEO Steve Burns was subsequently pushed out after he was found to have lied about the number of Endurance pre-orders. 

GM got involved with Lordstown Motors after closing its Lordstown, Ohio plan in 2019, and selling it to EV manufacturer Workhorse, founded by Burns. Burns subsequently started Lordstown Motors with the aim building electric pickups at the plant, and obtained $75 million in investment from GM. The idea was to follow the path of Rivian and build electric pickups for businesses, but it's now in competing in a tougher market against giants like Ford, which recently launched the F-150 Lightning pickup. 

Lordstown Motors recently revealed that it didn't have enough cash to last through to 2023, so it subsequently agreed to sell the Lordstown plant to Foxconn for $230 million and rent space in it. However, Lordstown said that the deal is not as far along as they'd anticipated, a situation that's compounding the company's problems.

Panasonic aims to start mass production of a higher-capacity battery for Tesla by March 2024. The company is building a production facility for the battery at its Wakayama Factory, where it will create two more production lines and make structural improvements.

Development is continuing on the 4,680 lithium-ion battery. It's expected to be around twice the size of current batteries and have a fivefold increase in energy capacity. While fewer of them would be required for each car (which will reduce costs and potentially lower EV prices), the batteries could boost the range of an EV by over 15 percent.

Panasonic's announcement lines up with previous reports suggesting it could start making the battery next year. The company was said to be investing approximately 80 billion yen (around $694 million) into production equipment. It started working on the battery following a request from Tesla, though it may sell the 4,680 to other automakers.

Nikola is "laser-focused on delivering vehicles and generating revenue," according to CEO Mark Russell. To help it reach those goals, the embattled company is preparing to ramp up production of the battery-electric Tre semi-truck. Russell said Nikola expects to start "series production of the Tre BEV on March 21." The company plans to deliver up to 500 production Tre BEVs this year, starting in the second quarter.

It delivered the first two Tre BEVs to a port trucking company in California in December as part of a three-month pilot. It says the trucks have logged more than 4,500 miles between them and hauled multiple loads per day. One completed a 204-mile trip on a single charge. Anheuser-Busch, meanwhile, is testing two fuel-cell electric variants of the Tre.

Nikola says its Coolidge, Arizona plant currently has a production capacity of 2,500 trucks per year. Work is underway on an expansion that would increase the capacity to up to 20,000 trucks per annum. Work on Phase 2 of the facility should be completed in early 2023. Meanwhile, Nikola's plant in Ulm, Germany is currently capable of producing 2,000 trucks per year, though that figure is expandable to 10,000 trucks.

In its latest earnings report, the company touched on some of the controversies that have plagued it over the last few years. It reached an agreement with the Securities and Exchange Commission in December to settle civil charges that it defrauded investors. The company is paying a $125 million civil penalty over two years. Nikola is seeking reimbursement from founder Trevor Milton for costs and damages it incurred in connection with government and regulatory investigations.

A grand jury indicted Milton on fraud charges last year. Nikola's former CEO and executive chairman allegedly lied to investors about “nearly all aspects of the business” in attempts to increase Nikola's share price. Milton, who has denied the charges against him, is set to go on trial in April.

Nintendo is about to buy its second close ally in as many years. Eurogamerreports Nintendo is acquiring SRD, one of its longest-serving game development partners. SRD has worked with Nintendo since the NES era, and more recently helped with Switch hits like Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Animal Crossing: New Horizons. In that light, it's almost surprising Nintendo hadn't bought SRD sooner.

The purchases is expected to close on April 1st. Nintendo didn't say how much it paid for SRD, but the development house will become a wholly-owned subsidiary. The company bought Luigi's Mansion creator Next Level Games in January 2021.

This isn't as aggressive a move as Microsoft's Activision Blizzard buyout or Sony's acquisition of Bungie. Not that Nintendo is concerned, mind you. Company president Shuntaro Furukawa recently said investors shouldn't expect purchases of studios that lack "Nintendo DNA," and the Switch is still a hot seller. Nintendo just isn't in a rush to snap up developers, and this appears to be largely focused on securing partners while the company is flush with cash.

When Microsoft announced it would spend $68.7 billion to buy Activision Blizzard to bolster its Xbox gaming division, the news came as a surprise to many. For months, the troubled publisher had been in headlines stemming from the workplace sexual harassment lawsuit filed by California’s fair employment agency in July. The bad press hit a fever pitch on November 16th after The Wall Street Journal published a report that asserted Activision CEO Bobby Kotick had not only known about many of the incidents of sexual harassment that had occured at the company but had also acted to protect those who were responsible for the abuse.

Days after that article came out, Xbox chief Phil Spencer reportedly told employees he was “distributed and deeply troubled by the horrific events and actions” that allegedly took place at Activision Blizzard and that Microsoft would re-evaluate its relationship with the publisher. It’s one day after that email that Spencer called Kotick to start the process that would end with Microsoft announcing plans to buy Activision Blizzard some two months later, according to a US Securities and Exchange Commission filing first spotted by CNBC.

Starting on page 31 of the document, Microsoft devotes nearly 10 pages detailing the timeline of its talks with Activision. According to the filing, Spencer told Kotick during their November 19th phone call that “Microsoft was interested in discussing strategic opportunities” between the two companies and asked if he had time to talk to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella the following day. That Saturday, November 20th, Nadella made it clear Microsoft hoped to purchase the publisher, stating the company was “interested in exploring a strategic combination with Activision Blizzard.”

It turns out the quick pace at which the talks moved was mainly due to all the other companies interested in buying up Activision Blizzard after its stock dived in November. At least four other companies contacted the publisher about a possible acquisition. None of them are named in the SEC filing. However, one notably wanted to just buy Blizzard. Activision didn’t move forward with that option because the company’s board of directors deemed the sale would have been too difficult to pull off.

The document also details the terms of the purchase agreement. If the deal doesn’t go through due to antitrust complications, Microsoft has agreed to pay Activision Blizzard a termination fee of up $3 billion. A few years ago, that’s a possibility Microsoft probably wouldn’t have had to worry about too much, but 2022 finds the company in a very different regulatory environment. At the start of the month, NVIDIA abandoned a $40 billion bid to buy ARM after the Federal Trade Commission sued to block the purchase. President Biden appointed Lina Khan, the Commission’s current chair, to the position on the strength of her experience in antitrust law. When the NVIDIA-ARM deal fell through, the agency specifically noted it was "significant" because it "represents the first abandonment of a litigated vertical merger in many years."