2012Q2
Latest
Toshiba Q2 results: profit of $722 million, whole-year forecast cut by $500 million
Toshiba has managed to pick itself up this quarter, recording $17.8 billion in sales, making for an operating profit of $722 million over the past three months. The "social infrastructure" segments recorded a healthy profit ($518 million), while income from digital products, home appliances and electronic devices fell due lower than expected demand. Forecasts for the year have been cut for the full year by approximately $500 million to $3.26 billion, as Toshiba expects lowers sales and operating profits due to the uncertain global economic situation. Individual segments are expected to continue their distinct trends, with the social infrastructure business pulling in more while its other arms bear the brunt of the economic slowdown. [Image credit: Wikimedia Commons]
Acer scrapes $1.87 million in profit as it becomes world's third biggest PC maker
Acer rose a place to become the world's third biggest PC maker this quarter, with net profits rising to $14.48 million, up net profit a slender $1.87 million, down from $11.2 million last quarter. Despite the drop, it's the company's second positive period since it ended 2011 with a $212 million loss, but the financial crises in the US, Europe, China and Asia Pacific all hampering its recovery. Like many of its PC brethren, it's pinning hopes on Windows 8 to spark a buying frenzy, but thanks to tight margins, only expects profits to be "on par" with those it's just announced. [Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons]
NPD: Apple, Samsung control 55 percent of the smartphone market, prepaid sales up 91 percent
According to NPD Group, Apple and Samsung control more than half of the American smartphone market. The second-quarter figures reveal that while contract phone sales are flatter than month-old soda, those for pre-paid handsets have shot up by 91 percent compared to the same quarter last year. The upswing is credited to last year's flagship handsets falling down the price ladder, snaring lower-income customers who were unable to afford to be early adopters. Cornering that element of the market has helped the battling duo increase their sales by 43 percent, leaving the rest of the technology pantheon scraping around for crumbs. Speaking of which, HTC is a distant third, having 15 percent of the market, while Motorola (12 percent) and LG (six percent) round out the top five.
Time Warner Cable lost 169,000 subscribers, spares DirecTV's blushes
TWC pushed out its second quarter results, showing it's following the trend of shedding customers without hurting the bottom line. It took in $5.4 billion in revenue for the three month period -- with more cash coming from selling higher tiers of service to existing users -- leaving it with a net profit of $452 million. The company reported that it lost 169,000 residential video subscribers but gained 104,000 back across its high-speed data and voice businesses, which it described as "organic decline," but looks more like cord-cutting to us.
DirecTV waves goodbye to 52,000 subscribers in first ever net loss of customers
Viacom's frenemy, DirecTV, has announced that it suffered a net loss of subscribers for the first time in its history. The revelation came in its second quarter filing, which claimed that the exodus is actually a purge -- due to a tighter credit policy and a change of focus toward "higher quality" customers. The dip in numbers hasn't hurt the balance sheet, however, with revenues up seven percent to $5.65 billion, leading to a net profit of $604 million. This time out, there's no reference to the recently-minted deal to keep Viacom's stations on the service, believed to be in the region of $600 million per year -- but we expect it to appear on the books in the next quarterly report.
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.
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.
