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Barnes and Noble sees quarterly sales surge, losses fall to $41 million
Barnes & Noble has had a quarter worth remembering, bringing in $1.5 billion and reducing its losses to $41 million -- down from $57 million last year. Retail business was up, thanks to the closure of Borders branches and blockbuster sales of Fifty Shades of Grey, while College sales increased quarterly losses by $2 million to $14 million. While online sales fell 7.6 percent and the Nook business remained flat, the company saw digital content purchases skyrocket by 46 percent -- and the company couldn't produce enough GlowLight devices to satisfy demand. Wondering about the company's tie-up with Microsoft? There's still no news beyond that it hopes the new partnership will be up and running by the fall.
Olympus hangs $57 million loss on austerity, strong yen and declining compact camera market
Olympus is reporting a $56.7 million loss for its first quarter of 2012. While its coveted medical imaging arm remains profitable, its life-science and industrial unit suffered thanks to corporate belt-tightening. Unsurprisingly, its low-end compact camera market is shrinking, but sales of its OM-D E-M5 ILC increased by 50 percent, offsetting some of the losses and reducing operating losses from $89 million last quarter to $19 million in this one. Like many of its Japanese rivals, it's also found a strong yen has stifled its return to productivity, a trend that isn't likely to change soon.
Nikon makes $201 million quarterly profit, nearly 50 percent drop from last year, blames strong yen
Nikon's odd financial calendar means that the camera maker is announcing its first quarter results for 2013. The confusingly-dated documents show that it isn't having the best Spring / Summer, since while it pulled in a net profit of $201 million, that figure is down nearly 50 percent on the $392 million it made in the same period last year. It sold a record number of interchangeable-lens cameras, lenses and a good number of compact cameras, but that was offset against the high cost of the yen. Its other businesses, Precision Equipment and Instruments both suffered thanks to Government spending cuts, a "harsh business climate" and the now age-old problem of the high exchange rate. It's expecting the situation to remain the same in the next three months, with booming camera sales weight against losses in its other businesses -- with a projected profit of $143 million anticipated in Q3.
Sharp pain continues with $1.2 billion loss in Q1, drastically lowered forecast for 2012
Having already scraped through a disastrous 2011, Sharp had been banking on making a small but significant profit this year. Those hopes have now evaporated, with the Japanese manufacturer's forecast of 20 billion yen ($250 million) in operating earnings for 2012 being revised down to a 100 billion yen ($1.25 billion) loss. That dose of reality is largely the result of the quarter just gone, in which hardly anyone appears to have bought an Aquos TV (despite the 90-incher being pretty amazing) or a Sharp-made LCD panel, and the company made a 94 billion yen ($1.2 billion) loss in the space of just three months. According to Reuters, as many as 5,000 staff may lose their jobs in the company's first major round of lay-offs.
Sony releases Q1 2012 financial results, eats $312 million loss
Sony's first-quarter figures for 2012 show that despite the company's optimism three months ago, it's made a net loss of $312 million. It pulled in a whopping $19.2 billion in sales for the three months ending June 30th, partly credited to bringing Sony Mobile fully into the family. However, the cost of restructuring the Mobile Products and Communications Division (of which Sony Mobile is a part) came to $143 million, wiping out the additional gains to record a loss of $356 million. Gaming-wise, the PlayStation maker suffered a $45 million loss as falling sales of the PSP and PS3 were only partially offset by the sales of the PS Vita. There was better news in its imaging division, while sales of compact cameras fell, DSLRs and "Professional" products took up the slack, resulting in a profit of $160 million. In a trend we've seen across the Home Entertainment industry, sales of LCD televisions continued to fall, forcing the company to eat a loss of $126 million. Movie and TV recorded a loss of $62 million, although that's primarily due to a dip in advertising sales in India and the cost of marketing (but not producing) The Amazing Spider-Man, the profits of which won't be recognized until September. Finally, while it spent big to purchase EMI this quarter, big-ticket albums like Usher's Looking 4 Myself and One Direction's Up All Night helped the division make a profit of $92 million. While Sony's treading water to execute Kaz Hirai's "One" Strategy, it's still got $8.4 billion stashed under the mattress, and in the face of lower sales, is hoping that reduced costs will help it make $1.6 billion in profit by the end of March 2013.
MetroPCS 2012 Q2 sees profits skyrocket to $149 million despite losing nearly 200,000 subscribers
MetroPCS has announced that it pulled in $1.3 billion in the second quarter of the year, only slightly more than it managed in the first. It made a profit of $149 million, well up from the $21 million it pulled in between January and March, despite shedding around 200,000 subscribers in the process. The company's deliberately concentrated on raising cash at the expense of new subscriptions in preparation for its 4G LTE for All project, due to begin in the third quarter. It revealed that it now has 700,000 LTE subscribers, up from the 580,000 present in March and that it plans to have a full 10MHz of spectrum allocated for the super-fast mobile standard in "most major metropolitan areas" by the end of the year. As for devices that'll take advantage of the 4G goodness, MetroPCS says that we can expect to see either six or seven new LTE handsets by year's end, each which will be priced between $99 and $149.
Amazon Q2 2012 earnings: net income down 96 percent to $7 million, net sales up 29 percent to $12.83 billion
When internet mega retailer Amazon kicked off its fiscal year this past spring with $13.8 billion in net sales, the prognosis for the quarter ahead was dour, to say the least. At the time, the company projected its Q2 2012 performance would see an operating loss of $40 million to $260 million versus Q2 2011, as well as a slight down tick in revenue at $11.9 billion to $13.3 billion quarter to quarter. Well, the numbers are in and it looks like the forecast was right on the money. The Seattle-based outfit posted $7 million in net income for the quarter, a year over year loss amounting to a whopping 96 percent decrease. As for net sales, that picture's a bit rosier given the 29 percent increase over Q2 2011 that saw the Bezos-backed co. pull in $12.83 billion -- a figure that would have risen to 32 percent were it not for a $272 million hit due to "changes in foreign exchange rates[.]" Operating cash flow for Q2 2012 was down by nearly half at $107MM compared to the same segment last year. Unsurprisingly, the company's budget Kindle Fire tab -- which has enjoyed relatively weak competition up to now -- is still the number one item across Amazon's site, with titles in its Lending Library growing to over 170,000. Bezos also made note of Prime's growth, pegging that subscription offering's catalog of items at 15 million and highlighting the addition of 18,000 movies and TV shows to its streaming service. As for the future, the company expects Q3 net sales to grow by at least 19 percent year-over-year, landing somewhere between $12.9 billion and $14.3 billion, with a projected operating loss of $50 million to $350 million. Hit up the PR after the break for the full load of financial highs and lows.
Sprint's iPhone gamble isn't paying off as 2012 Q2 figures reveal $629 million operating loss
Sprint's second quarter figures have arrived, showing that the company's billion-dollar gamble on the iPhone isn't working right now. While it sold 1.5 million Apple-branded handsets in the three month period (40 percent to new and postpaid customers), it recorded an operating loss of $629 million and a colossal net loss of $1.4 billion -- compared to an operating loss of $255 million and a net loss of $863 million in the first quarter. Operating revenues of $8.8 billion improved on those in the first quarter by a single percent -- mostly due to higher service fees from its wireless offerings. It's also grown its cash reserves, up from $128 million last quarter to $267 million today, and can point to 442,000 postpaid and 141,000 new prepaid subscribers pushing the company's customer base up to 56 million nationwide -- mentioning that 60 percent of former Nextel users chose to remain with Sprint during the enforced change. The figures reveal that Sprint's eating around $782 million due to the shutdown of the Nextel platform and a further $184 million to end leases on antenna sites for the moribund network. It's also having to take a hit of $204 million due to its investment into infrastructure partner Clearwire. It's affirmed its $1 billion lending facility, contingent upon purchasing gear from Ericsson to help build its LTE network, which it aims to have installed in 12,000 sites by the end of the year. Of course, that purchase was prompted by the collapse of Philip Falcone's doomed LightSquared project, which caused the Now Network to lose $66 million in cash and its childhood innocence when it comes to trusting other people. Update: Big Yellow also mentioned that it has no plans to adopt a shared data plan to follow AT&T and Verizon.
ARM sees profit surge 23 percent, tests forecasters' patience
Just when financial boffins expected ARM's consistent double-digit growth to slow-down, the company has beaten their projections with a 23 percent rise in pre-tax profit compared to Q2 of last year. It made £66.5 million ($103 million) in profit from £135.5 million ($213 million) in revenue from its numerous mobile and low-power processor design licensees. Analysts expected lower performance for the simple reason that the world's biggest chip-makers have warned of tougher "macroeconomic" times ahead -- rival Intel has been careful to dampen people's hopes for its next quarter, for example, and Qualcomm (a major ARM customer) has also reduced its forecasts. Still, it's all just different shades of rolling in it.
Netflix Q2 2012 earnings: 530,000 more US subscribers and a return to profitability
Netflix recently let it drop that its users clocked in more than one billion hours of content-viewing in the month of June alone, although the big question for CEO Reed Hastings is how that relates to the company's subscriber base. The results are in from its Q2 2012 earnings report, and it's claiming 27.56 million streaming subscribers worldwide, up from 26 million last quarter. In the US alone that includes 23.94 million customers, after it reported 23.4 million in Q1, while DVD customers dropped by 850k to 9.24 million. While the number of new subscribers wasn't as high as some had hoped, the good news is the company is finally back in the black, with $889 million in revenue providing $6 million in net income. On the flip side, a plan to launch service in an "additional attractive European market" in Q4 is expected to result in temporary losses, but we'll find out more about those plans later in Q3. One other issue that has been resolved is the search for a new Chief Marketing Officer resulting in the hiring of Kelly Bennett, formerly a marketing executive with Warner Bros. This morning Verizon and Redbox began to carefully pull back the cover on their competing offering, and Amazon has also been making significant waves in the space. However in response, Netflix says Amazon and Hulu Plus have yet to gain meaningful traction in relation to its viewing hours, and it expects Redbox Instant to face a "big challenge" to break into the existing top 3. Its current content deal with Epix will lose online exclusivity "shortly" although it will still offer those titles, we'll see if any of the competition joins in. Their biggest competition however, is expected to come from efforts like Comcast's new X1 and Sky's Now TV, while for HBO, the possibility of cooperation is actually raised (again). We'll see if that happens or if there are any more juicy details revealed on the investor call in a few minutes.
HTC reveals Q2 2012 financial results: 57.8 percent net profit drop blamed on customs issues and weak sales
HTC has reported a substantial drop in its quarterly profits, with unaudited results for Q2 2012 totaling T$7.4 billion ($250 million), down from T$17.52 billion this time last year. While it marks an improvement compared to the company's dire first quarter of this year, HTC's been troubled by weaker-than-expected European sales, while customs issues have hampered US sales for high-end devices like the One X. Despite the continued global roll-out of the One series, sales continue to stall, with consolidated sales for last month totaled T$30 billion, unchanged from May and 33.4 percent less than June 2011.
Amazon's Q1 2012 earnings: net income down 35 percent to $130 million, net sales at $13.18 billion
It's no Apple-sized quarter, but you'd need to be on HGTV's Million Dollar Rooms a handful of times over to scoff at Amazon's Q1 2012 earnings. After reporting $177 million in net earnings last quarter (on $17.43 billion in revenue), the online sales behemoth has today registered $13.18 billion in net sales -- proudly reporting that said tally was up from the $9.86 billion in its Q1 a year ago. Excluding the $56 million unfavorable impact from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates throughout the quarter, net sales would have grown 34 percent compared with first quarter 2011. As for operating income? That checked in at $192 million (compared to $322 million Q1 2011), with the outfit noting that the "unfavorable impact from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates throughout the quarter on operating income was $4 million." Net income also sank 35 percent from $201 million a year ago, but it still left Amazon with $130 million more in the bank than it had just three months ago. It's important to note that the outfit didn't have "the holidays" here to help out, but it's still a bit worrisome to investors when profit margin shrinks. Focusing on more positive things, CEO Jeff Bezos noted that Amazon has "over 130,000 new, in-copyright books that are exclusive to the Kindle Store," again reminding the world that Amazon Prime members can "borrow them for free with no due dates." We're also told that the Kindle Fire remains the top, most gifted and most wished for product across its entire store, while pointing out that the North American sales segment was up 36 percent from Q1 2011 (reaching $7.43 billion). Our overseas comrades -- specifically, Amazon's UK, German, Japanese, French, Chinese, Italian and Spanish sites -- accounted for $5.76 billion in sales, up 31 percent year-over-year. Worldwide media sales saw a 19 percent uptick to $4.71 billion, while global electronics and "other merchandise" saw sales grow a whopping 43 percent to $7.97 billion. Notably, the company continually banged on unfavorable exchange rates, so if you're looking for a place to heap blame... well, there you go.
Apple Q2 2012 earnings: $39.2 billion in revenue, net profit of $11.6 billion
Tim Cook: Apple focusing more on iPad for enterprise Tim Cook hates litigation, not quite ready to call a patent truce 365 million iOS devices 'in play,' iPad taking off in education and government markets How do you follow up a stunning Q1 where you set record quarterly earnings and issue a sizable dividend to investors? Well, if you're Apple, you just keep on keepin' on, shattering even the wildest expectations with "a record March quarter." Leading up to today's earnings, the outfit's stock was down around two percent, mostly on reports that iPhone activations were something other than mind-blowing. That said, shares have already started to creep back into positive territory in after-hours trading. Wall Street was hoping for around $36.88 billion in revenue (despite lower guidance from Apple itself), with upwards of 30 million iPhones sold and 12 million iPads sold -- galling numbers, no matter how you slice it. The actuals? Well, we're seeing $12.30 earnings per share, compared to an estimated $10.04 earnings per share. It all adds up to $39.2 billion in revenue and $11.6 billion in pure, unadulterated profit with 35.1 million iPhone units sold alongside 11.8 million iPads. (Of note, the new iPad was only on sale for around a fortnight in this quarter, making that figure even more impressive.) The former represents an 88 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter, while the latter shows a 151 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. Though Mac sales weren't equally astonishing, the four million units sold in the past three months indicates a seven percent uptick compared to Q2 2011. The iPod department, which has been sinking in recent years as iPads and iPhones become the primary music players of consumers, still saw 7.7 million units sold, representing a 15 percent decline from the same quarter last year. Just to put things in perspective, Apple nearly doubled its profits in Q2 2012 compared to Q2 2011, and practically quadrupled it compared to Q2 2010.Just to put things in perspective, Apple nearly doubled its profits in Q2 2012 compared to Q2 2011, and practically quadrupled it compared to Q2 2010. As for CEO Tim Cook's reaction? Aside from grinning from ear-to-ear looking at his growing stash of loot, he stated: "We're thrilled with sales of over 35 million iPhones and almost 12 million iPads in the March quarter. The new iPad is off to a great start, and across the year you're going to see a lot more of the kind of innovation that only Apple can deliver." Keep on telling us that, Tim, and we'll keep waiting. The conference call kicks off at 5PM ET, and we'll be liveblogging it just after the break!
HTC predicts 55 percent revenue jump, could hint at strong One sales
HTC's results for Q1 2012 were a long way short of spectacular, but they came too early to see any impact from sales of its latest wares -- particularly the flagship One X and the ambitious mid-range One S. According to Reuters, the Taiwanese manufacturer now predicts that its revenue will leap by 55 percent in Q2, compared to that bad last quarter. That kind of growth equates to around $3.56 billion, which isn't so impressive when you compare it to the same quarter last year, when turnover broke records and was around 20 percent higher, but it's still an encouraging sign that this company could reap what it sowed at MWC.
ARM reports revenues up 13 percent, bicep-curling profits up 22 percent
UK-based chip designer ARM just announced another booming quarter, with revenue up by 13 percent to $209.4 million. Pre-tax profits were even stronger, growing 22 percent year-over-year to $100 million. Not a bad profit margin by anyone's standards, and due to entirely to the Cambridge outfit's business model, which has seen 22 new processor licenses signed this quarter. That includes everything from the smallest Cortex-M class chips for use in the "Internet of Things" right through to the mini-monster Cortex-A15. There were also two new signings for the Mali graphics core, which is still proving its worth in some of the latest Samsung Galaxy devices. Overall, the number of chips that went into mobile phones and mobile computers remained steady, but the shipment of chips for other types of consumer and embedded devices grew by 15 percent year-on-year, proving that ARM not only has muscle, but also fingers in pies.
Nokia: Two million Lumia phones sold in Q1 but profits still falling
Nokia's announced preliminary information on its forthcoming Q1 results due on April 19th. It's reportedly sold €4.2 billion worth of phones, €2.3 billion coming from the sale of 71 million dumbphones and €1.7 billion coming from smart devices. On the upside, sales of the Lumia handsets are still growing, selling two million of the series in the last three months alone. However, "competitive industry dynamics" and the cost of its painful transition into a modern smartphone player have meant the numbers aren't too pleasing. The figures mean that the company will make a loss of around three percent below "break even," but Stephen Elop remains bullish, saying that his team is "continuing to increase the clock speed of the company" and that "the change is tangible."
HTC's unaudited Q1 2012 financials: revenue down by 35 percent
HTC's unaudited financials have just hit the wires and it looks like the negative trends from last year are continuing. For the first quarter of 2012, revenues are down nearly 35 percent year-on-year, with revenues of 67,790 million Taiwanese dollars (around $2.3 billion) for the period. Operating income was 5,099 million Taiwanese dollars (roughly $173 million) and profits after tax 4,464 million Taiwanese dollars ($151 million). The company must be hoping that this represents the end of the nasty hangover from its previous scatter-gun approach to phone production. Now that it's gone with the sleek and slender One series lineup, we'll see how well the company's about-turn does in the next two quarters.
Apple's Q2 2012 earnings call scheduled for April 24
Apple confirmed on its investor website that it will disclose its Q2 2012 financial results on Tuesday, April 24 at 2:00 pm PT (5:00 pm ET). Just like it has done in the past, Apple will provide an audio webcast of the earnings conference call.
Acer Financials: meager 2011 Q4 profit, massive annual loss
Acer was hoping for the gloom to lift after two bad quarters, but it can hardly call its latest financials stellar. It scraped a slender $2.4 million profit in the quarter, which wasn't enough to prevent the company posting an overall annual loss of $212 million. It blamed one off charges and operational and strategic adjustments (though no mention of the impending war with Lenovo over Gianfranco Lanci) for the bad year. The terse release (after the break) claims the business is becoming "more healthy and stable," which is a good way to paint a quarter-on-quarter drop of 98.4 percent turnover.
Sprint announces Q4 2011 results: the iPhone brings in 720,000 new customers
Following its bittersweet Q3, the latest financial report from Sprint this quarter offers up another mixed bag of news. Net operating losses totalled $438 million, more than the $139 million posted in the same quarter last year. It suffered a staggering $1.3 billion net loss (much of that due to upfront costs associated with launching the iPhone), dwarfing the Q3's $301 million losses. Operating revenue increases were, however, the largest in the last five years, up to $8.72 billion from $8.3 billion. Net subscribers now total 55 million, with 33 million postpaid, 14.8 million prepaid and around 7.2 million arriving from wholesale, adding an extra 1.6 million Sprint customers in the last quarter. This was also the first time in a long while that new subscribers on the Sprint platform outpaced losses at the Nextel and wireline businesses. Sprint hoped to see its iPhone draw customers into its network, putting it toe-to-toe with the bigger carriers, and it largely did, with 40 percent of the 1.8 million iPhones sold landing directly in the hands of new customers. However, the higher subsidy costs of the iPhone was also responsible for these tougher financial results. Last year also saw the tentative launch of Sprint's LTE network, and that's where the future appears to be for the carrier, with its forward-looking statement hinging on exactly how fast they're able to grab the 4G bull by the horns and get it into their customers' hands. Compatibility with Clearwire's next generation network is mentioned here, as is the "financial performance of Clearwire and its ability to build, operate, and maintain its 4G network." Lightsquared, however, was conspicuously absent from Sprint's future machinations.
