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This Week in Apps: Facebook Wars With Apple Over Ad Targeting

This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy.

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This article was originally published by TechCrunch.

Welcome back to This Week in Apps,  href="https://techcrunch.com/tag/this-week-in-apps/">the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy.

The app industry is as hot as ever, with a record 204 billion downloads and $120 billion in global consumer spend in 2019. Not including third-party Chinese app stores, iOS and Android users downloaded 130 billion apps in 2020. Consumer spend also hit a record $112 billion across iOS and Android alone. In 2019, people spent three hours and 40 minutes per day using apps, rivaling TV. Due to COVID-19, time spent in apps jumped 25% year-over-year on Android.

Apps aren’t just a way to pass idle hours — they’re also a big business. In 2019, mobile-first companies had a combined $544 billion valuation, 6.5x higher than those without a mobile focus.

Top Stories

Apple launches App Store privacy labels

Image Credits: Apple

Apple this week launched its promised App Store privacy labels across all its App Stores, including iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS and tvOS. The labels aim to give Apple customers an easier way to understand what sort of information an app collects across three categories: data used to track you, data linked to you and data not linked to you. Tracking, Apple explains, refers to the act of linking either user or device data collected from an app with user or device data collected from other apps, websites or even offline properties (like data aggregated from retail receipts) that’s used for targeted advertising or advertisement measurement. It can also include sharing user or device data with data brokers.

This aspect alone will expose the industry of third-party adtech and analytics SDKs (software development kits) — basically code from external vendors that developers add to their apps to boost their revenues.

Meanwhile, “data linked to you” is the personal information tied to your identity through your user account on the app, your device or other details. (You can read more about the program here.)

Apple launches its new app privacy labels across all its App Stores

Axios compared how various social media and messaging apps compare as determined by the labels. Not surprisingly, it found that Facebook-owned apps collected more data than apps like Telegram, Signal and Apple’s Messages. It also found that Snap collected less data than the other major social networks.

Others noticed that Google had yet to provide any privacy label information for its biggest apps like Gmail, Googel Maps or Google Search.

Apple and Facebook fight over privacy changes

Also this week, Facebook took out full-page newspaper ads to attack Apple’s upcoming privacy-centered changes, alleging that the decision will have negative impacts on small businesses. With a forthcoming update to iOS 14, developers will have to ask users permission to use their IDFA identifiers for ad targeting purposes, and they’ll have very few characters to explain why it’s necessary. Most users, who are sick of having their data taken and resold without any personal control over that process, will likely just say “No.”

On the one hand, Facebook has much to lose as it already warned that without targeting and personalization, mobile app install campaigns brought in 50% less revenue for publishers. And the impacts to Facebook Audience Network on iOS will be even worse. But Facebook says it’s well-diversified enough so this one change won’t hurt its business as much as it will smaller ones run by “aspiring entrepreneurs.”

Facebook isn’t happy about Apple’s upcoming ad tracking restrictions

It also pointed out that Apple’s interests aren’t fully about consumer choice. When developers make less money from the traditional targeted ads, they’ll turn to other means of generating revenues — like in-app purchases and subscriptions, benefiting Apple.

We should also point out that Apple does a lot of data gathering and targeting of its own. In your iOS Privacy Settings, when you scroll way down to the bottom of the page, then click on Apple Advertising followed by View Ad Targeting Information, you’ll find Apple’s own admissions of how it tracks you across its platform, including data from your account info (age, gender, location), and by what content you’ve downloaded on Apple Music, Apple TV, Apple Books and the App Store. It uses this data to target you with personalized ads on the App Store, in Apple News and in Stocks.

Apple, meanwhile, has presented Facebook’s tracking business as one that aims to “collect as much data as possible,” in order to “develop and monetize detailed profiles of their users,” in a “disregard to user privacy.” And while it’s true that Facebook’s network spans apps and websites, Apple is doing the same thing within its own ecosystem…of a billion iPhones and other devices. Devices where Apple’s own apps are often pre-installed and compete with third-party services in areas like books, music, TV, fitness, news and more.

Plus, Apple told developers when it launched the new App Store privacy labels this week, that developers don’t have to disclose the data collected by Apple itself. Uh, wonder why that is?

Instead, developers have to come clean about all the other ways they collect and use customer data, including if data brokers are involved.

The move of course is a big gain for consumer privacy, as it establishes a new baseline for the industry. But it’s simultaneously a smokescreen for Apple’s own interests. The company wanted a bigger portion of the adtech market and to grow its subscription business and it wants to fight for consumer privacy. But it largely only highlights the latter when speaking to reporters or making public statements.

Twitter kills Periscope

Image Credits: Twitter

Twitter this week announced it’s shutting down its standalone livestreaming app Periscope, which it acquired in 2015. The company said the app had been “an unsustainable maintenance-mode state” for some time, and Twitter has seen its usage decline as costs went up. The app will no longer function by March 2021, but Twitter says it’s not giving up on live video. It notes that it brought most of Periscope’s core capabilities to Twitter over the years.

Users will be able to download an archive of their Periscope broadcasts and data before the app is removed and those that have been published to Twitter will continue to live on as replays.

Twitter has a history of making bad calls on its standalone apps that seemed like smart decisions at the time. The company was early to the idea that music and social could work well when tied together when it launched a standalone Twitter Music app in 2013. Years later, other companies have proven that to be true — TikTok said this week its app is driving hits, and got 70-some artists major label record deals. In 2020, over 176 songs passed 1 billion views as TikTok sounds.

Twitter #Music Depends Upon, But Also Pales In Comparison To, Other Music Discovery Services

Another idea Twitter killed, of course, was Vine, the app that could have been TikTok, had it lasted.

Now Twitter is killing its live video app, a project it abandoned, as everyone else is figuring out how to turn live video streams into e-commerce transactions. Today, Facebook and Instagram offer live video shopping, including in Instagram Reels, its TikTok rival. And TikTok itself launched its first big test of livestreamed video shopping in partnership with Walmart. Other big names who are investing in live video shopping include Amazon through its QVC-like Amazon Live, Alibaba through AliExpress, JD.com, Pinduoduo, WeChat and TikTok’s Chinese sister app, Douyin.

One could argue that Twitter just wants to stake out its own place and not follow the crowd, but its latest big feature was Stories, er, Fleets, a format that’s just about everywhere. And its current test product is Spaces, a rival to Clubhouse and a handful of other audio-networking startups.

Weekly News

Platforms: Apple

  • Apple launches App Store privacy labels.
  • Apple releases macOS Big Sur version 11.1, which allows iPhone and iPad apps without resizable windows to enter into full-screen mode on Macs with the M1 chip. HBO Max will benefit from this, as well as some mobile games.
  • The Mac App Store publishes a list of apps that take advantage of the new M1 chip.
  • Apple talks about how to design an App Clip URL more efficiently in new blog post. It also announced that App Clip Codes — the visual image that encodes a URL and can incorporate an NFC tag — are also now available for creation in App Store Connect or with the new command line App Clip Code Generator.
  • Apple launched iOS 12.5 for older phones that don’t support iOS 14. The update brings the COVID-19 exposure notification support to these older devices and other security fixes.
  • Apple releases iPadOS 14.4 public beta.
  • Apple publishes a guide to locking down your Apple devices, which could be particularly useful for domestic abuse survivors.

Platforms: Google

  • Google announced the Play Store is now open to more car apps, including navigation, parking and charging apps for Android Auto.
  • Google Play Store opens up to 22 new countries in Africa, Oceania and elsewhere.
  • Google announces Android Things platform shutdown is January 5, 2021.

Services

  • Amazon’s AWS announced the preview of Amazon Location, a service that will allow developers to add location-based features to their web-based and mobile applications. Amazon Location is based on mapping data from Esri and HERE Technologies, and includes built-in tracking and geofencing, but not routing.

AWS launches Amazon Location, a new mapping service for developers

Gaming

  • Game engine maker Unity teamed up with Snap to bring its Unity Ads supply to Snap Audience Network and bring Snap Kit to game developers. From the Unity Asset Store, game developers can use Snap Kit’s Login Kit and Creative Kit, the latter which allows users to decorate their videos with stickers or ad AR lenses. Bitmoji avatars will be integrated with Unity in early 2021.
  • PUBG Mobile tops the list of billion-dollar mobile games in 2020, reports Sensor Tower. Five games topped $1 billion this year, including also Honor of Kings, Pokémon GO, Coin Master and Roblox.
  • Amazon’s Luna cloud gaming service arrives on Android. Like the iOS version, the service works through the web browser in the U.S. It supports some Pixel, Samsung and OnePlus devices for now, with expanded device support arriving in time.
  • Roblox delays IPO to 2021. The company said the IPO performance of Airbnb and DoorDash, which soared on their debut leaving money on the table, made it too difficult to price shares.
  • A judge orders Apple to produce documentation from Tim Cook and Craig Federighi in the Epic Games/Fortnite lawsuit. The execs may also be called to testify, along with Eddy Cue, if Epic gets its way. Facebook also said this week it would aid Epic in its legal battle by providing supporting materials and documents, as a part of the discovery process.
  • Google’s cloud gaming service, Google Stadia, arrives on iOS. The service bypasses the App Store to instead use a web app. It works on both iPhone and iPad (iOS 14.3 is required). Most games will need a gamepad to work.

Augmented Reality

  • The Unity/Snap deal, mentioned above, includes an AR component. Snap’s Creative Kits allows users to share their gameplay, decorating still shots or 15-second videos with branded stickers, or attaching an AR lens that has been created with game branding to share with their Snapchat friends. These shares work to acquire new users as well, as they include referral links back to the game.
  • Facebook’s Messenger Kids app updates with seasonal AR effects, as well as a way for parents to play Santa to kids.
  • Google adds an AR Baby Yoda in its Google Search app.

Googling for ‘Baby Yoda’ will bring him into your living room via augmented reality

Social & Photos

  • Facebook launches a TikTok-like app, Collab, that focuses on collaborative music making. TechCrunch had the exclusive interview.
  • Twitter launches its voice-based Spaces social networking feature, a Clubhouse rival, into beta testing. The feature lets select Twitter testers for the time being gather in audio-only chat rooms on Twitter’s platform.
  • Discord rolls out mobile screen sharing, allowing users to “hang out” and watch videos or anything else on their phone.
  • Facebook relaunches Instagram Lite app, starting with a test in India before a global rollout. The app is under 2MB in size and is faster and more responsive. But it also lacks features like Reels, Shopping and IGTV.
  • Dating and friend-making app Bumble confidentially files for a February 2021 IPO.
  • Google Photos adds 3D “Cinematic” photos feature that uses machine learning to turn 2D photos into 3D — even if the original didn’t include depth information from the camera. A virtual camera then animates a smooth panning effect for a more vivid experience.
  • TikTok’s new guidelines strengthen policies on harassment, self-harm, violence and dangerous acts. The social app also rolled out new well-being features, like opt-in viewing screens that hide distressing content, a text-to-voice feature to make TikTok more accessible and COVID-19 vaccine info.
  • Halide’s developer offers a deep dive on Apple’s new ProRAW image format, which it describes as not just making RAW more powerful, but also more approachable. “ProRAW could very well change how everyone shoots and edits photos, beginners and experts alike,” a Halide blog post says. They’re not the only one singing ProRAW’s praises — Halide pointed to photographer Austin Mann’s blog post as well.

Google Photos adds 3D ‘Cinematic’ photos, plus new Memories and collages

Streaming and entertainment

  • Netflix added a new audio-only mode on Android that allows users to save bandwidth and instead only listen to their program. The feature aims appeal to emerging markets users but could also serve as a way to turn Netflix into an alternative to listening to podcasts, at times.
  • Spotify launched on the Epic Games Store — a marketplace that’s shaping up to become a third-party app store. The two companies are both engaged with fighting Apple over its commission structure and rules on purchases.
  • TikTok released its first-ever U.S. music report which revealed the social app’s outsized influence on the music industry. According to the report, more than 176 different songs surpassed 1 billion video views as TikTok sounds, over 70 artists that have broken on TikTok’s platform have received major label deals, including Claire Rosinkranz, Dixie D’Amelio, Powfu, Priscilla Block and Tai Verdes, and others.
  • TikTok launches on TVs. The app is first available on Samsung smart TV models in Europe, but the Samsung partnership will allow it to be pre-installed going forward. The TV experience will be curated for family-friendly videos only.
  • Apple redesigns Shazam for iOS so it better fits with Apple Music’s design language. The app is also now available on the web. Apple recently said Shazam had over 200M MAUs across iOS and Android.

E-commerce

Image Credits: Walmart

  • Walmart partners with TikTok on a test of a new shoppable product that will allow TikTok users to transact within the app. The retailer will run a holiday shopping event inside TikTok, where users can shop from influencer videos. After the event, users can continue to shop from Walmart’s TikTok profile.
  • Shoploop, an app founded within Area 120, Google’s in-house incubator, has graduated to Google Search. The app competes with efforts in video-based shopping from Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and others. Google has now brought Shoploop’s short-form influencer videos to Google Shopping.
  • Discount e-commerce marketplace app Wish dropped below IPO price in its market debut. Wish opened at $22.75, below its $24 per share IPO pricing. Investors may be responding to the fact that Wish is growing slower and has a much smaller user base than top retailers, like Amazon and Walmart.
  • App Annie predicts U.S. users on Android will spend more than 1 billion hours in shopping apps in Q4 2020, a 50% YoY increase. Mobile sales are expected to reach $314 billion by year-end.

Security and Privacy

  • New mobile malware Goontact is targeting iOS and Android users in Chinese language-speaking countries, Korea and Japan. The spyware can steal contacts, SMS messages, photos and location information after a user is lured to a website hosting the spyware, which convinces them to sideload it on Android devices. On iOS, it primarily steals a phone number and contact list.
  • Secure messaging app Signal launches encrypted group calls on iOS and Android. The feature allows for up to five participants to chat.

Government and Policy

FTC orders ByteDance, Facebook, Snap and others to explain what they do with user data

Fintech

Health & Fitness

It won’t replace the gym, but Fitness+ will help you break a sweat

Funding and M&A

  • Reddit acquires TikTok rival Dubsmash to aid with Reddit’s video push. The company says it will integrate Dubsmash’s video creation tools into Reddit directly. Reddit had raised $20 million+ in venture funding.
  • MessageBird acquires real-time notifications and in-app messaging platform Pusher, based in London, for $35 million.
  • IntellectoKids raises $3 million from Allrise Capital and others for its edtech apps for kids aged 3 to 7 years old.
  • Mobile edtech startup Aceable raises $50 million to accelerate the expansion of its service for state-accredited classes.
  • Brainly raises $80 million for its crowdsourced homework help app now used by 350 million users.
  • Tap Network, a customizable rewards program used by app makers like Uber, raises $4 million.
  • Canadian challenger banking app Neo Financial raises $50 million CAD and expands into savings accounts.

MessageBird acquires real-time notifications and in-app messaging platform Pusher for $35M

Downloads

Canvas

Canvas is a new iPhone app from Occipital, the company behind RedLaster and 360 Panorama — apps that were ahead of the curve on the next frontier for iPhones. Canvas leverages the lidar scanner in the iPhone 12 Pro to create 3D scans of your home. 9to5Mac reviewed the app this week, describing the process of using Canvas as “pretty simple.” You just stand in the center of the room, then moved the photo up and down as you turn as the app overlays an AR grid on your room. The app did have some glitches with smaller rooms and alcoves. When the scan is done, you can pay a fee to have it turned into a professional CAD model for using in remodeling plans.

Gawq

Image Credits: Gawq

Gawq’s newly launched news aggregator app aims to tackle the problem of fake news and the “echo chamber” problem created by social media, where our view of the world is shaped by manipulative algorithms and personalized feeds. The app aims to present news from a range of sources, while allowing users to filter between news, opinion, paid content and more, as well as compare sources, check facts and even review the publication’s content for accuracy.

Gawq wants to burst your ‘echo chamber’ with its smarter news app

PhotoRoom

Image Credits: PhotoRoom

TechCrunch’s Romain Dillet looked this week at PhotoRoom, a new Android photography app that can automatically remove the background from your photo and swap it with another. The app, a YC alum, had previously been available on iOS where it competes with a variety of photo editing apps offering similar functionality.

PhotoRoom launches background-removal app on Android

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‘Excess Mortality Skyrocketed’: Tucker Carlson and Dr. Pierre Kory Unpack ‘Criminal’ COVID Response

‘Excess Mortality Skyrocketed’: Tucker Carlson and Dr. Pierre Kory Unpack ‘Criminal’ COVID Response

As the global pandemic unfolded, government-funded…

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March 14, 2024

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'Excess Mortality Skyrocketed': Tucker Carlson and Dr. Pierre Kory Unpack 'Criminal' COVID Response

As the global pandemic unfolded, government-funded experimental vaccines were hastily developed for a virus which primarily killed the old and fat (and those with other obvious comorbidities), and an aggressive, global campaign to coerce billions into injecting them ensued.

Then there were the lockdowns - with some countries (New Zealand, for example) building internment camps for those who tested positive for Covid-19, and others such as China welding entire apartment buildings shut to trap people inside.

It was an egregious and unnecessary response to a virus that, while highly virulent, was survivable by the vast majority of the general population.

Oh, and the vaccines, which governments are still pushing, didn't work as advertised to the point where health officials changed the definition of "vaccine" multiple times.

Tucker Carlson recently sat down with Dr. Pierre Kory, a critical care specialist and vocal critic of vaccines. The two had a wide-ranging discussion, which included vaccine safety and efficacy, excess mortality, demographic impacts of the virus, big pharma, and the professional price Kory has paid for speaking out.

Keep reading below, or if you have roughly 50 minutes, watch it in its entirety for free on X:

"Do we have any real sense of what the cost, the physical cost to the country and world has been of those vaccines?" Carlson asked, kicking off the interview.

"I do think we have some understanding of the cost. I mean, I think, you know, you're aware of the work of of Ed Dowd, who's put together a team and looked, analytically at a lot of the epidemiologic data," Kory replied. "I mean, time with that vaccination rollout is when all of the numbers started going sideways, the excess mortality started to skyrocket."

When asked "what kind of death toll are we looking at?", Kory responded "...in 2023 alone, in the first nine months, we had what's called an excess mortality of 158,000 Americans," adding "But this is in 2023. I mean, we've  had Omicron now for two years, which is a mild variant. Not that many go to the hospital."

'Safe and Effective'

Tucker also asked Kory why the people who claimed the vaccine were "safe and effective" aren't being held criminally liable for abetting the "killing of all these Americans," to which Kory replied: "It’s my kind of belief, looking back, that [safe and effective] was a predetermined conclusion. There was no data to support that, but it was agreed upon that it would be presented as safe and effective."

Carlson and Kory then discussed the different segments of the population that experienced vaccine side effects, with Kory noting an "explosion in dying in the youngest and healthiest sectors of society," adding "And why did the employed fare far worse than those that weren't? And this particularly white collar, white collar, more than gray collar, more than blue collar."

Kory also said that Big Pharma is 'terrified' of Vitamin D because it "threatens the disease model." As journalist The Vigilant Fox notes on X, "Vitamin D showed about a 60% effectiveness against the incidence of COVID-19 in randomized control trials," and "showed about 40-50% effectiveness in reducing the incidence of COVID-19 in observational studies."

Professional costs

Kory - while risking professional suicide by speaking out, has undoubtedly helped save countless lives by advocating for alternate treatments such as Ivermectin.

Kory shared his own experiences of job loss and censorship, highlighting the challenges of advocating for a more nuanced understanding of vaccine safety in an environment often resistant to dissenting voices.

"I wrote a book called The War on Ivermectin and the the genesis of that book," he said, adding "Not only is my expertise on Ivermectin and my vast clinical experience, but and I tell the story before, but I got an email, during this journey from a guy named William B Grant, who's a professor out in California, and he wrote to me this email just one day, my life was going totally sideways because our protocols focused on Ivermectin. I was using a lot in my practice, as were tens of thousands of doctors around the world, to really good benefits. And I was getting attacked, hit jobs in the media, and he wrote me this email on and he said, Dear Dr. Kory, what they're doing to Ivermectin, they've been doing to vitamin D for decades..."

"And it's got five tactics. And these are the five tactics that all industries employ when science emerges, that's inconvenient to their interests. And so I'm just going to give you an example. Ivermectin science was extremely inconvenient to the interests of the pharmaceutical industrial complex. I mean, it threatened the vaccine campaign. It threatened vaccine hesitancy, which was public enemy number one. We know that, that everything, all the propaganda censorship was literally going after something called vaccine hesitancy."

Money makes the world go 'round

Carlson then hit on perhaps the most devious aspect of the relationship between drug companies and the medical establishment, and how special interests completely taint science to the point where public distrust of institutions has spiked in recent years.

"I think all of it starts at the level the medical journals," said Kory. "Because once you have something established in the medical journals as a, let's say, a proven fact or a generally accepted consensus, consensus comes out of the journals."

"I have dozens of rejection letters from investigators around the world who did good trials on ivermectin, tried to publish it. No thank you, no thank you, no thank you. And then the ones that do get in all purportedly prove that ivermectin didn't work," Kory continued.

"So and then when you look at the ones that actually got in and this is where like probably my biggest estrangement and why I don't recognize science and don't trust it anymore, is the trials that flew to publication in the top journals in the world were so brazenly manipulated and corrupted in the design and conduct in, many of us wrote about it. But they flew to publication, and then every time they were published, you saw these huge PR campaigns in the media. New York Times, Boston Globe, L.A. times, ivermectin doesn't work. Latest high quality, rigorous study says. I'm sitting here in my office watching these lies just ripple throughout the media sphere based on fraudulent studies published in the top journals. And that's that's that has changed. Now that's why I say I'm estranged and I don't know what to trust anymore."

Vaccine Injuries

Carlson asked Kory about his clinical experience with vaccine injuries.

"So how this is how I divide, this is just kind of my perception of vaccine injury is that when I use the term vaccine injury, I'm usually referring to what I call a single organ problem, like pericarditis, myocarditis, stroke, something like that. An autoimmune disease," he replied.

"What I specialize in my practice, is I treat patients with what we call a long Covid long vaxx. It's the same disease, just different triggers, right? One is triggered by Covid, the other one is triggered by the spike protein from the vaccine. Much more common is long vax. The only real differences between the two conditions is that the vaccinated are, on average, sicker and more disabled than the long Covids, with some pretty prominent exceptions to that."

Watch the entire interview above, and you can support Tucker Carlson's endeavors by joining the Tucker Carlson Network here...

Tyler Durden Thu, 03/14/2024 - 16:20

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Shakira’s net worth

After 12 albums, a tax evasion case, and now a towering bronze idol sculpted in her image, how much is Shakira worth more than 4 decades into her care…

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March 14, 2024

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Shakira’s considerable net worth is no surprise, given her massive popularity in Latin America, the U.S., and elsewhere. 

In fact, the belly-dancing contralto queen is the second-wealthiest Latin-America-born pop singer of all time after Gloria Estefan. (Interestingly, Estefan actually helped a young Shakira translate her breakout album “Laundry Service” into English, hugely propelling her stateside success.)

Since releasing her first record at age 13, Shakira has spent decades recording albums in both Spanish and English and performing all over the world. Over the course of her 40+ year career, she helped thrust Latin pop music into the American mainstream, paving the way for the subsequent success of massively popular modern acts like Karol G and Bad Bunny.

In late 2023, a 21-foot-tall bronze sculpture of Shakira, the barefoot belly dancer of Barranquilla, was unveiled at the city's waterfront. The statue was commissioned by the city's former mayor and other leadership.

Photo by STR/AFP via Getty Images

In December 2023, a 21-foot-tall beachside bronze statue of the “Hips Don’t Lie” singer was unveiled in her Colombian hometown of Barranquilla, making her a permanent fixture in the city’s skyline and cementing her legacy as one of Latin America’s most influential entertainers.

After 12 albums, a plethora of film and television appearances, a highly publicized tax evasion case, and now a towering bronze idol sculpted in her image, how much is Shakira worth? What does her income look like? And how does she spend her money?

Related: Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson's net worth: How the new TKO Board Member built his wealth from $7

How much is Shakira worth?

In late 2023, Spanish sports and lifestyle publication Marca reported Shakira’s net worth at $400 million, citing Forbes as the figure’s source (although Forbes’ profile page for Shakira does not list a net worth — and didn’t when that article was published).

Most other sources list the singer’s wealth at an estimated $300 million, and almost all of these point to Celebrity Net Worth — a popular but dubious celebrity wealth estimation site — as the source for the figure.

A $300 million net worth would make Shakira the third-richest Latina pop star after Gloria Estefan ($500 million) and Jennifer Lopez ($400 million), and the second-richest Latin-America-born pop singer after Estefan (JLo is Puerto Rican but was born in New York).

Shakira’s income: How much does she make annually?

Entertainers like Shakira don’t have predictable paychecks like ordinary salaried professionals. Instead, annual take-home earnings vary quite a bit depending on each year’s album sales, royalties, film and television appearances, streaming revenue, and other sources of income. As one might expect, Shakira’s earnings have fluctuated quite a bit over the years.

From June 2018 to June 2019, for instance, Shakira was the 10th highest-earning female musician, grossing $35 million, according to Forbes. This wasn’t her first time gracing the top 10, though — back in 2012, she also landed the #10 spot, bringing in $20 million, according to Billboard.

In 2023, Billboard listed Shakira as the 16th-highest-grossing Latin artist of all time.

Shakira performed alongside producer Bizarrap during the 2023 Latin Grammy Awards Gala in Seville.

Photo By Maria Jose Lopez/Europa Press via Getty Images

How much does Shakira make from her concerts and tours?

A large part of Shakira’s wealth comes from her world tours, during which she sometimes sells out massive stadiums and arenas full of passionate fans eager to see her dance and sing live.

According to a 2020 report by Pollstar, she sold over 2.7 million tickets across 190 shows that grossed over $189 million between 2000 and 2020. This landed her the 19th spot on a list of female musicians ranked by touring revenue during that period. In 2023, Billboard reported a more modest touring revenue figure of $108.1 million across 120 shows.

In 2003, Shakira reportedly generated over $4 million from a single show on Valentine’s Day at Foro Sol in Mexico City. 15 years later, in 2018, Shakira grossed around $76.5 million from her El Dorado World Tour, according to Touring Data.

Related: RuPaul's net worth: Everything to know about the cultural icon and force behind 'Drag Race'

How much has Shakira made from her album sales?

According to a 2023 profile in Variety, Shakira has sold over 100 million records throughout her career. “Laundry Service,” the pop icon’s fifth studio album, was her most successful, selling over 13 million copies worldwide, according to TheRichest.

Exactly how much money Shakira has taken home from her album sales is unclear, but in 2008, it was widely reported that she signed a 10-year contract with LiveNation to the tune of between $70 and $100 million to release her subsequent albums and manage her tours.

Shakira and JLo co-headlined the 2020 Super Bowl Halftime Show in Florida.

Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

How much did Shakira make from her Super Bowl and World Cup performances?

Shakira co-wrote one of her biggest hits, “Waka Waka (This Time for Africa),” after FIFA selected her to create the official anthem for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. She performed the song, along with several of her existing fan-favorite tracks, during the event’s opening ceremonies. TheThings reported in 2023 that the song generated $1.4 million in revenue, citing Popnable for the figure.

A decade later, 2020’s Superbowl halftime show featured Shakira and Jennifer Lopez as co-headliners with guest performances by Bad Bunny and J Balvin. The 14-minute performance was widely praised as a high-energy celebration of Latin music and dance, but as is typical for Super Bowl shows, neither Shakira nor JLo was compensated beyond expenses and production costs.

The exposure value that comes with performing in the Super Bowl Halftime Show, though, is significant. It is typically the most-watched television event in the U.S. each year, and in 2020, a 30-second Super Bowl ad spot cost between $5 and $6 million.

How much did Shakira make as a coach on “The Voice?”

Shakira served as a team coach on the popular singing competition program “The Voice” during the show’s fourth and sixth seasons. On the show, celebrity musicians coach up-and-coming amateurs in a team-based competition that eventually results in a single winner. In 2012, The Hollywood Reporter wrote that Shakira’s salary as a coach on “The Voice” was $12 million.

Related: John Cena's net worth: The wrestler-turned-actor's investments, businesses, and more

How does Shakira spend her money?

Shakira doesn’t just make a lot of money — she spends it, too. Like many wealthy entertainers, she’s purchased her share of luxuries, but Barranquilla’s barefoot belly dancer is also a prolific philanthropist, having donated tens of millions to charitable causes throughout her career.

Private island

Back in 2006, she teamed up with Roger Waters of Pink Floyd fame and Spanish singer Alejandro Sanz to purchase Bonds Cay, a 550-acre island in the Bahamas, which was listed for $16 million at the time.

Along with her two partners in the purchase, Shakira planned to develop the island to feature housing, hotels, and an artists’ retreat designed to host a revolving cast of artists-in-residence. This plan didn’t come to fruition, though, and as of this article’s last update, the island was once again for sale on Vladi Private Islands.

Real estate and vehicles

Like most wealthy celebs, Shakira’s portfolio of high-end playthings also features an array of luxury properties and vehicles, including a home in Barcelona, a villa in Cyprus, a Miami mansion, and a rotating cast of Mercedes-Benz vehicles.

Philanthropy and charity

Shakira doesn’t just spend her massive wealth on herself; the “Queen of Latin Music” is also a dedicated philanthropist and regularly donates portions of her earnings to the Fundación Pies Descalzos, or “Barefoot Foundation,” a charity she founded in 1997 to “improve the education and social development of children in Colombia, which has suffered decades of conflict.” The foundation focuses on providing meals for children and building and improving educational infrastructure in Shakira’s hometown of Barranquilla as well as four other Colombian communities.

In addition to her efforts with the Fundación Pies Descalzos, Shakira has made a number of other notable donations over the years. In 2007, she diverted a whopping $40 million of her wealth to help rebuild community infrastructure in Peru and Nicaragua in the wake of a devastating 8.0 magnitude earthquake. Later, during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Shakira donated a large supply of N95 masks for healthcare workers and ventilators for hospital patients to her hometown of Barranquilla.

Back in 2010, the UN honored Shakira with a medal to recognize her dedication to social justice, at which time the Director General of the International Labour Organization described her as a “true ambassador for children and young people.”

On November 20, 2023 (which was supposed to be her first day of trial), Shakira reached a deal with the prosecution that resulted in a three-year suspended sentence and around $8 million in fines.

Photo by Adria Puig/Anadolu via Getty Images

Shakira’s tax fraud scandal: How much did she pay?

In 2018, prosecutors in Spain initiated a tax evasion case against Shakira, alleging she lived primarily in Spain from 2012 to 2014 and therefore failed to pay around $14.4 million in taxes to the Spanish government. Spanish law requires anyone who is “domiciled” (i.e., living primarily) in Spain for more than half of the year to pay income taxes.

During the period in question, Shakira listed the Bahamas as her primary residence but did spend some time in Spain, as she was dating Gerard Piqué, a professional footballer and Spanish citizen. The couple’s first son, Milan, was also born in Barcelona during this period. 

Shakira maintained that she spent far fewer than 183 days per year in Spain during each of the years in question. In an interview with Elle Magazine, the pop star opined that “Spanish tax authorities saw that I was dating a Spanish citizen and started to salivate. It's clear they wanted to go after that money no matter what."

Prosecutors in the case sought a fine of almost $26 million and a possible eight-year prison stint, but in November of 2023, Shakira took a deal to close the case, accepting a fine of around $8 million and a three-year suspended sentence to avoid going to trial. In reference to her decision to take the deal, Shakira stated, "While I was determined to defend my innocence in a trial that my lawyers were confident would have ruled in my favour [had the trial proceeded], I have made the decision to finally resolve this matter with the best interest of my kids at heart who do not want to see their mom sacrifice her personal well-being in this fight."

How much did the Shakira statue in Barranquilla cost?

In late 2023, a 21-foot-tall bronze likeness of Shakira was unveiled on a waterfront promenade in Barranquilla. The city’s then-mayor, Jaime Pumarejo, commissioned Colombian sculptor Yino Márquez to create the statue of the city’s treasured pop icon, along with a sculpture of the city’s coat of arms.

According to the New York Times, the two sculptures cost the city the equivalent of around $180,000. A plaque at the statue’s base reads, “A heart that composes, hips that don’t lie, an unmatched talent, a voice that moves the masses and bare feet that march for the good of children and humanity.” 

Related: Taylor Swift net worth: The most successful entertainer joins the billionaire's club

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International

Delta Air Lines adds a new route travelers have been asking for

The new Delta seasonal flight to the popular destination will run daily on a Boeing 767-300.

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8 hours ago

on

March 14, 2024

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Those who have tried to book a flight from North America to Europe in the summer of 2023 know just how high travel demand to the continent has spiked.

At 2.93 billion, visitors to the countries making up the European Union had finally reached pre-pandemic levels last year while North Americans in particular were booking trips to both large metropolises such as Paris and Milan as well as smaller cities growing increasingly popular among tourists.

Related: A popular European city is introducing the highest 'tourist tax' yet

As a result, U.S.-based airlines have been re-evaluating their networks to add more direct routes to smaller European destinations that most travelers would have previously needed to reach by train or transfer flight with a local airline.

The new flight will take place on a Boeing 767-300.

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Delta Air Lines: ‘Glad to offer customers increased choice…’

By the end of March, Delta Air Lines  (DAL)  will be restarting its route between New York’s JFK and Marco Polo International Airport in Venice as well as launching two new flights to Venice from Atlanta. One will start running this month while the other will be added during peak demand in the summer.

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“As one of the most beautiful cities in the world, Venice is hugely popular with U.S. travelers, and our flights bring valuable tourism and trade opportunities to the city and the region as well as unrivalled opportunities for Venetians looking to explore destinations across the Americas,” Delta’s SVP for Europe Matteo Curcio said in a statement. “We’re glad to offer customers increased choice this summer with flights from New York and additional service from Atlanta.”

The JFK-Venice flight will run on a Boeing 767-300  (BA)  and have 216 seats including higher classes such as Delta One, Delta Premium Select and Delta Comfort Plus.

Delta offers these features on the new flight

Both the New York and Atlanta flights are seasonal routes that will be pulled out of service in October. Both will run daily while the first route will depart New York at 8:55 p.m. and arrive in Venice at 10:15 a.m. local time on the way there, while leaving Venice at 12:15 p.m. to arrive at JFK at 5:05 p.m. on the way back.

According to Delta, this will bring its service to 17 flights from different U.S. cities to Venice during the peak summer period. As with most Delta flights at this point, passengers in all fare classes will have access to free Wi-Fi during the flight.

Those flying in Delta’s highest class or with access through airline status or a credit card will also be able to use the new Delta lounge that is part of the airline’s $12 billion terminal renovation and is slated to open to travelers in the coming months. The space will take up more than 40,000 square feet and have an outdoor terrace.

“Delta One customers can stretch out in a lie-flat seat and enjoy premium amenities like plush bedding made from recycled plastic bottles, more beverage options, and a seasonal chef-curated four-course meal,” Delta said of the new route. “[…] All customers can enjoy a wide selection of in-flight entertainment options and stay connected with Wi-Fi and enjoy free mobile messaging.”

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