2013
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Twitter looks back at 2013, 140 characters at a time (video)
500 million tweets a day and 230 million users: Twitter's job of neatly summarizing the year is probably getting tougher each time. For 2013, the social network's displayed what happened (the UK has its own break down -- lots of One Direction tweets) and when in month-by-month summaries of both the major events and hashtags of the moment -- including the most-retweeted post of the year. It also has specialized synopses for sports, news, entertainment and showcase. The latter is curated highlights from Twitter's selected publishing partners, so it's pretty classy fare. Twitter's slightly limp #music service has ensured the same hashtag was the top trend of 2013, followed by #nowplaying at no.3. If you already can't remember what's gone down since January, hit up the source, or watch Twitter's summary after the break, which pulls together Royal babies, typhoons, red pandas and well, the launch of its own six-second video sharing service, into a single-minute highlight reel.
Time Warner Cable promises faster internet to woo back fleeing customers
One of the downsides of taking a risk is that the consequences are liable to come back and hurt you further down the line. Take Time Warner Cable, for instance, which took CBS' channels offline for the better part of two months in protest of "outrageous" carriage fees. Now that it's come to financials season, however, the company has admitted that the moral high ground came with a price: it lost 117,000 customers in three months. Of more concern, is that Time Warner also managed to lose 24,000 broadband customers, a trend which may make executives a little twitchy. In the hope of distracting people from today's dour news, the company is going to double the speed of Ultimate 50 customers in Los Angeles from 50 Mbps to 100, and those with the same package in NYC and Hawaii will get the same boost before the end of the year.
Nintendo sells 300,000 more Wii U consoles, but over two million more 3DS handhelds
Nintendo's just released its financial results for the last three months, and while hardware sales have increased substantially, it still made a loss. Wii U sales have rebounded significantly. Following price cuts mid-year, it's added 300,000 more users (almost double the 160,000 sold in the three months prior), but Nintendo remains a long way from its aim of 9 million consoles sold by March 2014. So far, it's sold 3.91 million units total. Software sales hover just below 20 million in total, with Nintendo pointing to strong sales of Pikmin 3 and its Wind Waker remake helping to reach the five million mark. However, as the company frankly put it: "Wii U hardware still has a negative impact on Nintendo's profits," due to that aforementioned mark-down. This has resulted in a net loss of 8,024 million yen (around $82 million), compared to a quarterly profit earlier this year of $88 million. Meanwhile, handheld gaming continues to boom. Nintendo sold another 2 million 3DS and 3DS XL consoles, putting the current lifetime total at 35 million -- and this is before it sees the fruits of two of its biggest portable game launches: Pokemon and Monster Hunter. Nintendo looks likely to capitalize on its handheld success, with more than a few special edition handhelds coming soon, as well as its cheaper 2DS model, which has already gone on sale. NPD reported last month that Nintendo's 3D handheld (in all its iterations) outsold all other gaming hardware in September. The company has also started testing new different business methods, launching its first online hardware store in the UK. For now, it's likely to remain a testing bed. Nintendo didn't offer up any hints that it'd be expanding the service elsewhere any time soon, although it plans on "accelerating digital distribution of packaged software" across both of its consoles.
Sharp posts quarterly loss, but sees sales up 33 percent on mobile LCD demand
Despite posting a small 15.36 million yen ($182 million) loss, it would be hard to call Sharp's latest Q1 2013 financial quarter anything but a success after last year's $1.2 billion debacle. After gaining investment from companies like Samsung and, more recently, Qualcomm, Sharp saw revenue up 32.6 percent to 607 billion yen ($6.2 billion) on strong LCD demand. In fact, sales of small- and medium-sized panels for smartphones and tablets were up a hefty 54.8 percent over Q1 2012, with its electronics division up 46.6 percent overall. The company thinks it'll hit a net profit for the fiscal year thanks to "high-value" 4K LCD TVs, Aquos phones in Japan and more IGZO displays for upcoming handhelds. If devices like a rumored Retina iPad mini with a Sharp-built display bear fruit, we may just believe it.
Sprint reports 'highest-ever' revenue of $7.2 billion for Q2 2013, loses $1.6 billion on Nextel shutdown
Sprint has just announced its second quarter 2013 financial results, and while it's pay as you go plans are paying off in terms of income, shutdowns and charges caused a huge loss. The company posted $7.2 billion in earnings, its "highest ever" total and an eight percent increase over last year, but also took a net loss of $1.6 billion for the quarter. It's chalking that up to a huge depreciation charge of $430 million and another non-cash hit of $623 million due to the Nextel platform shutdown, which is finally complete. However, the company added that over 4 million Nextel subscribers were "recaptured" to the Sprint platform since the transition commenced in early 2011. The shutdown and loss were anticipated, though and apart from that, Sprint said it's in good place, having achieved "record levels of... postpaid subscribers, service revenue and postpaid ARPU." It also completed its acquisition of Clearwire (at last) and US Cellular's spectrum and customers, while itself being captured into Japanese carrier Softbank's orbit. (For its part, Softbank managed a whopping 238 billion yen ($2.4 billion) in net income during the quarter.) The operator now has 4G-LTE coverage in 151 markets, including 41 that are new as of today, including Philadelphia, the Bronx , Brooklyn, Jacksonville, Nashville and Oakland. As for subscribers, post post-paid customers are up from last year, but pre-paid clients are down due to "planned deactivations related to regulatory changes." All of that resulted in an increase in churn (turnover) year-over-year to 1.83 percent. Eighty-six percent of its postpaid handset sales were smartphones, including about 1.4 million iPhones sold during the quarter. Going forward, the company just launched a raft of new data plans, including an Unlimited offering that guarantees customers who sign up will get to keep it for life. We'll have to wait and see whether that and all the other machinations this quarter will finally push the company into the black.
Facebook reports $1.81 billion in revenue for Q2 2013, 1.15 billion monthly active users
Facebook saw its revenue grow year-over-year in its Q1 earnings reported in May, and that trend has continued for its second quarter. The company has just announced that it's pulled in $1.81 billion in revenue for Q2, beating analysts' expectations, while net income stood at $333 million. Of course, much of that money comes from ads: Facebook says that revenue from advertising now represents 88 percent of its total revenue, and that mobile advertising accounted for about 41 percent of its total advertising revenue for the quarter. Mark Zuckerberg highlighted that last bit in a statement, saying that "the work we've done to make mobile the best Facebook experience is showing good results and provides us with a solid foundation for the future." In other numbers, Facebook also reported that it has 1.15 billion monthly active users as of June 30th, while its daily active users stood at 669 million. Mobile users were again its biggest growth area, with 819 million users actively checking in on their mobile devices each month (up 51 percent compared to the same quarter in 2012), and 469 million active on a daily basis. We'll keep you posted on any additional developments that may come out of the company's earnings call in the next hour. Update: Zuckerberg and co. didn't have much additional news to offer during the earning's call, although he did comment briefly on Facebook Home, which he described as a "seed we're planting," and something to look at over the long term.
Microsoft Q4 2013 earnings: $4.97 billion net income, $900 million charge related to Surface RT inventory adjustment
Microsoft just reported its Q4 2013 earnings, and the Redmond behemoth has found itself with $19.90 billion in revenue, $6.07 billion in operating income, and $4.97 billion in net income. Quite a lot has happened since the outfit showed $6.06 billion in profit last quarter -- its CFO stepped down, the Xbox One was introduced, DRM policies were instituted (and then reversed), Don Mattrick departed for Zynga, and Steve Ballmer himself put in place a new organizational structure. Of note, Microsoft is taking a $900 million charge "related to Surface RT inventory adjustments," and we're also told that the figures "reflect the recognition of $782 million of previously deferred revenue related to the Office Upgrade Offer." Amy Hood, chief financial officer at Microsoft, made no bones about the fact that these results -- while huge -- do indeed show the impact of a declining PC market. It should make sense, then, to see Microsoft focusing ever more intently on enterprise and cloud offerings, particularly given the weak demand for its own Surface tablets. All told, the company raked in $26.76 billion in operating income for its fiscal year 2013. Specifically, its Business division saw revenue grow 14 percent for Q4 and 3 percent for the full year, while Server & Tools grew 9 percent in Q4 and the full year. Windows revenue was up 6 percent this quarter and 5 percent on the year, while the Entertainment & Devices group saw an 8 percent uptick in Q4 while recognizing a 6 percent rise for all of 2013. Of course, Wall Street isn't apt to look fondly on Microsoft's forward looking update, which revises operating expense guidance downward to $31.3 billion to $31.9 billion for the full fiscal year ending June 30, 2014.
HTC finances improve over last quarter, but show just $41.6 million profit in Q2 2013
Though HTC has fallen shy of the $65 million in earnings investors were looking for in Q2 2013, at least it's a marked improvement over last quarter's disaster. It managed to improve profits to $41.6 million from a mere $2.8 million last quarter, based on unaudited figures. Likely reflecting demand for the flagship One and HTC's ability to finally produce that handset in significant numbers, revenue also jumped to $2.4 billion -- that's bad in the sense that it's a 20 percent drop relative to the same quarter last year, but it's slightly better than the 33 percent year-on-year revenue shortfall we witnessed last quarter. Overall, these figures still pale in comparison to HTC's historical performance and there's no immediate prospect of things getting better. According to Reuters, the most serious problems occurred towards the end of the quarter, as sales for June swooned 26.4 percent versus Q2 2012 -- a trend that puts a lot of pressure on the little shoulders of the HTC One Mini.
MapQuest arrives for Windows Phone 8
Let's be frank: most Windows Phone users already have some form of navigation on hand, whether it's Nokia's Here Drive+ beta or one of the alternatives. However, it rarely hurts to have a free choice like MapQuest's new app for Windows Phone 8. The suite offers voiced, turn-by-turn directions for driving and walking, along with live traffic and the usual point-of-interest searching. The app is comparatively basic, and it's only available in US English right now -- but if it's all you need to get from point A to point B, it's available at the source link. (Disclaimer: AOL owns both MapQuest and Engadget)
Gamestop Q1 sales and profits down, mobile/digital sales up
Gamestop's financial data for the first quarter of its fiscal 2013 have arrived like a pizza with nearly 25 percent fewer toppings than the pizza you ordered during the same 13-week period last year. Also, cheesy bread sales are way up? This may not be the strongest analogy. In non-allegorical terms, gross revenue (overall sales) and net income (post-tax profit) were both down year-over-year, at $1.865 billion and $54.6 million, respectively. As far as net income, that's a 24.69 percent decrease from the $72.5 million Gamestop reported at the end of Q1 2012. Meanwhile, mobile device sales were up 290 percent, though this massive increase was largely due to the fact that Gamestop's mobile trade-in/sales program was just getting started during Q1 of 2012. Digital sales also increased, to the tune of 47.3 percent year-over-year, while new software sales, both physical and digital, fell 3.8 percent. As was the case during Q1 2012, used hardware and software sales accounted for the majority of Gamestop's pre-tax profit, with new hardware and software sales making up just 29.5 percent of the quarter's overall gross.
HP Q2 2013 financials: $1.1 billion in profits on revenue of $27.6 billion, earnings down 32 percent
HP just posted its Q2 financial report, and despite somber news of falling profits and revenue, the company managed to beat consensus estimates and the stock has jumped more than 10 percent in after-hours trading. As for concrete figures, HP pulled in $1.1 billion in profit, which is down 32 percent from just one year ago. Revenue of $27.6 billion reveals a similar story, which is down 10 percent year over year. With respect to HP's Personal Systems group, the company is pulling in a 3.2 percent margin, where revenue is down 20 percent year over year. Here, total unit shipments are down 21 percent, with an 18 percent decline for desktops and a 24 percent hit for notebooks. Just three months ago, company CEO Meg Whitman promised a bright future for HP with plans to bring "a number of new programs and disruptive innovations to market in the coming quarters," which likely includes such products as the Split x2. Whether consumers will respond remains to be seen, but for the moment, HP is keeping investors happy by returning $1.1 billion to shareholders through dividends and stock repurchases. Meanwhile, in a move to further set expectations, Whitman reiterated her confidence for the rest of the year, but followed with, "As I have said many times before, this is a multi-year journey." The future remains just that, but for the moment, you can hit up the source link for a peek into the current financial health of HP.
April NPD: Injustice: Gods Among Us reigns supreme
Another hot, fresh loaf of financial data has been pulled out of The NPD Group's analytical oven, and its buttery goodness contains sales information for the four week period between April 4 and May 7, 2013. During that time, the physical retail sector of the games industry was down 25 percent when compared with its performance over the same four weeks in 2012, pulling in a grand total of $495.2 million. It's worth noting, however, that this figure does not include the sale of PC games. Hardware sales brought in $109.5 million, a 42 percent decrease from the $187.8 million seen last year, with the Xbox 360 once again enjoying the highest sales with 130,000 units moved. Meanwhile, the brief reprieve from year-over-year decline seen by the Accessories segment last month was short lived, as in April it by dropped 19 percent to a total of $131.4 million. Software sales (including PC games) topped out at $267.8 million, with NetherRealm Studios' Injustice: Gods Among Us taking top honors as the best-selling game for the period, the first time a fighting game has finished in first since 2011's Mortal Kombat. Dead Island: Riptide and BioShock Infinite rounded out the podium in spots two and three respectively – meanwhile MMO/Syfy series Defiance debuted in fifth. As always, scope the full list after the break.
Ubisoft ends fiscal 2013 with €64.8 million in profit
Ubisoft has released its financial information for the 12 month period ending March 31, 2013, which by all accounts seems to have been a pretty legit fiscal year for the publisher/developer conglomerate. The company crossed the finish line with €1.256 billion ($1.615 billion) in revenue and €64.8 million ($83.3 million) in profit, an 18.3 and 73.7-percent year-over-year increase, respectively, when compared to the €1.061 billion ($1.364 billion) in revenue and €37.3 million ($47.9 million) in profit recorded at the end of 2012. Ubisoft contributes its stellar year to the continued success of its main three franchises, Assassin's Creed, Just Dance and Far Cry, the latest entries in which have all sold between six and 12 million copies.
T-Mobile USA Q1 2013 revenue drops 5 percent for second consecutive quarter to $4.7 billion
T-Mobile USA has been making a big push for pre-paid customers since it launched its Uncarrier plans in March, and it seems to be working -- unfortunately, at the expense of more lucrative post-paid clients. While pre-paid revenue bumped to $503 million over $474 million last quarter, post-paid revenue fell to $3.2 billion, a drop of 4.7 percent, and overall revenue dropped by about the same percentage to $4.7 billion from $4.9 billion in Q4 2012. Net income also swooned year-over-year to $107 million from $200 million, but was up over last quarter, when the company took a small net loss. On the bright side, the company did pick up 579,000 customers in total, and claimed its lowest client turnover rate, 1.9 percent, since way back in 2008. Another silver lining has been the addition of the iPhone, as the company has already pushed around 500,000 of the 4, 4S and 5 models out the door since it launched at the Uncarrier event -- perhaps due to the very attractive pricing. Of course, with MetroPCS soon joining forces with T-Mo thanks to the recent merger, all that might change -- once we see how the powers-that-be decide to divvy up the two carriers.
Comcast gains 583,000 new subscribers, while revenues reach $15.3 billion for Q1 2013
Comcast had a dramatic Q4 last year when it announced the buyout of NBCUniversal for $16.7 billion along with the purchase of New York's iconic 30 Rockefeller Plaza. Still, it's the cable TV and internet business that pays the freight, and that side of the Comcast's operations didn't it let it down in Q1 2013 thanks to a 6.4 percent bump in revenue to $10.2 billion along with 583,000 new subscribers. Other operations didn't fare as well, as revenue for NBCUniversal dropped 2.4 percent to $5.3 billion, but the overall picture was still pretty sunny, as the communications giant saw an 11.2 percent increase in operating income over last year to $3.1 billion. If you want to see a breakdown by division, check the source for more. Update: Comcast also revealed its new X1 set-top box platform is now available in 10 markets (Atlanta; Augusta, Ga.; Chattanooga, Tenn.; Greater Boston; Philadelphia; New Jersey; Washington D.C.; Independence, Mo.; Colorado Springs, Colo., and the San Francisco Bay Area, Sacramento, Fresno, Stockton and Santa Barbara, Calif. ) It claims it's working to bring the tech to half of its service areas by the end of June, with more major markets to be announced "soon." While most of us wait, the other good news is that it will add 4-tuner recording to the X1 platform in an update set to roll out later this month.
ZTE's 2013 Q1 sees profits of $33 million despite three percent sales slide
ZTE has managed to break a run of two straight quarterly losses by posting a net profit of $33 million in its first 2013 financials. Unfortunately, the extra cash has come from selling a $133 million stake in surveillance firm Shenzhen ZNV, rather than any surge in handset popularity. A three percent fall in sales, project holdups, and squeezed margins have all helped to heap woes onto ZTE's plate -- not to mention the ongoing hostility from the folks in Congress.
PSA: WWDC 2013 tickets go on sale in one hour! (update: sold out)
You've had a day to renew your membership, book plane tickets and beg, borrow or steal $1,600 from your neighbors. Now it's time to sit on the WWDC homepage and find out if you'll actually be able to attend Apple's annual software shindig. The tickets go on sale in just an hour, so here's a friendly heads-up that you should get a cup of coffee, charge that battery pack and practice hitting F5, just in case. Update: We've just seen a new definition of fast. As developers have noticed, Apple sold out of WWDC tickets in about two minutes -- and possibly sooner than that.
MetroPCS reveals Q1 earnings, will make T-Mobile merger official April 30th
By now, you're probably aware that MetroPCS shareholders voted in favor of a merger with T-Mobile, and with regulatory red tape out of the way, both companies are now set to become one on April 30th. Now, MetroPCS has laid its Q1 2013 financials bare, which provides us with an excellent peek at T-Mobile's future partner. First off, the company is making money, and its operational income is actually rising, but it's also dealing with increased costs from loans, taxes and the like. Overall, MetroPCS reported a net income of $19.4 million for the first quarter, which is down from $21 million just one year ago. Speaking of loans, MetroPCS has a ton of them. Its liabilities now sit at $10.3 billion, and its managed to take on $3.4 billion in financing during the last year alone. From a balance sheet perspective, 75 percent of the company's assets exist as debt, and this is a burden that T-Mobile must now take on. Naturally, much of this merger was in effort to score additional spectrum, but Ms. Magenta also stands to gain 9 million new customers once the deal completes, 39 percent of which are LTE subscribers. Better yet, with a churn rate of 2.9 percent, they're sticking around now more than any previous time in company history.
Sprint reports quarterly net loss of $643 million, sees iPhone sales drop by a third
Sprint managed to lose a million customers and over a billion dollars last quarter. This time it's not quite as bad, with a net loss of $643 million on revenue that was broadly equivalent to the same quarter of last year (around $8.8 billion). Those following the carrier's big iPhone gamble will note that sales of Apple smartphones fell by around a third relative to last quarter, from 2.2 million down to 1.5 million. Total smartphone sales reached 5 million, which Sprint describes as "strong" and which helped it to slightly increase the amount of profit it makes from each postpaid customer. However, this wasn't enough to offset the impact of losing another half a million customers, specifically due to the ongoing exodus of Nextel subscribers. Partly as a result of this, the company's revenues continue to be wiped out by its huge costs of doing business -- not that its potential suitors seem to mind.
AT&T Q1 2013 earnings: $3.7 billion income on revenue of $31.4 billion
AT&T just posted its earnings for the first quarter of 2013, and the market couldn't help but ding the company, which is now trading down in after hours markets. The business as a whole posted a net income of $3.7 billion, which is slightly up from $3.6 billion one year ago. Meanwhile, company revenues took a slight hit, which sit at $31.4 billion -- down 1.4 percent from the previous year. In terms of the company's wireless business, though, there's plenty of reason for optimism. The company was able to snag an additional 296,000 postpaid subscribers and put a solid 1.2 million people on smartphone plans during the quarter. For those keeping track, smartphone sales now account for 88 percent of AT&T's postpaid handsets. Unsurprisingly, the company is making more money than ever off of its data plans, which account for $5.1 billion of the company's business. As for the wireless segment as a whole, income is up 21 percent and AT&T is pulling in revenues of $16.6 billion with a 28 percent profit margin. Encouraging signs were also revealed for U-verse, as the company's broadband service netted an additional 731,000 internet subscribers and 232,000 television subscribers during the quarter -- its best performance in two years -- for a grand total of 8.7 million subscribers. Naturally, one segment of Ma Bell's business isn't looking too hot, and that's the traditional wireline business, as revenues have fallen 10 percent from the previous year. Given the size of this segment, and the weakening demand for the service, it's easy to understand why investors might be slightly uneasy, even in light of all the encouraging news.
