q32013
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Nintendo sold fewer Wii Us in a year than Xbox Ones or PS4s sold in two months
Nintendo's had a pretty tough year trying to push its Wii U into homes, as evidenced by the latest sales figures released today. Since this time last year, the gaming giant has just about doubled the number of Wii Us sold cumulatively, going from 3.06 million units to 5.86 million units as of December 31st. That's right, only 2.8 million Wii Us -- along with 17.68 million software titles -- were sold during 2013, which is pretty worrying when compared to the 3 million Xbox Ones and the 4.2 million PS4s sold in just the first couple of months after they launched. It's also nowhere near the 100-million-unit milestone achieved by the original Wii, which easily beat the more expensive consoles from Microsoft and Sony in the same generation. On a brighter note, Nintendo managed to sell 12.9 million 3DSs in 2013, making it a total of 42.74 million units plus 152.29 million titles since its debut in February 2011. Alas, net income is still down by 29.9 percent year-over-year to 10.2 billion yen ($98.7 million). With no plans to offer its games on other platforms, we sure hope Nintendo's increased R&D spending will guarantee a solid comeback this year. More details in the PDF document linked below. Update: Nintendo's bosses are taking a pay cut to make up for the latest loss.
European carriers and Google Fiber are leading the IPv6 charge
The advanced IPv6 standard reached the internet well over a year ago. But who's really using it? Mostly Europeans, if you ask Akamai. The content delivery firm is now tracking IPv6 adoption as of its latest State of the Internet report, and it found that European nations represented seven of the top ten countries using IPv6 in the third quarter of 2013. The US was more modest in embracing IPv6 with 4.2 percent of all traffic relying on the newer technology, while Asia was relatively slow on the uptake. Adoption varies widely from provider to provider, though. More than half of Google Fiber's traffic was based around the protocol, while more established companies like Deutsche Telekom and Time Warner Cable still leaned heavily on old-fashioned IPv4. There are a handful of other revelations in the report. Denial of service attacks dropped for the first time since the end of 2012, with China passing Indonesia to once more become the biggest source of incursions. Broadband speeds were also clearly on the way up -- Akamai notes that use of high-speed internet access (over 10Mbps) jumped 31 percent quarter-to-quarter to to hit 19 percent worldwide. These increases primarily came from South Korea, the Netherlands and other countries that already have high average internet speeds. Not that Americans can complain too much. The US mostly kept pace with a typical internet speed of 9.8Mbps, or enough to make it the eighth fastest country on Earth.
IDC: 21 percent of smartphones shipped in Q3 were big-screened behemoths
Supersized smartphones have been increasing in popularity for quite some time, but IDC now believes that they've truly hit the mainstream. The analyst group estimates that about 21 percent of the 261.1 million smartphones shipped in the third quarter had displays five inches or larger; that's a huge jump from just three percent a year earlier. An influx of big flagships like the Galaxy S 4 and G2 no doubt played a major role in the growth. However, IDC notes that the average price of a large-screened phone has dropped by 22.8 percent in one year -- those shipments included a wave of lower-cost behemoths like the Ascend Mate and Galaxy Mega 6.3. IDC is also estimating market share for the quarter (shown after the break), although it's painting a familiar picture. Android now has more than 80 percent of the market, while iOS is treading water at 12.8 percent. Windows Phone grew quickly as well, climbing from two percent in Q3 2012 to 3.6 percent a year later. The fourth quarter may be a different story, however -- Nokia is getting into the giant handset game with the Windows Phone-based Lumia 1520 and 1320, while Apple is enjoying brisk sales of its recently launched (if relatively small) iPhone 5s. We won't be shocked if Google's mobile rivals grab a larger slice of the market.
Tesla's road to success lies abroad and is lined with Superchargers
2013 has been a good year for Tesla, as the pool of Model S owners has grown considerably -- 19,000 of the cars are currently on the road, and the company's building 550 more every week. While this has led to Tesla turning a profit for the first time and paying off its governmental loans, Elon Musk isn't satisfied to sit back and watch his balance sheet gradually shift from red to black. Expansion, always, and in all ways (albeit carefully and deliberately) is how he goes about his business, and the automaker's most recent letter to shareholders and Musk's statements on its most recent earnings call bear that philosophy out.
T-Mobile's UnCarrier plans help to attract a million more customers
It looks like T-Mo's efforts to stand out from the carrier crowd are continuing to have an impact. The US operator claims it attracted a million new customers in Q3, following the 1.1 million people who joined its network over the summer. The company attributes this success largely to its UnCarrier plans, including Simple Choice and Jump, which it says are starting to "resonate" with consumers. Then again, rivals AT&T and Verizon have reported similar lifts in popularity last quarter, so one could also argue that T-Mobile is just keeping pace with the rest of the pack -- with the notable exception of Sprint, whose subscriber base is shrinking.
Android tops 81 percent of smartphone market share in Q3
Now that we know what smartphone market share looked like in the third quarter when broken down by manufacturer, it's time to compare performance by platform. As you'd imagine, the world is still Android's oyster. Strategy Analytics estimates that the OS has crossed the symbolic 80 percent mark, reaching 81.3 percent of smartphone shipments by the end of September. Not that Google was the only company doing well -- Nokia's strong US sales helped Windows Phone grow to 4.1 percent of the market, or nearly double what it had a year ago. Whether or not these trends continue is another matter. Although Android likely isn't in danger given the launches of phones like the Galaxy Note 3, there are also new iPhones and Lumias on the scene; there may be one or two surprise upsets when the fourth quarter is over.
ASUS and Samsung gain wide swaths of tablet market share in Q3
IDC has posted third quarter market share estimates which show that Android tablet makers had an exceptional summer. Samsung jumped more than two points over its Q2 results, claiming 20.4 percent of shipments; ASUS also thrived during the period, moving up from just 4.5 points in the second quarter to 7.4 percent three months later. Both saw big year-over-year gains, although they didn't grow as quickly as up-and-comers like Acer and Lenovo. It's not hard to see why ASUS and Samsung made such large strides -- both the Galaxy Tab 3 line and the new Nexus 7 launched in the summer. Things weren't quite as rosy for other tablet designers. While Apple was still the top manufacturer, it slipped below 30 percent in market share. IDC hasn't yet broken down shipments by OS, but it notes that the "others" category -- including Amazon, Microsoft and other small players -- shrank slightly to 35.3 points. The field is very likely to change in the fourth quarter between new iPads, the Kindle Fire HDX and Surface sequels. For now, though, it appears that the tablet market is shifting toward the giants of the Android world.
Facebook exceeds expectations as it tallies 874 million monthly mobile users
Mobile advertising drove Facebook's impressive growth in Q2 as the company continued to increase monthly active user numbers north of the one billion mark. For Q3 2013, the social network beat analysts' expectations once more with $2.02 billion in revenue for the period. Daily active users for the month of September averaged 728 million (a 25 percent increase year-over-year) and monthly active users rose to 1.19 billion. Mobile check-ins grew once more as well, seeing 874 million monthly (a 45 percent year-over-year increase) and 507 million daily users compared to 819 million and 469 million for those sectors during Q2. These numbers show that the gap between mobile and total active users continues to draw closer with each passing three-month period as Facebook continues the mobile push and social media increasingly becomes a chore for handsets and tablets on-the-go. Those ads on users' daily drivers accounted for 49 percent of all ad revenue in Q3 2013 -- up from 41 percent last quarter. If the current pattern holds, the fourth quarter report could show that over half of the outfit's revenue is coming from mobile advertising -- especially with Instagram ads on the way shortly for its 150 million monthly active users. Revenue from ads on the whole is up 66 percent from Q3 2012 totaling $1.8 billion. Of course, the so-called "native" ads that appear as regular posts in the News Feed have become part of the strategy for working in sponsored content over right-hand column ads. "The strong results we achieved this quarter show that we're prepared for the next phase of our company, as we work to bring the next five billion people online and into the knowledge economy," said founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. When compared to the same quarter last year, net income is also up as it rang in at $425 million in comparison to the net loss of $59 million the outfit saw during Q3 2012. The quarterly earnings call will take place shortly, but we'll be sure to update this post if any newsy bits are mentioned there. Update: On the call, Zuckerberg mentioned that 48 percent of daily Facebook users log-in on mobile which lends a big hand to those mobile ad numbers. He also mentioned continued dedication to improving ads (things like honing in targeted ads and those with video) as the company focuses on "making money to make better services." COO Sheryl Sandberg mentioned that Facebook and Instagram users spend more of their time on those two social networks on mobile (one in every five minutes) than other popular streams like YouTube, Tumblr, Pandora and others combined in the US.
Nokia sells 8.8 million Lumias in Q3 as US demand skyrockets
Nokia has just released its interim report for Q3 2013 and, although its overall financial situation is still a bit muddy, it's clear the company is starting to see real success in the US. Thanks to a burgeoning range of Lumia devices and a big marketing push to go with them, the Finnish manufacturer saw smartphone sales in North America increase by almost 400 percent to 1.4 million units, up from just 0.3 million in the same quarter last year. This growth, alongside worldwide popularity of the budget Lumia 520, helped to push global Lumia sales up by almost a fifth, reaching 8.8 million units in the space of three months. Nokia didn't fare so well in other regions, however, where overall device and service sales continued to fall, reflecting droopy demand for its older product lines. This caused a steep 22 percent drop in total revenue compared to last year, although the company still managed to scrape an operating profit of 118 million euros. Overall, it's clear that Lumia sales aren't yet sufficient to balance out problems in other areas, but they certainly seem to be enough to keep the company relevant until it can step under Microsoft's umbrella next year.
Huawei overtakes LG in smartphone market share during Q3
Need proof that China is a crucial smartphone market? Strategy Analytics is more than happy to oblige. It just posted third quarter global market share estimates showing that Huawei has overtaken LG since the Q2 report, claiming third place with 5.1 percent of sales. This isn't the first time that the Chinese phone maker has reached such lofty heights, but it comes even as LG produced stellar results; Huawei just happened to grow faster. Researchers attributed the rise to strong sales of its higher-end Ascend P6 and the mainstream G610, particularly in Huawei's home country. Otherwise, it's a familiar story. Samsung is still ruling the roost with 35.2 percent share, while Apple held on to the second-place spot at 13.4 percent. Huawei also isn't guaranteed to maintain its position when LG is likely to get a fourth quarter sales boost from the G2. However, it's evident that smartphone designers shouldn't get too comfy -- it doesn't take much to change the status quo.
AT&T's U-Verse subscribers top ten million as it adds another million wireless users
We've been seeing AT&T paying a good deal of attention to its U-Verse service as of late, and it looks like those efforts are paying off for the company. In its third quarter earnings announced today, AT&T confirmed that the service has now topped ten million subscribers (up from 9.4 million in the previous quarter), and that it is the fastest-growing part of its business, now generating $1 billion in revenue per month. Finally, it announced today that it's added BBC America to the channel lineup. The company's wireless business is also continuing to grow, albeit at a more modest rate, with revenue up 5.1 percent year-over-year as it added 1 million net subscribers during the quarter. Not surprisingly, more of those customers are choosing smartphones than ever. According to the carrier, they represented a record 89 percent of its postpaid phone sales for the quarter, while its total number of new smartphone subscribers stood at of 1.2 million (including current customers who've upgraded). Tablets are also on the upswing, with postpaid sales standing at 388,000 -- AT&T says that represents the largest gain of any carrier, although it's not breaking any of those numbers down by specific devices. Those interested can find the full earnings report at the source link below.
Google still makes lots of money, Motorola doesn't, and Larry Page wants to spend more on 'speculative' R&D
"Great is just never good enough," according to Google CEO Larry Page. And on today's Q3 2013 earnings call, the state of Google mirrors its CEO's statement pretty well. Google itself is doing as well as it ever has financially, raking in almost $15 billion in revenue for the quarter. Motorola, however, continues its downward decline, as it posted another $250 million dollar loss in spite of the Moto X launch -- evidently those personalized phones haven't been selling swiftly enough to stem the tide. Page is optimistic about Motorola, as he waxed poetic about its voice recognition features and stated that the Android ecosystem is healthy -- it now numbers 1 billion devices strong, and continues at a pace of 1.5 million more activations per day. The problem? Well, Moto's manufacturing is up to speed, but the process of building marketing and distribution are what's holding Moto back.
Verizon celebrates Vodafone split with a million new subscribers
Verizon's third quarter results are out, and it's not suffering any malaise after its break-up with Vodafone. In fact, it landed 1.1 million new mobile customers and over 300,000 new subscribers to its FiOS internet and video services during the three-month period. More than 67% of people on the carrier's books are now rocking smartphones, some of which will be handsets that joined the LTE line-up this quarter, including the HTC One, Motorola's new Droids, the iPhone 5s and 5c, and most recently, the Galaxy Note 3. In its wired business, the number of FiOS video customers grew to 5.2 million, up 12.6 percent from last year as the company also promised more live channels on the way for its mobile app. In total, Verizon took $5.6 billion in profit (a whopping 30 percent more than in Q3 2012) from $30.3 billion in revenue. It's not a huge increase over last quarter's success, but we doubt the head honchos care too much about growth when looking at that many zeros.
Yahoo's Q3 sees net revenue drop slightly, 'meaningful increases' in traffic
The Q3 earnings report for Yahoo is in, and even with earnings down 91 percent year over year (due to an infusion of cash last year when it sold part of its share in Alibaba Group) it held few surprises. Revenue dropped 1 percent to $1.08 billion, while ad sales also dropped slightly, down 7 percent for Q3 last year. Other than that new logo, the company also pointed out its run of acquisitions has continued, with Bignoggins, Qwiki, Xobni, Admovate, Ztelic, Lexity, Rockmelt and IQ Engines joining the fold. It's reporting 800 million monthly users, "up 20 percent over the last 15 months," aka since Marissa Mayer took the reins. We'll keep waiting to see if Yahoo's changes affect its bottom line significantly, but right now its remaining 24 percent stake in the Chinese search engine is the highlight -- Alibaba's section in the filing shows $707 million in profit for Q2 and an expected IPO could increase its value by billions.
Gartner and IDC: PC shipments continued to slide in Q3, but the worst may be over
The PC market has been on the decline for the past year, but there are new hints that the situation is improving -- if only slightly. Both Gartner (shown here) and IDC estimate that worldwide computer shipments dropped roughly eight percent year-over-year in the third quarter. While that's not exactly comforting to vendors, it's better than the double-digit losses of the past several months; the analyst groups even saw flat or positive growth in countries like Japan and the US. Any further declines in some regions may be relatively gentle, Gartner says. As for who's out in front? Heavyweights like Lenovo, HP and Dell grew thanks to improving business sales and some advance shipments of Windows 8.1 PCs. Acer and ASUS, meanwhile, were dealt the worst blow as their netbook sales continued to suffer from the rise of mobile OS tablets. Neither Gartner nor IDC is predicting a turnaround for the industry, but they suggest that PC builders are finally figuring out their places in a world where mobile devices rule.
HTC's Q3 earnings show its first net loss for a quarter
HTC's issues appear to have worsened, as the company announced its first-ever net loss for a quarter in Q3. According to the statement, it's notched a net loss of $101.2 million (NT$2.97 billion) on revenue of $1.6 billion. As we noted last quarter, a shrinking profit put the load on the new HTC One Mini, which has faced shortages, reportedly due to problems producing casings for the device. Of course, other bad news of late has included layoffs, investigations over stolen trade secrets and rumors the company will be sold. Adding insult to injury, while the folks at Samsung haven't released a detailed report yet, they're expecting yet another massive profit for the past quarter.
Apple reports Q3 2013 revenue of $35.3 billion: 31.2 million iPhones sold, iPad and Mac sales decline
It hasn't been a particularly quiet quarter for Apple, at least in the announcement department. But, as far actually shipping new products, Q3 of 2013 has been relatively uneventful. Perhaps that's why the company's revenues are down to $35.3 billion, from $43.6 billion in Q2. Still, while its revenues are down significantly from the last two quarters, things are pretty stable year-over-year. In fact, it's enjoyed a small increase over the $35 billion it raked in during Q3 of 2012. Still, while revenues are up, profits are down. $6.9 billion in net income is hardly anything to snub your nose at, but it does represent a notable drop from the $8.8 billion Apple pocketed in the same quarter last year. That's at least partially attributable to a year-over-year drop in both iPad and Mac sales, though the 31.2 million iPhones sold is a record for the June quarter -- up 20 percent from last year. The decline in iPad sales is particularly notable. After selling 17 million iOS tablets in Q3 of 2012 and 19.5 million just last quarter, Apple only managed to sell 14.6 million slates in the three month period ending June 30th. Mac sales were down less dramatically, from 4 million to 3.8 million, year-over-year, though those numbers are roughly flat sequentially. The iPod line continued its rather swift decline in Q3, with sales dropping 19 percent sequentially and 32 percent year-over-year. The impressive uptick in iPhone sales does help balance out the drop, but it appears the writing is on the wall for the product family that helped kick start the digital music revolution. All the blame for Apple's declining profits can not be blamed on the iPod, however. Sales are down pretty much across the board, both sequentially and year-over-year, with the exception of the iPhone. All the while, Cupertino's expenses keep increasing. You'll find updates and more numbers after the break from Apple's earnings call.
Microsoft video game division turns a profit in Q3
Microsoft has announced earnings for its fiscal third quarter (ended March 31), drawing attention to the Entertainment & Devices Division (EDD), which handles products like the Xbox, Windows Phone and Surface.The EDD reported revenue of $2.53 billion, a 56 percent increase over the $1.61 billion reported during the same period last year. The company also cited a "video game deferral" of $380 million – an advance on the launch of Halo 4, according to Gamasutra – effectively lowering revenues to $2.15 billion. Even so, the EDD racked up an operating income of $342 million, up from a $242 million loss during the same period last year.Sales of Xbox 360 consoles declined, with Microsoft shipping 8.9 million units in the first nine months of fiscal 2013, down 3 million units from the same period last year. Xbox Live subscriptions rose, however, as did Xbox Live revenue. Specifically, Xbox Live membership grew 18 percent and now totals 46 million members. Microsoft did not specify how many pay for Gold memberships.
Microsoft posts Q3 2013 earnings, generates $6.06 billion in profit as its CFO steps down
Microsoft's fiscal third quarter earnings (the calendar's first) can reflect the post-holiday lull, and there's a certain truth to that for Q3 2013: the company is reporting $20.49 billion in revenue, lower than what it saw during the holidays, and an equally soft $6.06 billion in profit that dipped below both the previous quarter and the same period last year. That said, any potential slowdown in PC sales isn't clearly manifested here. Possibly owing to the afterglow of the Windows 8 launch, the Windows Division's revenue of $5.7 billion is a sharp increase from the $4.62 billion of a year ago, and it's dampened mostly by having to defer $1.09 billion of that revenue for those who took advantage of Windows 8 upgrade deals. The company also posted healthy year-over-year revenue gains for its Entertainment and Devices Division (to $2.53 billion) and Online Services Division (to $832 million), although the Business group saw a relatively modest 8-point jump to $6.32 billion despite the launches of Office 2013 and Office 365. As part of the results, CFO Peter Klein has given advance notice that he's leaving Microsoft at the end of the company's fiscal year, which ends in June. Neither the company nor Klein has explained the departure, but it's characterized as a friendly one, rather than the abrupt exit we saw the last time around.
LG Optimus G sequel coming Q3 2013, will stick close to 5-inch screen size
LG's been teasing a big reveal for the start of May over in the US and we reckon it'll mark the official launch of the Optimus G Pro. But what about the not-so-humble Optimus G and the rest of the world? Well, we've been told that a (global-bound!) sequel flagship from LG will appear sometime in Q3. Direct from LG's HQ in Seoul, Won Kim, Head of Mobile Marketing says that we can expect "something different and something unique", which all sounds good to us. It'll also be something that won't skirt near the 5.5-inch screen size of the Optimus G Pro, and will instead stick closer to the five-inch mark. Unfortunately, he kept his explanation of new device tantalizingly vague for now, but it looks like LG will wait for the current flagship phone fight to settle a bit before it reveals its new weapon.
