Blog

Apple’s Senior Vice President of Software Engineering Craig Federighi speaks about CarPlay on stage during Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference in San Jose, California on June 05, 2017.Josh Edelson | AFP | Getty ImagesIn the early 2010s, automotive manufacturers and their suppliers were excited about building sophisticated apps for car dashboards that went beyond a CD player and a tiny LED screen.Partnering with companies like Microsoft, car makers started to come up with services for maps, music, and on-road assistance, often bundled into an upgrade package. They entered into large consortiums to create industry standards to connect smartphones to cars.Then Apple came in and changed everything.Apple introduced CarPlay in 2014 as a way to integrate the iPhone and a car’s dashboard. Since then, it’s become ubiquitous in new cars.Around the world, over 80% of new cars sold support CarPlay, Apple said last year. That works out to about 600 new models, including cars from Volkswagen, BMW, and Chrysler. Toyota, one of the longest holdouts, started including CarPlay in 2019 models.It’s also a top feature for many drivers and car buyers. Twenty-three percent of new car buyers in the U.S. say they “must have” CarPlay and 56% percent are “interested” in having CarPlay when buying a new vehicle, according to a 2017 Strategy Analytics study. When Ford’s highly anticipated electric F-150 goes on sale, it will support CarPlay.Apple was able to insert itself in between customers and car companies and make sure that its interface was the one that every iPhone user wants while driving. It’s an under-appreciated triumph for one of the world’s most successful companies. CarPlay doesn’t contribute direct Apple revenues or profits. But it ensures ongoing loyalty of iPhone users and gives Apple a pathway into the auto industry if it wants to expand.The power of the smartphoneEasily control your music in CarPlay with iOS 13.Most cars use an infotainment operating system based on Linux, BlackBerry’s QNX, or Google’s Android Automotive to run a screen embedded into the car’s dashboard. The infotainment systems often have their own music or maps software, and car companies sell wireless subscriptions and other upgraded features for them.CarPlay runs on top of those infotainment operating systems and allows iPhone owners to access their most important apps while driving in a way that’s safer than looking at their phone. Through CarPlay, users can pull up Apple or Google Maps, play Apple Music or Spotify, or dictate a text message to send home. All that processing happens on the phone itself.CarPlay, and a rival Android program, Android Auto, aren’t car operating systems. It’s really phone software, said Mark Fitzgerald, analyst at Strategy Analytics. Ultimately, it’s like using your car’s display as an external monitor for your phone.”What’s in your car, when you plug it in, there is essentially a client software client that is just rendering stuff from your phone on your infotainment system display,” Fitzgerald said.Many users find that’s all they need.When users have both CarPlay and a built-in system, they tend to use CarPlay. 34% of CarPlay users surveyed in 2018 by Strategy Analytics said they only use CarPlay when in their car, and 33% said they mostly use CarPlay. Only 4% of surveyed users say they use the embedded system in favor of CarPlay.Apple has also expanded CarPlay over the years to make it more valuable to iPhone owners.When CarPlay first came out, it required a cord to connect your phone to your car. In 2015, Apple started supporting wireless Bluetooth connections, allowing users to start CarPlay just by getting in the car and having their phone connect. While it took a few years for new cars to support this feature, it’s now widespread.Last summer, Apple and BMW announced that users could use their iPhone to unlock car doors or even start the engine, and Apple is participating in a standards group to spread the feature to more car makers.Google has similar software, called Android Auto, that extends its Android operating system into the car’s dashboard. CarPlay and Android Auto are not mutually exclusive — a car that supports one typically supports the other. It’s popular, with its Android app having been downloaded 100 million times by 2020.When it started to become obvious to carmakers that the computing power and software in smartphones would improve much more rapidly than they’d be able to improve their built-in infotainment systems, they tried to adjust.The Car Connectivity Consortium, which includes most of the top car manufacturers and the most important suppliers, developed Mirrorlink, an open standard for connecting smartphones to car systems. It rolling out in 2011, but was quickly superseded by Apple and Google.Samsung, the standard’s biggest backer, and which which also owns a major dashboard supplier, stopped supporting Mirrorlink in its phones last year. No other major Android brand is still supporting it and the consortium’s website lists only several older devices as supported devices.A big leap to self-driving carsThe new Dashboard mode in CarPlay.Mack Hogan | CNBCApple’s success with CarPlay explains the automotive industry’s interest in rumors that Apple plans to build its own car. If Apple had so much success taking over the dashboard, maybe the company can parlay that into a competitive vehicle.Since 2014, media reports have said Apple is exploring at least the software for a self-driving electric vehicle. Earlier this year, Hyundai said in an official statement that it was in talks with Apple about manufacturing its car before it walked back, most likely due to Apple’s strict secrecy requirements. Hyundai eventually said it was no longer in talks with Apple.Automotive execs showed outward confidence but respect for the challenge an automotive Apple might present. Volkswagen’s CEO said he was “not afraid” of Apple entering the market. BMW’s CEO said he “sleeps peacefully at night” in response to questions about Apple’s plans. Toyota’s CEO warned that making a smartphone is much different than making a car.Apple’s ultimate plans remain unclear. According to a Reuters report, Apple still could decide to sell software and hardware — an autonomous driving system — to carmakers, instead of designing its own vehicle.But if Apple were to enter the car world, it would require a fundamentally different strategy than CarPlay.CarPlay is mainly about making the iPhone more desirable. It also offers also other benefits to Apple, such as making Apple Music subscriptions more valuable — people want to play music in their car, but need an easy way to control it while driving. In a March note, Citi analyst Jim Suva estimated that CarPlay could add $2 billion to Apple’s annual services sales.But CarPlay in itself is not a moneymaker. Currently, CarPlay is free in most new vehicles, from basic models all the way up to luxury SUVs. BMW used to charge users a monthly fee to access CarPlay, but stopped in 2019 after customers complained.Apple says doesn’t charge automakers to use the software. It’s not a licensing business. (If it were, Apple could bundle it at $750 per unit and sell 9 million units by 2025, generating $6.5 billion in sales, Suva estimates.)Apple could use its foothold in the car to support more of its ambitions. It’s already using its App Store distribution platform to encourage software developers to optimize their apps for the car, in categories such as finding a car charger, ordering food, or finding a parking spot. Those features would be a core part of an Apple in-car experience. Apple also collects data necessary to run CarPlay, and even if this data is anonymized to ensure user privacy, it gives Apple a lot of raw information about what people do in their cars.But CarPlay could not power a self-driving car, which requires different chips and specialized hardware that’s been qualified for use in the car.If Apple were to sell software to self-driving car makers, it would take a different form than CarPlay. Google’s automotive fragmentation is a good example: It’s building Android Automotive as a car operating system, Android Auto as a CarPlay competitor, and funded the development of Waymo, a self-driving technology company and car service that’s now a sister company within Alphabet.Still, CarPlay’s success could create built-in demand for an Apple Car — or at least ensure that consumers don’t dismiss the idea as crazy.Apple typically unveils updates to its CarPlay software at its annual developer’s conference, WWDC, which starts on June 7 this year.

Amazon Fire HD 10 Plus tabletTodd Haselton | CNBCI’ve been testing Amazon’s new Fire HD 10 Plus tablet for the past several days. It started shipping to customers earlier this week and starts at $179.99, a little more than half the price of the entry-level iPad.The Fire HD 10 Plus is Amazon’s most high-end tablet and has a few more features, like extra RAM and wireless charging, that make it a better buy than the $149.99 regular Fire HD 10.Unlike Apple, Amazon’s tablet business doesn’t generate a considerable bulk of the company’s revenues. Instead, they’re just portals into Amazon’s content and services. They’re compelling because they’re cheap but let you stream movies, music and read books. They’re great if that’s all you need out of a tablet. Still, I think most people who can save a bit longer will find they can do a lot more with an iPad.Here’s what you need to know about the new Fire HD 10 Plus.What’s goodAmazon Fire HD 10 PlusAmazonIf you’re like lots of people who just want a tablet to poke around some basic games, read Kindle books, stream Netflix and Amazon Prime video or listen to music from services like Spotify, Pandora, Amazon Music and others, the Fire HD 10 Plus (or even the entry-level Fire HD 10) is a good choice.It’s light and offers a big 10.1-inch display that’s crisp, bright and colorful. The tablet is made out of plastic, but the soft-touch finish helps make it feel a little less cheap. You won’t find metal or any other higher-end design features you’d get on an iPad, though.Amazon Fire HD 10 Plus tabletTodd Haselton | CNBCI like the stereo speakers that play audio from both sides of the tablet, instead of just one side, so that audio sounds balanced when you’re watching movies in landscape mode. They’re fine for playing music — I liked listening to classical while reading at night, for example — and get loud enough.Amazon boosted the RAM to 4GB this year, which means it feels a bit faster when running applications at the same time. It didn’t really feel sluggish to me, even when I ran Netflix on one side of the screen while browsing the news on the other side. Another bonus you don’t get with an iPad: there’s a microSD card slot for expanding the storage so you can download more movies, photos and music for listening when you don’t have a Wi-Fi connection. I recommend buying the cheapest 32GB model for this reason, instead of the 64GB model, since microSD cards are cheap and can be easily popped into the side.Amazon Fire HD 10 Plus on wireless charging dock.AmazonAmazon includes wireless charging in case you want to buy yet another optional accessory, the wireless charging dock, which brings the total cost up to $219.99. It works well. You just plop the tablet on the dock and it starts charging. Again, you won’t find this on an iPad.There’s a unique “Show Mode” and turn the Fire HD 10 Plus into an Amazon Echo Show with a screen. This is great if you’re using the wireless charging stand. It’ll show you recipes, the weather and act as an Echo when you say “Hey Alexa” nearby. It’s convenient if you’re already an Echo household and want to turn the tablet into a hands-free assistant in places like the kitchen. I mostly just watched movies while it was charging on my desk, though.I also like that Amazon’s home screen shows you all of the stuff you might want to access quickly: the book you’re already reading, the last TV show you watched, books you might like to read, apps you recently opened and the weather.  It’s super convenient. And you can easily control smart home gadgets, like your lights and cameras, if you already have them connected to an Amazon Echo. As expected, it just ties in really well with Amazon’s products and services.Amazon Fire HD 10 PlusAmazonAmazon also launched a $49.99 Bluetooth Keyboard Case accessory for its tablets this year. It’s included in a new productivity bundle with the regular — not plus — model of the tablet for $219. That bundle also offers a year of Microsoft Office worth $69.99. Amazon sent me the keyboard, which also works with the plus model. It’s decent for a $50 keyboard and works well for things like typing in Microsoft Word. But the keys are a little cramped and it lacks backlighting, so I often just found myself using a computer when I needed to get real work done.Finally, the battery life was excellent in my tests. Amazon promises up to 12 hours of usage. I started playing a movie on loop, with the brightness set to about 50%, at 10 a.m. and by 10 p.m. it was still playing with about 28% battery life. So, it exceeds Amazon’s promise in this regard. Speaking of the battery, I like that Amazon continues to use the more modern USB-C charging port, which is the same charger you might already use for your computer or Android phone.What’s badAmazon Fire HD 10 PlusAmazonYou’ll get far more bang for your buck from the regular $329 iPad if you like having access to lots of apps.  The Amazon AppStore is still pretty barebones compared to the Apple App Store. Sure, you’ll get all the big streaming apps like HBO Max, Netflix, Hulu and other popular apps like Facebook, Instagram, Spotify and more.But, others are missing. You won’t find Slack, for example. None of Google’s apps, like YouTube, YouTube TV, Gmail, Chrome, Maps and others are there. Instead, you have to rely on Amazon’s far inferior Silk browser to surf the web (unless you want to do some hacking to get Google’s services on it.) Consider this if you’re thinking it might be a good option for your kids to use for homework: are the apps the school requires even supported?And speaking of the browser, it’s still not very good. You might use Chrome, Safari or Edge on your computer or phone. But all of your saved websites and passwords in those browsers won’t transfer over here. So you’ll need to remember all your logins for everything. It’s OK if you just want to, say, go to CNBC and read the latest news. But it’s not great if you want to remain in sync with the browser you use on other devices like your phone or computer. iPads support all those browsers and stay in sync better.And other things are missing that just seem odd. Amazon’s new Luna game streaming service, which works on Android, iPhone, PCs and Amazon Fire TV’s and is actually pretty fun, isn’t supported by the tablet. I hope that’s added soon since you’d expect an Amazon service to work on a tablet dedicated to Amazon’s media offerings.The cameras aren’t that great, either. The front-facing 2-megapixel camera is fine if you want to do a quick video chat, but it’s not very sharp and video/photos are too dark. Same goes for the back-facing camera.Should you buy it?Amazon Fire HD 10 Plus tabletTodd Haselton | CNBCIf you’re like a lot of people and really just want a tablet to catch up on Netflix on the couch, browse any of Amazon’s services, and you’re not worried about having to access specific apps like Slack for work, or anything Google makes, then sure, the Fire HD 10 Plus is a fine tablet. And I think that’s who Amazon is targeting: people who just want something simple and affordable to watch movies and read books on. In fact, I recommend saving some money and buying the $149.99 model that has slightly less RAM and lacks wireless charging but still performs well and comes in three additional colors.But if you want a tablet that has a far better browser, more apps and a more premium design, just save up for the $329 iPad. I know it costs a lot more, but you can also do more with it.Subscribe to CNBC on YouTube. 

In this photo illustration the HBO Max and Discovery Communications logo seen displayed on a smartphone.Rafael Henrique | LightRocket | Getty ImagesAT&T’s decision to merge WarnerMedia with Discovery and Amazon’s $8.45 billion acquisition of MGM Studios has kicked off another round of media consolidation.The last significant set of mergers brought Discovery and Scripps together, AT&T and Time Warner, Comcast and Sky, Viacom and CBS, and Disney with most of Fox.Given all of those deals, there are fewer companies remaining to find dance partners. But there’s also added pressure on companies like NBCUniversal and ViacomCBS, who have global streaming video aspirations, to add more content.Here are a few combinations of companies that make strategic sense.NBCUniversal and LionsgateBuying Lionsgate would help Comcast’s NBCUniversal on two different fronts. First, it would add more content to Peacock, NBCUniversal’s subscription video service. Lionsgate owns shows including “Mad Men,” “Orange is the New Black,” “Nashville” and “Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist.” Lionsgate currently licenses those shows to a grab bag of streaming services. Second, Lionsgate owns premium network Starz, which would fit seamlessly with NBCUniversal’s offerings. NBCUniversal doesn’t have a premium network, unlike competitors WarnerMedia (HBO) and ViacomCBS (Showtime).On the streaming front, a Starz-Peacock combination — either together as one service or separately as a bundled offering — could expand NBCUniversal’s global aspirations. Starz is on track to have 60 million global subscribers by 2025, Chief Executive John Feltheimer said this week. Starz is already available in 58 different countries, which would give Peacock a head start in its expansion aspirations.And Lionsgate wouldn’t cost much, with a market capitalization of just $3.8 billion (an an enterprise value of about $6.4 billion). If Comcast is going to keep NBCUniversal — bucking AT&T’s decision to give up on vertical integration — buying Lionsgate would be a sensible move to stay competitive in the streaming wars without breaking the bank.WarnerMedia-Discovery and ViacomCBSThere’s already speculation about a potential future merger between the newly created WarnerMedia-Discovery entity (assuming the deal closes) and NBCUniversal. Discovery’s controlling shareholder John Malone said on CNBC how the combined company could be open to a future merger with NBCUniversal if regulatory forces would allow it.But the divestments that might have to take place could be too complicated and tax-inefficient for that combination to occur. Regulators might not allow CNN and MSNBC to be housed under one corporate roof. Combining Comcast’s Universal and WarnerMedia’s Warner Bros. — the No. 2 and No. 3 largest film studios by box office revenue in 2019 and 2018, the last full years of theatrical releases — may also be a non-starter.The more logical combination would be WarnerMedia-Discovery and ViacomCBS.Shari Redstone’s company has a broadcast network — CBS. WarnerMedia-Discovery doesn’t, so that’s a fit. (The combination of CBS and NBC under one roof would be one major roadblock to a ViacomCBS-NBCUniversal merger.)Unlike NBCUniversal, ViacomCBS doesn’t have a large cable news network. That makes keeping CNN more viable.While ViacomCBS also owns a movie studio, Paramount has been a much smaller box office presence than Universal in recent years. Among global film studios, Paramount was sixth in box office revenue in both 2018 and 2019. Putting together Paramount and Warner Bros. would be an easier sell for antitrust concerns.The biggest complication would be if Redstone is willing to give up or dilute her controlling ViacomCBS shares. That’s what Malone did to push Discovery and WarnerMedia together, so there’s now a template.Disney and AMC NetworksThis is the hardest sell. Disney doesn’t really need AMC Networks. It’s doing perfectly fine with the content it has.But with Disney-owned Hulu licensing so much of its content, it’s vulnerable to losing some of its hit shows. MGM, for example, makes “The Handmaid’s Tale.” Now that Amazon has acquired MGM, it’s unclear if the series will remain on Hulu once that deal closes.The owner of “The Walking Dead,” IFC Films, and Sundance Now could provide an adult-themed content boost to Hulu. That would balance out the robust kids’ offering on Disney+ and sports on ESPN+. AMC has forecast it will have at least 9 million streaming subscribers by the end of 2021 and 25 million by the end of 2025. That’s a far cry from Hulu’s current 41.6 million or Disney+’s 103.6 million, but it’s evidence that there’s at least some audience for the programming.And while cable is slowly dying, it’s not dead yet, with about 85 million U.S. households still subscribing to some form of bundled linear TV.Disney’s ESPN remains the lifeblood of the traditional pay-TV bundle. Bundling AMC Networks’ cable networks with ESPN would protect affiliate fees, as pay-TV providers have always been loathe to drop ESPN.The Dolan Family controls AMC Networks. The Dolans have likely known for years that AMC Networks is subscale and should combine with a bigger media fish. If the Dolans don’t want to sell, they won’t. But AMC Networks is relatively tiny at $2.2 billion in market valuation and about $4 billion in enterprise value. Disney could easily buy the company in cash.However, Disney’s previous acquisitions — Pixar, Marvel, Lucas Films — have been for intellectual property. Does AMC Networks own enough valuable IP to make a deal worth it for shareholders? And is that IP family-friendly enough to mesh with the company’s theme park business?That may be why a Disney-AMC deal hasn’t already happened.Disclosure: NBCUniversal is the parent company of CNBC.WATCH: Amazon’s MGM acquisition will give additional value to Prime users: Mark Mahaney

In this articleNIOTSLASan Francisco-based Ample has brought electric vehicle battery swapping to the U.S. The company was in stealth mode for seven years before launching recently with five swapping stations in the Bay Area. Uber drivers in the area are Ample’s first customers.The concept isn’t new. A start-up called Better Place launched an EV and battery swapping company after it raised $850 million in venture funding, but it ultimately went bankrupt in 2013. Tesla also demoed battery swapping in 2013 but only opened one station for about a year. Elon Musk said Tesla owners were not interested in it.Battery swapping is already common in China. Electric vehicle maker Nio, for example, plans to double its network of swapping stations to 500 this year and plans to open stations in Norway as part of its expansion into Europe.Ample has a different approach, with modular batteries and a focus on fleets. CNBC got an inside look at its headquarters and battery factory in San Francisco to learn how the company plans to bring battery swapping into the mainstream.

In this articleNEEDUKAESVSTTSLATesla CEO Elon Musk announced in 2015 that the electric-vehicle company would be getting into the energy business. Now, it’s starting to take off. On its Q4 2020 earnings call, the company said its battery deployments increased 83% in 2020, particularly thanks to the popularity of the Megapack, which stores energy for utilities.Renewable energy such as solar and wind need battery storage for when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining. As nations around the world set goals to transition to renewables, demand for these large-scale storage systems is on the rise. Grid-scale battery storage is expected to become a $15 billion market by 2027, according to Grand View Research.CNBC visited PG&E’s Tesla Megapack site in Moss Landing, California, and learned why energy storage systems like Tesla’s could be everywhere in a future of renewable power. Watch the video for a look inside Tesla’s energy business.

In this articleTSLATesla CEO Elon Musk speaks during the unveiling of the new Tesla Model Y in Hawthorne, California on March 14, 2019.Frederic J. Brown | AFP | Getty ImagesTesla started using the cabin cameras in some Model 3 and Model Y vehicles to make sure drivers are paying attention to the road when they use driver assistance features, according to release notes obtained by CNBC.Their Model 3 and Model Y cars already had driver-facing cabin cameras, but the company’s owners manuals said they were not used for driver monitoring. Instead, Tesla’s systems required drivers to “check in” by touching the steering wheel, which is equipped with sensors.Now, Tesla is telling drivers their cabin cameras have been switched on for driver monitoring in new vehicles that lack radar sensors, according to Kevin Smith, a second-time Tesla buyer in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Smith says he took delivery of a 2021 Tesla Model Y crossover on Thursday.The technical changes come amid regulatory scrutiny of Tesla vehicle safety in the U.S. and abroad. The company is facing dozens of federal probes into the underlying causes of Tesla-involved crashes in the U.S., some of which may have involved Autopilot.Elon Musk’s auto business sells its driver assistance systems under the brand names Autopilot and Full-Self Driving (FSD), an optional $10,000 upgrade. Tesla also also offers some drivers who paid for FSD the option to try unfinished driver assistance features in its FSD Beta program, effectively turning them into beta testers.Tesla’s owner manuals caution drivers that use of these systems requires “active supervision.” However, owners have repeatedly demonstrated over-confidence in the systems, sharing videos and accounts of driving while asleep at the wheel, driving without their hands on the wheel, or even driving while sitting in the passenger or back seat of the car.A federal vehicle safety watchdog, the National Transportation Safety Board, has called on Tesla to stop beta-testing on public roads using customers in lieu of professionals, and to add robust driver monitoring to its vehicles.It’s not clear whether Tesla’s new camera-based driver monitoring system and cars without radar meet the standards set forth by the NTSB, or other safety standards.One owner’s experienceKevin Smith ordered his 2021 Model Y at the end of March, and expected to get a vehicle with the sensor suite Tesla previously marketed, including radar.But on Tuesday this week, Tesla announced it would exclude radar and downgrade the vehicles’ functionality in a blog post. The post also said Tesla will restore the missing features once Tesla transitions customers to a “pure vision,” or camera-based version of its driver assistance and safety features.Before he could get his new Model Y delivered, Smith was asked in an “Order Update” on the Tesla website to confirm that he would accept the modified car for the same price as the one he originally ordered.The waiver noted that the company is transitioning to Tesla Vision, its camera-based Autopilot system, and that some new cars delivered beginning in May 2021 will not have radar. It also cautioned that Vision may be delivered with some features “temporarily limited or inactive,” and said Tesla will restore those features with over-the-air software updates in the “weeks ahead.”When he took delivery of his all-wheel drive, 2021 Model Y Smith also saw a “release note” in the vehicle’s touchscreen display that informed him of a cabin camera update:”The cabin camera above your rearview mirror can now detect and alert driver inattentiveness while Autopilot is engaged. Camera data does not leave the car itself, which means the system cannot save or transmit information unless data sharing is enabled. To change your data settings, tap Controls > Safety & Security > Data Sharing on your car’s touchscreen.”Adding a camera-based driver monitoring system does not restore the driver assistance and safety features Tesla said it had turned off for now.Consumer Reports and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety on Wednesday removed top-level safety endorsements for the Model 3 in the U.S. after the company announced it had excluded radar from these vehicles. Consumer Reports noted, “The government’s top vehicle safety rating agency says the vehicles may lack some key advanced safety features, including forward collision warning (FCW) and automatic emergency braking (AEB).”

DoximitySource: DoximityUber offered it to drivers. Airbnb did it for hosts. Now Doximity is providing it to doctors, but in a much bigger way.In its IPO prospectus on Friday, health-tech company Doximity, which is often described as the LinkedIn for doctors, said it’s allocating up to 15% of shares in the offering for physicians through a “reserved share program.”That means eligible doctors can get stock at the same price as the select group of institutional investors, who so often benefit from the IPO pop because they get early allocation and don’t have to wait for trading to begin. Doximity hasn’t yet said how many shares it plans to issue or at what price. To qualify for the program, members must meet certain thresholds of activity.”We aspire to be the world’s largest physician-owned technology company, and our IPO reserved share program is intended to both thank our members and kickstart the process,” co-founders Jeff Tangney, Nate Gross and Shari Buck wrote in the founders’ letter portion of the prospectus.Airbnb, which went public in December, set aside up to 7% of shares in its IPO for hosts on the platform. After the stock popped 112% in its debut, hosts who bought the maximum number of shares made a paper profit of over $15,000 on day one. There’s no guarantee the stock will see such a rally. In Uber’s 2019 IPO, the ride-hailing company allocated up to 3% of the offering for drivers. Buyers at the IPO price are up just 14%, while the Nasdaq Composite has jumped 74% over that stretch. Meanwhile, trading app Robinhood announced last week that it’s launching a product called IPO Access to give retail investors more opportunities to buy into deals at the offer price. Zoom In IconArrows pointing outwardsUber vs. NasdaqCNBCFounded in 2011, Doximity has been largely under the radar even though it’s based in San Francisco. It hasn’t raised outside capital since 2014, only brought in a total of about $80 million in venture funding during its decade as a private company and spends very little on marketing. The company is also profitable, with net income jumping 69% in the latest fiscal year to $50.2 million.Doximity has grown rapidly by becoming the default site for doctors across the country to connect with one another and stay informed about new research. It’s also been a highly valuable tool for medical recruiters. The service is now used by 1.8 million medical professionals in all of the top 20 hospitals and health systems, according to the prospectus.Revenue surged 78% last year to $206.9 million. Sales and marketing accounted for 30% of total revenue, Most of that is “personnel-related expenses, sales commissions, travel, and other event expenses,” with a little spent on Google and Facebook ads, the filing says. Only $2.6 million went to advertising last year.While Doximity doesn’t do much by way of promotion, it generates a healthy amount of revenue from medical and pharmaceutical companies who use the app as a way to reach doctors. All of the top 20 drugmakers use the service to educate medical professionals about their products. The company says its marketing solutions product, which is paid for through subscriptions, accounted for over 80% of revenue in the latest fiscal year.Most of its remaining revenue comes from hiring solutions, used by health systems and medical recruiting firms to connect with Doximity’s physicians. Doximity said it has over 600 subscription customers, including 200 that spent $100,000 in fiscal 2021. Of those, 29 spent at least $1 million. Subscriptions accounted for 93% of total revenue.Doximity also introduced a telehealth product last year as Covid-19 forced patients to stay home and communicate with their doctors remotely. The company just started charging for the telehealth service at the beginning of January. “We have seen rapid adoption of our Telehealth Solutions among our health system customers, due to existing organic usage from Doximity members who have used our productivity tools in the past,” the company said. Doximity said it competes with LinkedIn for members. For hiring and recruiting, it goes up against staffing companies, while in the telehealth market it faces competition from Teladoc and American Well along with general purpose video chat app Zoom.WATCH: Robinhood to allow users to buy into IPOs