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Apple turns in record Q1: $6b profit on $26.7b revenue, 16.2m iPhones sold
Apple's announcement of Steve Jobs' medical leave just one day before releasing its Q1 financial results struck us as well-planned yesterday, and here we are: if Cupertino's record $6 billion profit on a record $26.7 billion in revenue isn't enough to turn that frown -- and stock slide -- upside down, well, nothing else will. iPhone 4 sales were predictably strong through the holidays, clocking in at a record 16.2m units, or up 86 percent from last year, while Mac sales went up 23 percent to a record 4.13m and iPod sales were stronger than expected at 19.45m, a seven percent decline. As for the iPad, Apple's tablet had its second straight dominant quarter, with record sales of 7.33 million -- some 3 million more than the Mac. Apple's financial call with new acting CEO Tim Cook and CFO Peter Oppenheimer is scheduled to start at 5PM EST -- check after the break for our usual liveblog while you're listening live on Apple's site.
Adobe clocks first billion-dollar quarter ever, $268m profit
It's been a year of Flash-related drama for Adobe, but otherwise it seems like things are humming along nicely: the company just posted its first-ever quarter with a billion dollars in revenue, which is good for a $268.9 million profit. Unfortunately there's no granular data on how Flash is faring in the market -- it's lumped into the Creative Solutions group with the rest of the Creative Suite products, but with big wins on Android in the past year and a huge win on the Air-based BlackBerry Playbook coming next year, we'd say things are going well, no matter what Steve Jobs' Thoughts are. [Image credit: Ben Templesmith's Flickr]
ARM beats revenue forecasts, swims in piles of gold coins
Mobile chip wunder-company and recent Microsoft BFF ARM Holdings has released its financial results for the second quarter, and the news is good. Real good. Revenues are up about 50 percent compared to the same period a year before and profits jumped a whopping 167 percent. ARM indicates its strong presence in the mobile market is the primary reason for this growth, citing an average of 2.6 ARM-based chips in every cellphone. New licensing deals, like the one with Microsoft, also buoyed that result. What's next for the company? 2.6 ARM-based chips in every baby, puppy, and kitty.
Microsoft reports $4.5b in profit, a record $16.04b in revenue
This time last year, almost to the day, Microsoft saw its first annual sales decline in history. Things are looking much better now, with the company reporting a record $16.04 billion in revenue, a 22 percent year-over-year increase for its Q4 revenue ending June 30th. In fact, revenue is up across all divisions, with Windows and Windows Live seeing the biggest uptick (43.5 percent to $4.55 billion) followed by Entertainment and Devices (27.3 percent to $1.6 billion). Operating income, on the other hand, paints a different picture of E&D, showing a $172 million loss for this quarter (compared to $141 loss in Q4 last year), but looking over the entire fiscal year, the home of Xbox and Zune this year did $679 million in operating income -- a sizable jump to the $108 million from 2009. The overall operating income for the company is $5.93 billion this quarter (net income $4.52 billion), a 49 percent increase over last Q4, and $20.36 billion for the year (18 percent compared with fiscal 2009). We know you're interested in comparisons, so we'll just go ahead and break it down for ya: the gang in Redmond is still beating Apple in both revenue ($16.04 billion vs. $15.7 billion) and profit ($4.52 billion vs. $3.25), but that margin feels smaller than it used to. Enough to keep the rumored pressure off Ballmer? Frankly, we don't even think biplanes could knock the man off the top of a tower, but Windows Phone 7 has a lot to prove, and fast. Microsoft is hosting a webcast of its report later today -- usually much ado about nothing, as far as we're concerned, but we'll listen in and let ya know if anything interesting pops up. Update: Some interesting Xbox 360 statistics. 1.5 million consoles were sold this last quarter. Xbox Live has 25 million members, and for the first time since its inception, the revenue from the Marketplace exceeded subscription revenue.
Apple posts record $3.25b profit in first full quarter of iPad sales, says more 'amazing products' coming this year
Apple just posted up its third quarter earnings -- its first full quarter selling the iPad -- and, well, it's raining cash in Cupertino. The company posted a record profit of $3.25b on record revenues of $15.7b, which is up from $1.83b and $9.73b from a year ago. The big stat? Apple sold 3.27 million iPads, nearly matching the 3.47 million Macs sold -- and Mac sales were up 33 percent from a year ago to set a new quarterly record. Yeah, damn. iPhone sales -- including the first few weeks of the iPhone 4 -- were up 61 percent from a year ago to 8.4 million, and the iPod continued its slow decline, down eight percent to 9.41 million units sold. Over half of the Apple's sales -- 52 percent -- were international, and Jobs is quoted saying "we have amazing new products still to come this year." Not a bad way to head into back-to-school and the holidays, we suppose -- we've got a feeling those iPad numbers are just going to go up. The conference call to discuss all this is at 5pm ET, we'll be covering it live right here. Update: The call is all done -- the full liveblog is after the break. We didn't learn too much apart from the fact that Apple's selling every iPhone and iPad it can make (Tim Cook repeated this over and over), and that Apple's setting aside $175 million in revenue to cover the free iPhone 4 cases. Of course, given that Apple added an additional $4.1 billion in cash to its warchest this quarter for a total of $45.8 billion, that's pretty much pocket change, but there's the number.
Final Fantasy XIII, Dragon Quest IX, Batman sales lead Square Enix fiscal year
Square Enix had a good fiscal year (ended March 31, 2010), but its games division had a very good year. Final Fantasy XIII sold over five million units globally during the period, with the Japan-only release of Dragon Quest IX coming in second with 4.26 million units. Thanks to the company's acquisition of Eidos last year, the company could count on some Batman: Arkham Asylum cash, with the pointy-eared detective's critically acclaimed title selling 3.24 million units -- it's a shame Square won't get a piece of the sequel. Squenix's games division had sales of ¥109.9 billion ($1.18 billion) in the last fiscal year, up an impressive 128 percent over last year. With the Dark Knight out of the picture, Square Enix will have to depend on its other western franchises, including Kane & Lynch, Deus Ex and the games of Ms. Croft. Source [PDF link] -- Results Briefing Session for the Fiscal Year ended March 31, 2010
Capcom calls earnings 'sluggish' over last fiscal year
Usually, a company's financial results press release is just called "Financial results for [insert time period]" or something equally neutral, but Capcom went ahead and put "sluggish" in its own headline to describe its fiscal year ending March 31. The publisher's net sales for the year were ¥66.84 billion ($751.35 million), down 27.3 percent from the previous fiscal year, and net income plummeted 73.1 percent year-over-year to just ¥2.17 billion ($24.36 million). Capcom blamed the financial decline on the delays of Lost Planet 2, Super Street Fighter IV and Monster Hunter Tri to the current fiscal year, though the company previously took these delays into account in a revised earnings forecast last December. (On the bright side, actual nets sales did surpass the predicted figures by about ¥1.84 billion.) In addition to the delays, earnings suffered from sluggish sales of Dark Void, Bionic Commando and Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles, which all failed to meet Capcom's expectations.
Intel profits recover to $2.3 billion in Q4 2009, company describes it as 875 percent jump
Yo Intel, when your 2008 fourth quarter was one of the worst you ever recorded, it's slightly, just slightly, facetious to go trumpeting an 875 percent improvement in your 2009 fortunes. The self-appointed chipmaking rock star has clocked up $10.6 billion in revenues for the last quarter, which filters down to $2.3 billion in pure, unadulterated, mother-loving profit. That's good and indeed technically nearly nine times what the company achieved in the same period the previous year -- we'd just appreciate this to be represented as the recovery it is, rather than some major leap forward in the face of a global financial meltdown. Either way, the Santa Clara checkbook is now well and truly balanced, even if it would've looked fatter still but for the small matter of a $1.25 billion settlement reflected in last quarter's results.
BlackBerry shipments break record in Q3, RIM profits jump 59 percent
RIM being a thriving and profitable company is hardly a new story -- as confirmed by third quarter earnings of $628 million off the back of a record-breaking 10 million units sold -- but the way it's making its money seems to be changing. More than 80 percent of new BlackBerry subscribers in the quarter were private customers, marking a distinct shift -- maybe not away from the corporate arena, but definitely toward embracing the consumer market. In an effort to further consolidate its global empire, RIM has also announced a partnership with China Telecom to go along with its earlier China Mobile deal. Oh, and there's the small matter of the 75 millionth BlackBerry being sold, but we're sure the cool cats up in BB HQ aren't counting handsets, they're probably too busy rolling around in piles of money.
2009 THQ year-to-date sales up 22 percent over 2008
THQ has released its financial results for the second quarter of its fiscal 2010, which ended September 30, 2009, and things are mostly looking up. The company lost money this quarter compared to the same period last year, posting non-GAAP net sales of $100.38 million, down from $151.62 million during Q2 of its fiscal 2009. However sales are up for the entire year, with THQ posting net sales of $334.28 million for its fiscal 2010 thus far, up from $272.69 million last year, a 22 percent increase. THQ blamed the second quarter dip on a lack of new titles, though it hopes to have a good holiday season thanks to a "strong mass-market line-up" including WWE Smackdown vs RAW 2010 and MX vs ATV Reflex. The company was also sure to mention its triumph in the JAKKS Pacific lawsuit, which resulted in a much lower payment to the longtime WWE series developer (though the scuffle is still haunting the publisher). Finally, THQ promised to prevail in its march to profitability by the end of fiscal 2010. Though the company expects its Q3 2010 to be 5-10 percent lower than the same period last year, it predicts Q4 sales will exceed those of last year. A reasonable hope, given that all of THQ's major releases drop in its fiscal Q4, including Darksiders, Metro 2033 and the Dawn of War 2 expansion, Chaos Rising.
Capcom posts strong Q2 2009 earnings, despite 'soft' overseas sales
Capcom has posted its financial results for the six months ending September 30, 2009, and things are definitely looking good for the company. The publisher reported net sales of ¥38.892 billion ($426 million), up from ¥31.236 billion ($342 million) during the same period last year, which amounts to a 24.5-percent increase. The majority of those sales were generated by Capcom's home video games division, which pulled in ¥27.748 billion ($303 million) -- up from ¥16.486 ($180 million); a staggering 68.3-percent increase. Capcom credits strong sales of Monster Hunter Tri in Japan, as well as continued sales of Resident Evil 5, Monster Hunter Freedom Unite and Ace Attorney: Investigations to its recent financial success. However, the company stated that overseas sales remained "soft" for the period thanks to the delay of Dark Void and the weak performance of Bionic Commando and Monster Hunter Freedom Unite. Joystiq readers will recall that Capcom leveled complaints at the same games in its first quarter report earlier this year. It's worth noting that overseas sales still amounted to ¥11.739 billion ($128 million), which accounted for 57-percent of the home video games division sales. We suppose Capcom might consider that "soft," but the suits can't be too broken up about it. Source -- Capcom | Favorable Financial Results for the 6 months ended September 30, 2009 Source -- Capcom | Consolidated Financial Results for the 2nd Quarter of the FY2009
Nintendo half-year results show profits down in '09; still making boffo bucks
Nintendo's profits took a 52 percent dive in the first-half of 2009 compared to the same period last year, which sounds horrible -- until the realization hits that the company still brought in $766 million in pure profit. Yes, Nintendo is still doing all right, even as it cut its profit forecast for the fiscal year ending March 2010 from $3.3 billion to merely $2.53 billion. Tragic, we know.The Wii has now sold 56.14 million units globally, while the DS has reached 113.48 million in unit sales. There's been a general slowdown of software sales, however, as the House of Mario has had fewer high-profile releases so far this year -- we count only: Wii Sports Resort. Although investors may see the profit decline as a bad thing, it's not like Nintendo's plump plumber is going to be forced to cut back on those hearty meals any time soon.Source -- Nintendo financial report [PDF]Source -- Nintendo profits slide (MCV)
Microsoft first-quarter income down 18 percent, still beats expectations
Microsoft just turned in its first quarter financial report card, and while the good vibes around Windows 7 launch haven't yet begun to fade, the numbers here aren't exactly cheery: revenue is down 14 percent from last year at $12.92b, operating income is down 25 percent at $4.48b, net income is down 18 percent at $3.57b, and earnings per share are down 17 percent at $0.40. Not wonderful, but it's better than analysts were expecting, and the stock is actually way up on the news. Adding in the deferred revenue from early sales of Windows 7 makes things look a little better still, with only a four percent decline in revenue and an eight percent increase in earnings per share, and the Entertainment and Devices Division -- home of the Xbox 360 and Zune HD -- is also a bright spot, increasing income from $159m to $312m on essentially unchanged revenue. Of course, the big test will actually be next quarter, after Windows 7 has really had a chance to make an impact -- we'll see if all these warm fuzzies translate into cold hard cash.
Analysts: Nintendo may forecast drop in profits
Striding into informed meta-prediction territory, several Tokyo-based analysts have suggested that Nintendo may cut its earnings forecast in preparation for a decline in profits -- the first in six years. According to a Bloomberg report, Nintendo's adjustments will be prompted by slowing Wii sales and a stronger Yen. Scheduled to report earnings on October 29th, Nintendo is expected to indicate an 11 percent fall in net income to 249.3 billion yen (nearly $2.75 billion) for the fiscal year. Soichiro Fukuda, a Tokyo-based Citigroup Inc. analyst, expects "a large downward revision" from the manufacturer in the form of a 29 percent profit drop to 201 billion yen (roughly $2.2 billion).While the figures make for dry reading, they illuminate the altered landscape in which Nintendo and its products now compete. Standing atop a wobbling economy, the games industry now hosts a revitalized PlayStation 3 and a Wii that brings in fewer dollars -- the only thing that hasn't changed, of course, is our desire to buy the DS again and again.
Palm announces first quarter results: $164.5m net loss, 823k phones sold
Palm just announced its first quarter results -- the first to really include numbers from the Pre -- and they're positive (well, depending on how you look at things), with a $2.8m gross profit on $68m in revenue. Actually, that's a little low, since Palm uses the same sort of subscription accounting for the Pre as Apple does for the iPhone, so the unofficial numbers are higher: $100.6m gross profit on $360.7m in revenue. Still, we should point out that according to GAAP (you know, the rules that matter), the outfit had a net loss in fiscal Q1 2010 of $164.5 million, while the non-GAAP net loss was pegged at $13.6 million. Although Palm wouldn't include break out specific sales data, they did say that the "vast majority" of the 823,000 phones they sold in Q1 were Pres, so take that as you will. Oh, and if you were still holding out hope for more Palm WinMo phones, it's all over -- Palm is doing 100 percent webOS development from now on. (Shocker!). Update 1: Rubinstein deftly sidestepped the question of why Pixi was launched on Sprint as opposed to another carrier, saying "They're a great partner and we're looking forward to a great holiday season." Update 2: Asked about MOTOBLUR, Jon said "I don't know much about MOTOBLUR, but I think to build really great products, you have to control the entire experience -- you have to own the OS and the services around it." Update 3: Jon just said "We're on a web schedule with updates -- you'll see a steady stream of updates and features." Update 4: Revenue on accessories and anciliary products were "really very small, immaterial to overall trends." When pressed if it was in the low, single-digit millions, CFO Doug Jeffries emphasized, "very, very small."
Sprint loses $384m, 257k subscribers in first quarter of Pre availability
The Pre might have slowed the drain at Sprint but it hasn't managed to turn things around completely -- America's number three carrier posted a second-quarter loss of $384m as it lost another 257,000 subscribers. That just continues Sprint's trend of bleeding customers to the competition, and we doubt this balance sheet will turn around anytime soon -- not only will next quarter reflect the $483m purchase of Virgin Mobile USA, it's pretty clear that Verizon will get the Pre and AT&T will carry another webOS handset, leaving Mr. Hesse and crew without their shiny halo device to lure new subs to the fold. We'll see what Sprint does to turn this all around -- did someone say they need a Hero?
Xbox division profits for second straight year, but ...
Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices Division -- the gaming and Zune portion of the company -- has announced profits for the fiscal year that ended on June 30. Unfortunately for Microsoft, it's 66 percent less profit than last year ($169 million, down from $497 million). In this economy, though, some profit can still seem like a total win.Revenue from Xbox 360 and PC sales dropped in the fourth quarter by 12 percent, to $110 million, due mostly to reduced Xbox 360 hardware sales and, of course, the fact that the systems cost less and brought in less revenue per console than in 2008. Shipments declined in this period from 1.3 million in 2008 to 1.2 million units. Overall, however, shipments increased from 8.7 million to 11.2 million units. Go figure.
Palm says licensing webOS "not a religious issue"
Palm had its quarterly results conference call yesterday and although CEO Jon Rubinstein and CFO Doug Jeffries kept a pretty tight lid on the future product talk, they did say that licensing webOS to third parties isn't "a religious issue for us." That's pretty vague, sure, but we can't help but immediately think back to the golden age of Palm OS, when licensees like Sony put out amazing devices like the Clie PEG-NZ90 that we've lovingly mocked up with a webOS screenshot above -- we're sure Palm's upcoming handsets will be interesting in their own right, but we'd love to see a manufacturer like HTC riff on webOS the way it's tweaking Android. Of course, Jeffries also said Palm has "no plans at this time to even talk about" licensing, so this is all just a pipe dream for now, but let's not ruin the moment, okay? Hit the read link for the full call transcript.[Via GearLog]
Sony posts $1b loss, first in 14 years
Here's the good news: Sony's ¥98.9b ($1.03b) loss is slightly less than the $1.1b the company told us it would lose in January. Sadly, all of the other news is bad, starting with the fact that the company just lost a freaking billion dollars, its first loss in 14 years, and it's predicting a similar $1.1b loss next year. Electronics sales were down 17 percent, the Sony-Ericsson phone partnership is struggling, and game division sales dropped 18 percent primarily due to Sony's continued reliance on falling PS2 sales. As for the PS3, it's actually a dim bright spot: hardware cost reductions and increased game sales slightly stemmed the tide, but Sony's still expecting the division to lose money in the coming year. Sony also says it has "extensive measures" in store to try and turn things around after that, so we're hoping Sir Howard's plans to embrace open formats and listen to consumers are kicking into gear, but we'll see.Read - Sony financials [Warning: PDF]Read - Reuters reportRead - MarketWatch
T-Mobile sells a million G1s in the US
We don't know why T-Mobile isn't trumpeting this, but Deutsche Telekom's Q1 results are out, and the multinational carrier says that over one million G1s have been sold in the US, making up a majority of the 1.5 million 3G devices currently active on T-Mo's network. That's quite an accomplishment in just six months, considering the Android handset launched without nationwide 3G coverage -- it's better now, but we're talking just 21 cities back in October. Of course, a million's just a drop in the bucked compared to the number of Blackberrys, iPhones, and Windows Mobile devices out there, but we've got enough of a soft spot for Android to overlook it -- now let's get some more devices out the door and really boost that marketshare number, shall we?[Via Electronista]
