War, inflation and how central banks are handling it all

Good morning from the Financial Times. Today is Friday, May 1st, and this is your FT News briefing. Apple's iPhone sales are booming, and the energy shock from the war in Iran is complicating things for central bankers. Plus Tinder has been looking for love in all the wrong places, but the app is trying to turn things around. Tinder was one of the first apps to break onto the scene, but with other apps coming on many users have decided that if they are to find that special person, they're more likely to do it on one of Tinder's competitors. I'm Mark Filipino and here's the news you need to start your day. Apple reported quarterly earnings yesterday in things. Things are good. The smartphone maker saw about a 17% annual rise in revenue to the end of March. That's a little bit more than $111 billion for the quarter. Apple is thinking what it calls its most popular iPhone model ever for the success. Apple CEO Tim Cook said there has been an extraordinary demand for the iPhone 17. iPhone sales rose more than 20% last quarter. This is the first earnings report since Apple announced that Cook is stepping down in September. It will be replaced by Hardware Chief John Ternis. Inflation caused by the Iran War's energy shock hasn't just forced policymakers in the US to keep interest rates on hold. Central banks across Europe yesterday voted to keep their borrowing costs steady too. This is in the face of ongoing uncertainty. The European Central Bank held its benchmark rate at 2%, while the Bank of England stood firm at 3.75%. Sam Fleming is the FT's economics editor. He's been digging into all the data and decisions and he joins me now to discuss it all. Hi Sam. Hi Mark. So we got fresh data yesterday that showed Eurozone inflation jumped more than expected to 3% in April. That's the highest level since 2023. How worried are central bankers about these price rises? To an extent, the price rises are inevitable because the increase in energy prices immediately going to start getting reflected in fuel prices and potentially prices of food and other commodities. So we would expect a movement in headline inflation in any case. What the central bankers are more looking for is whether they're a so-called second-round effect. So does this start to affect wage setting? Does it start to affect the wages that workers demand? Does it compel companies to start raising the prices of other products in the economy? Does that create a kind of self-fulfilling momentum in inflation? Now I don't think we see any of that yet. It's way too soon. But they are worried because clearly there's a risk of that happening. And let's face it, a lot of the central banks around the world went into this energy crisis with inflation, which was well above a target. So they're not coming into this in a great position. Yeah, let's talk about where central banks are positioned and what they can do about them because unlike the Fed, which has a dual mandate of price stability and full employment other central banks, really only worry about inflation, what tools do these central banks have to address the shock we're talking about and how prepared are they to use them? Initially, the tools they're using are a communication setting out scenarios for how the energy crisis might unfold and expressing a willingness and a readiness to raise interest rates if necessary to quell increases in inflation expectations and that they will not let inflation get out of hand. But in the end, they will have to follow this stuff up. I think the signal that we got from Christine Lagarde, the president of the ECB yesterday, is that the ECB is seriously considering the need potentially to increase interest rates. I think it's possible that we could see a rise as soon as this summer. The messaging from the Bank of England policy makers went into the meeting far more cautious about sending strong signals that rates might have to rise. But still, the message coming out of that meeting is that if this carries on for long enough, this energy crunch, then they will have to raise interest rates. Sam, the war on Iran isn't only affecting prices around the world. It's also hitting growth. Walk us through some of the latest data. So, yeah, we had some fairly pedestrian growth figures this week. The Eurozone growth rate was only 0.1% in the first quarter. So somewhat slower than we saw in terms of early growth indications from the UK from early in 2026. And we also had US growth figures and annualized growth rate of 2%. So also relatively below expectation. So we're not seeing particularly stellar growth figures. I think it's probably a little bit early to see the full impact of the energy crisis in terms of headline GDP growth. But I think you can expect an ongoing drag on growth and consumer spending because of higher energy costs and the extent to which that acts as a drag on people's willingness and ability to spend a drag on their disposable incomes. That will start to hurt growth later in the year. I think it's just one of those things that it's impossible to avoid. Sam Flaming is the FT's economics editor. Thanks, Sam. Thanks, Mark. The FT's current Smith is our telecoms and tech correspondent. He spoke to the group's CEO Spencer Raskoff about plans to revamp the app. Hi, Kiran. Hi, Mark. Good to be back. So Kiran, just how bad are things for Tinder? Just to contextualize things a little bit, Tinder is by far the largest dating app in the western world. It has over 50 million monthly active users, according to figures from Sense of Tower. However, it has declined since the pandemic. It had over 65 million monthly active users in 2021. But since then, it's been on a pretty downhill slope and has lost ground to rivals such as Bumble and Hinge. Well, why is that? It's pretty simple. Tinder was one of the first apps to break onto the scene and it was largely the only option if you were looking to online date, particularly at the start of the last decade. But with other apps coming onto the scene and new innovative features being launched elsewhere, many users have decided that if they are to find that special person, they're more likely to do it on one of Tinder's competitors. So what does Raskoff say went wrong for Tinder? Yeah, it was interesting when I was speaking to Raskoff. I think it's firstly important to contextualize that he's been in the role now for about 14 months. He was appointed in late February 2025. So he's coming with a new vision for not only match group, but also Tinder. And he said to me that quite clearly the problem with Tinder had been it didn't innovate enough. But first onto the scene, it had a bit of a monopoly and that allowed it to get complacent. He said it's left right swipe feature contributed to kind of gamified offering. It made users feel like dating was very impersonal. And ultimately, Raskoff said that that had put users, including women off the app because they simply didn't feel like they were getting what they needed. The other thing to note, of course, is that dating apps have always been subject to criticism for allowing bad actors and scammers on their apps are not introducing enough features to help prevent that. And Raskoff identified that as a key problem, particularly with female users who didn't feel as safe using the app as maybe they had done on their competitors. So what is he hoping to do to turn things around? Since he's come in, he's launched a wave of new features to appeal not only to female data, but also to younger data as well, those in Gen Z. And that includes double dates that includes allowing people to match based on shared interests, such as music. It also has seen them launch pioneering new features, although it's in trial phase at the moment, such as video calls, so you can suss out the person you're going to go on a date with before you actually meet them. And ultimately, they've also put a huge amount of investment into trust and safety. Tinder has become one of the first apps to introduce mandatory facial recognition for new users. And they can check whether a you've been banned from the app before for bad behavior and be whether your face actually does match who you say you are. Kirin, even if he fixes these issues with Tinder, we discussed earlier on that there seems to be a larger problem going on with dating apps. Is this kind of just the direction that we're going in? Yeah, I think there's a lot of lazy stereotypes that get out there about dating apps. Match Group and Bumble have lost a lot of market value since they were first publicly listed, but that's not necessarily because the sector is struggling. That is because they are struggling. In the face of new arrivals, we're in a period of real change in the sector. It's matured now 15 years ago, dating apps were a new thing. Now they're not. Most people do or have used dating apps in their life. And ultimately, these things aren't going away, but there is increasing competition as to which is the best option for those looking to meet that special person. Kirin Smith is the FT's telecoms and tech correspondent. Thanks, Kirin. Thanks Mark. Always a pleasure. Local elections are taking place next week in the UK and the results could cause a tectonic shift for Prime Minister Kierstarmer and his labor government. The briefing's Monday host, Victoria Craig joins me now for a little preview on what she's been cooking on this. Hi, Victoria. Hello, hello. So what's going on? What's happening in the UK? And when is this vote? So voters across England, Wales and Scotland are going to head to the ballot box on Thursday. And while there are thousands of seats that are up for grabs in these elections, it's really the broader picture that's going to matter here the most. Many people see these local elections as a sort of referendum on the Prime Minister and his government. There is outrage over Kierstarmer's appointment of former UK ambassador to the US Peter Mandelson. We've covered that quite a lot on this program. And there's also a lot of anger on the cost of living and this less swift pace of change than people felt that they were promised when labor came to power in 2024. Okay, so you said this was a referendum on Starmer? Could this spell the end of his premiership? Well, it could, but there is a fairly high bar for him to be ousted. Still, I think what's important is that the big question in these elections is whether the potential swing in voter support away from his labor party is going to force a leadership change. There are also lots of questions about who voters are going to support and the answer may be neither labor nor the conservative parties. And that's because third parties have tried to sort of capitalize on this outrage and discontent among voters. And that's the other big question here. Is whether these elections are going to mark the end of the two party system to a real sort of European multi party system in the UK? That would be really interesting. Yes, it would. Victoria, you're delving to all this with the FT's political editor George Parker on Monday show. We will be sure to tune in for that one. Thanks, Victoria. Thanks, Park. You can read more on all these stories for free when you click the links in our show notes. This has been your daily FT News Briefing. Check back next week for the latest business news. The FT News Briefing was produced this week by Sophia Ahmed, Sonia Hudson, Fiona Simon, Julia Webster, Victoria Craig and me, Mark Filipino. Our show is mixed by Alex Higgins and Sam G. Vingo. We had helped this week from Peter Marber, Michael Lello and Gavin Coleman. Our executive producers, Tofer Forhes, the FT's global head of audio is Cheryl Brumley, and our theme song is by metaphor music. [Music]