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Samsung to fight falling profits with midrange phones, 'mainstream' 8K
As Samsung expected, its Q2 profit is off from last year's by about 56 percent. An operating profit of $5.6 billion (6.6 trillion Korean won) is no small figure, but obviously not up to par for the electronics giant, and follow a similar result in Q1 of this year. A big reason for the fall is a drop in prices for memory chips, which Samsung is a major supplier of for products like smartphones and servers. It's also negatively affected by weak iPhone sales since it supplies Apple with parts, and is facing slower sales for its own high-end phone models. Last year Samsung was looking toward foldable devices to help turn around the trend, and after a delay it's still expecting the Galaxy Fold to join its Galaxy Note 10 as an "innovative" new product launch. According to the company's report, it's also pushing ahead on 5G.
Apple's wearables and services made up for weak iPhone sales
Apple's latest earnings report is out, and as many had expected, it's very much on-trend with the numbers we've seen coming out of Cupertino this year. The company managed to grow its overall revenue a little, raking in a total of $53.8 billion compared to $53.3 billion this time last year. That's... not a huge amount of growth, but it was enough to claim an all-time Q3 revenue record, according to CEO Tim Cook. Unfortunately, Apple's iPhone sales showed little sign of recovering — the company saw just under $26 billion in iPhone sales this quarter, continuing a streak of year-over-year declines.
Sony has sold 100 million PlayStation 4 consoles
Despite flagging sales of late, Sony's PlayStation 4 has sold 100 million units, making it the fastest-selling console to hit that number. In its latest earnings report, Sony revealed that it sold 3.2 million PS4s between March 31st and June 30th, after announcing last quarter that it had sold a total of 96.8 million units since the console came out. That means it hit the 100 million figure on the nose in 5 years and seven months, just two months quicker than Nintendo's Wii.
Google's hardware division is recovering from slow Pixel 3 sales
Just over a year ago, Google parent company Alphabet was hit with a $5 billion fine from the European Union for antitrust violations. As you might have expected, that put a dent in the company's profits -- but this year, there's no such issue to worry about and Alphabet's financials reflect that. In today's quarterly earnings release, the company is reporting revenue of $38.9 billion, up 19 percent year-over-year. And profits hit $9.9 billion, up 201 percent over a year ago. Even if you look at Google's accounting where last year's fine is excluded, profits are up 13 percent.
Netflix Q2 report points to price hikes for lower than expected growth
Netflix just released its financial results for the second quarter of 2019 (PDF), and a number that jumps out is that its service grew by 2.7 million subscribers. That's a problem for shareholders because in its last report, the company predicted it would be up about 5 million in Q2, and in the US it actually lost more subscribers than it added for only the second time ever, dropping by 130,000. While any results tied to its juggernaut Stranger Things won't show up until the Q3 report arrives in a few months, Netflix said "Our missed forecast was across all regions, but slightly more so in regions with price increases." Another possible reason for the gap between expectations and reality is its big Q1 -- the company experienced its second-largest period of subscriber growth ever with 9.6 million new customers. Whatever the reason, Netflix's letter is quick to make sure no one makes the mistake of attributing the gap to competition (which mostly hasn't launched yet: Disney+, Apple TV+, HBO Max or NBCU) or highly-viewed licensed content that will go away in the future like The Office. Apparently Netflix believes this opens up more space in its budget for original content, and that even hits like that only make up a "low single digit percentage of streaming hours" that members quickly replace with other options on its service. Otherwise, it updated numbers for some of its big hits, like Murder Mystery, which stars Jennifer Aniston alongside Adam Sandler and is now the service's most-viewed Sandler flick with over 73 million households watching in its first four weeks. It also confirmed that in India, it will launch a lower-priced mobile-only package in Q3, and pushed back against rumors that it will add advertisements, saying that it prefers to be like HBO.
Samsung faces 60 percent drop in profits, still plans foldable phones
A few weeks ago, Samsung warned investors that its Q1 profit would drop about 60 percent from the same period in 2018. Now the detailed report has arrived, confirming that projection with an operating profit of $5.4 billion that reflected a 23 percent drop in revenue from its memory chip business. Samsung also suffered smaller drops in the mobile and consumer electronics divisions. Still the company claims "the newly launched Galaxy S10 smartphone logged solid sales." Paired along with its midrange A series, it expects market demand to increase slightly in the next quarter even as prices drop. Once item it didn't mention in the report is the now-delayed Galaxy Fold, however the future of foldable devices is still expected to increase profits in its display division. It still believes foldable devices, along with the Galaxy Note and 5G will help "strengthen" its leadership in premium smartphones. Its earnings call is still ongoing, if there's any notable news we will update this post. Update: In response to a question, Samsung executives said they expect to announce a new launch date for the Galaxy Fold in the next few weeks. They still believe it will find a place as a premium device for consumers looking for a new kind of experience, and their conviction that it will create a new category of devices has not changed.
Spotify has 100 million Premium users
Spotify has 100 million Premium users, the company has announced in its most recent financial figures. In total, the streaming service has 217 million users, 117 million of which are enjoying the free, ad supported tier.
PlayStation 4 sales finally slow down (updated)
Sony is warning that it expects to make even less profit in the next year, as PlayStation 4 sales slow down and it invests in its replacement. In the last year, 17.8 million consoles were sold, less than the 19 million sold in 2017. The PS4 is approaching a major milestone — there are currently 96.8 million consoles out there, buoyed by 36.4 million PlayStation Plus subscribers, adding crucial monthly revenues to Sony's accounts.
Twitter still has a growth problem
If you read enough of the news, you might think that Twitter (and its CEO) is laying dead in the water for all to see. But, in its most recent financial statements, the company is proudly declaring that it isn't dead yet, and may not be for some time. In the last three months, Twitter's user numbers rebounded and its operating income continued its slow, but steady, rise.
Netflix reaches 148 million subscribers, will test 'top 10' lists
The first Netflix earnings report since its latest price hike and the unveiling of competitors from both Disney and Apple is here. Last year at this time Netflix crossed the 125 million subscriber mark with its second biggest quarterly addition of subscribers ever. Now it has over 148 million subscribers around the world, and added 9.6 million in the last three months, more than the 8.9 million it expected.
Samsung sees its Q1 profit drop 60 percent from last year's record
Samsung just released guidance for its Q1 2019 earnings report, and estimates an operating profit of 6.2 trillion won (about $5.5 billion), which is less than half of the $14.4 billion profit it recorded in the same period last year. Samsung had issued an unprecedented warning for investors of bad news on the way, citing declines in prices for memory chips, and lower demand for screens like the OLED display it makes for Apple's iPhone. We'll have to wait a few more weeks for a detailed breakdown and final numbers, but in its last earnings report Samsung noted how it hoped the Galaxy S10 series would help turn things around. The prediction for overall revenue dropped by only fourteen percent, to 52 trillion won. The last time Samsung saw a drop of this magnitude, we were looking forward to the Galaxy Note 4 and 4K TVs. Now the company hopes investments in data centers will drive more demand for memory, and that the high-priced Galaxy Fold can drive profits by enticing competitors to use its flexible display tech for their own devices.
Huawei proves people are still buying new smartphones
The US-led Huawei backlash isn't hurting the company's bottom line. Buoyed by strong smartphone sales in its native China, the electronics manufacturer reported a 19.5 percent increase in 2018 revenue, breaking the $100 billion mark for the first time. Net profit also surged by over 25 percent compared to a year ago to hit 59.3 billion yuan ($9 billion).
PlayStation keeps making money, Sony phones keep losing it
The most interesting part of cracking open a fresh financial report from Sony is seeing whether the momentum behind the PlayStation 4 shows any signs of slowing down. Sony kinda spoilt that for us just after the new year, though, announcing that the PS4 was closing in on the 100 million milestone with 91.6 million consoles sold as of December 31st. The holiday season was appropriately busy for the PlayStation division. From October through December, aka the third quarter of Sony's fiscal year, 8.1 million PS4s found loving homes, compared with 9 million the previous year. Not bad considering the slowdown in sales that's a natural part of a console's lifecycle has been prophesied for some time now.
LG fails to turn a profit for the first time in two years
Both of South Korea's electronics giants have announced fourth quarter results that were less than ideal. Within hours of Samsung posting a double-digit reduction in quarterly profit, LG has revealed that it lost 80.7 billion Korean won ($72.5 million) in the last three months.
Samsung will bolster its mobile business with foldable and 5G phones
Samsung has posted a 17.57 trillion Korean won (US$15.45 billion) operating profit for Q3 2018 like it expected, setting a record high for the Korean corporation. As has been the case over the past years, its chip business is the company's top earner. It made 13.65 trillion won (US$12 billion) in operating profit for the quarter from a 24.77 trillion won (US$22 billion) consolidated revenue. Samsung's mobile division also posted a 24.77 trillion (US$22 billion) consolidated revenue, but its Q3 profit was a measly 2.2 trillion won ($1.9 billion won) due to decreased sales of mid- to low-end products and increased marketing costs.
PlayStation 4 sales are actually speeding up
Sony's nothing if not consistent. The company's latest financial results released today show everything's as it should be six months after new CEO Kenichiro Yoshida took the helm. Sony recorded nearly $19.6 billion in revenue for the three months ending September 30th, of which almost $2.2 billion was cold, hard profit. Those numbers are slightly better than last year's and last quarter's, meaning Sony's books aren't just stable, they're healthy. Predictably, the PlayStation division was responsible for the most revenue, pulling in more than double any other department barring financial services. Just as unsurprising is that mobile remains the only loss-making part of Sony's business.
Intel made more money than ever despite 10-nanometer chip delays
Intel has no permanent CEO and its 10-nanometer chips keep getting delayed, but none of that has cut into its revenue (yet). The company announced that it earned a record $19.2 billion and made a $7.3 billion operating profit. On top of that, it made most of its cash ($10.2 billion) on regular old PCs and not data centers or internet-of-things devices. All this despite the fact that it's still about a year away from mass production of its long-awaited 10-nanometer "Cannon Lake" CPU micro-architecture.
Alexa helps propel Amazon to another massive quarter
Amazon has been pretty busy the past few months, unleashing a slew of new hardware just in time for the holiday season. Several of those products haven't made it to market quite just yet, but that hasn't stopped the company from raking in money as per usual.
LG still bullish on mobile even though it keeps losing money
If its mobile division didn't exist at all, LG would certainly be having a better year. It managed to rack up a $748.8 billion KRW ($667.7 million) operating profit and had its best quarter this year for revenue, despite losing KRW 146.3 billion ($130.5 million) selling smartphones. While it has lost over $400 million so far this year on mobile, LG is far from giving up hope on the division, though. It expects the five-camera V40 ThinQ smartphone will lift it next quarter, hopefully to some kind of profit.
Netflix expects to hit 146 million subscribers in Q4
Three months ago, Netflix failed to meet its own prediction for worldwide subscriber growth, so there are a lot of eyes on today's results. Since then it's announced that CFO David Wells is leaving, snapped up property in LA, announced a new production studio in Albuquerque and continued a torrid pace of releasing original content. For the third quarter its subscriber additions were well above its internal prediction, with worldwide growth of 6.96 million compared to the projected 5 million. Now it predicts it will grow by another 9.4 million customers in Q4, with most of the new subscribers coming from outside the US. In its earnings letter (PDF), executives referenced the projections by saying that starting next year, they will only provide guidance on the number of paid memberships without including free trials, which are harder to predict. Then in 2020 it will stop reporting the numbers on free trials altogether.
