Grocery Delivery Wars Heat UP; Facebook Must Drop Discriminatory Ad Filters; iOS Gains Share in US

Amazon and Walmart have ratcheted the grocery delivery wars up another notch. Amazon is bringing delivery via Whole Foods to new markets in New York and Florida…including New York City and Miami. Techcrunch.com says Walmart is expanding in the LA area to Glendora, Baldwin Park, Garden Grove, Rosemead, Pico Rivera, Foothill Ranch, Santa Clarita…and San Diego. They expect to be live in 100 metros by year end. In the New York City area, Amazon is delivering through Whole Foods in Manhattan and Brooklyn…plus adding Fort Lauderdale and Palm Beach on top of Miami. Amazon is now in 19 metro markets.

Facebook has caved to Washington state pressure, and will kill discriminatory ad filters. Arstechnica.com reports that the Washington Attorney General’s office has announced a legally binding plan to make the social media giant ‘make significant changes to its advertising platform by removing the ability of third-party advertisers to exclude ethnic and religious minorities, immigrants, LGBTQ individuals, and other protected groups from seeing their ads.’

Apple may have been dinged this last year for softer than predicted iPhone X sales, but they still managed to grow significantly the last 90 days at the expense of Android. According to macrumors.com, iOS market share was up 5.9 points to 38.7% in the US. The secret sauce? Apple’s expanded offerings….much of the growth came via sales of iPhone 8 and 8 Plus, not the pricier iPhone X. The iPhone X didn’t exactly fall off a cliff, though…it was the 4th best selling smartphone in the US the past 3 months. The tough part for Android makers is that Apple continues to get a lion’s share of profits on smartphones, even as they have less market share overall than Android.