PepsiCo reports fall in first-quarter sales

Non-alcoholic beverage giant PepsiCo Inc on Monday reported a first-quarter drop in profits and the sixth consecutive fall in sales blamed on a strong dollar.

Quarterly net income fell to $931 million, while sales dropped by 2.9 percent to $11.86 billion against $11.88 billion expected by the markets.

Core earnings per share was 89 cents against 81 cents as expected by analysts.

The company’s performance in the first three months of the year was affected by a $373 million impairment charge related to its interests in the Tingyi-Asahi Beverages Holding group.

“Foreign exchange translation had a 4.5 percentage point unfavorable impact,” and separating its Venezuela operations due to difficulties converting local currency to dollars “had a 2 percentage point unfavorable impact on reported net revenue,” PepsiCo said.

The company said it was also affected by a depreciation of its assets in Russia.

The group reaffirmed its 2016 forecast of earnings per share of around $4.66, an increase of 2.0 percent compared with 2015.

“We are off to a strong start to the year and that gives us added confidence in achieving our financial objectives for 2016,” said Chairman and CEO Indra Nooyi.

The rise and fall of the hoverboard

About a month after U.S. officials declared hoverboards unsafe, Martha Stewart — long the undisputed queen of American domestic excellence — is delighting as she rides one barefoot through a posh hallway on her way to a celebrity dinner. 

The sight is so familiar now that it's almost cliché: a celebrity on a hoverboard, gushing childlike exuberance, as her entourage looks on and waits for the inevitable social media post. 

But no matter what you think of Stewart or her (lack of) skill in piloting a "self-balancing electric scooter" (the semi-official name for hoverboards), the scene sends a clear message: Hoverboards are officially over. 

Like Stewart’s sudden fall from grace following her 2004 conviction and federal prison stint, the end of the hoverboard was swift and framed by controversy. Hoverboards have been so entangled with celebrity culture that Stewart’s late-to-the-party hoverboard flourish may be the perfect representative tableau. But like all great metaphorical images, far more interesting is the story of how the image came to be.  

The hoverboard appears to be in the final throes of a death spiral, slipping down the drain of tech history these past few months -- following in the footsteps of the Tamagotchi, MiniDisc players and netbooks. 

But if you were paying attention, all the signs of a fad were there: rapid and blind adoption by the celebrity class, scores of out-of-nowhere brands you've never heard of all offering the same product, and, of course, zero safety certifications. 

That last point turned out to be the crucial detail that ultimately led to the hoverboard's ignominious fall.