Data & Analytics

If you’ve been following any recent mobile developments, you know that beacons aren’t just the next big thing – they’re here, right now. Ever since Apple introduced their iBeacon technology, the buzz has been getting louder, and in the last few months, more and more brands and businesses have been experimenting with them.

Montreal – A reduction in selling, general and administrative (SG&A) expenses helped elevate net earnings at Dollarama Inc. 22% to $64.8 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2016 from $53.2 million the same quarter of the previous fiscal year. Sales increased by 13% to $566.1 million from $501.1 million, aided by both new store openings and same-store sales growth of 6.9%.

New York -- Twitter announced on Wednesday that its advertisers can use the data the social giant has been collecting on which apps its users download for targeted ads.

Target is doubling the amount of its share buyback authorization from $5 billion to $10 billion and boosting its quarterly dividend by 7.7%, confirming the contents of a statement it published inadvertently and took off its website earlier on Tuesday.

Houston – Increased selling, general and administrative expenses (SG&A) led to net income at Francesca’s Holdings Corp. dropping 18% to $7.24 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2015 from $8.56 million the same period a year earlier.

Net sales fared better, rising 11% to $95.01 million from $85.42 million, helped by the opening of 76 new stores in the preceding 12 months.

Same-store sales declined 2% due to lower transaction count, although direct-to-consumer sales rose 19%.

Jacksonville, Fla. - Regency Centers, a national owner, operator and developer of 321 grocery-anchored retail centers, needed a secure, dedicated platform that would integrate Symantec LiveOffice, Cisco Unity Connection and eMailSignature with its email solution. The company selected Intermedia Private Cloud to integrate and scale its business applications, thus enabling growth.

Minneapolis – Target Corp. is doubling the amount of its share buyback authorization from $5 billion to $10 billion. Under this authorization, through first quarter 2015, the company had invested a total of $3.7 billion to retire 56.9 million shares at an average price of $65.06 per share.