FY2011
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Toshiba made $898.8 million profit, could manage to lend you twenty bucks
Toshiba isn't going with the flow this financial season, bucking the trend and posting a healthy (albeit reduced) net profit of 73.7 billion yen ($898.8 million). Whilst down from $1.7 billion in 2010, the company points to the European debt crisis, Japanese Earthquake and high oil prices as the barriers to further success. Unlike its local rivals, Tosh branched out early into "social infrastructure," building everything from radiation detectors, power plants and LED light bulbs -- businesses that made a stack of cash while its computer and TV businesses slumped. Unencumbered by these crises in the future, the company is projecting to make $1.68 billion across the next 12 months -- at which point it might treat itself to a spa day, or something.
Sharp posts $1.4 billion extraordinary loss, refocuses on mobile displays
Sharp has reported an extraordinary loss of 117.1 billion yen ($1.4 billion) for the financial year ending March 2012. The company has cited restructuring costs and inventory losses as the causes for the write-down, but also projected that its TV business would lose a further 18.7 percent of its projected sales in the current year. The company has decided to convert some of its big-screen LCD production lines into mobile LCDs as it tries to reassert its dwindling display business. It's yet more bad news after the company sold part of its LCD manufacturing business to Hon Hai, Sony withdrew from a joint venture and refused to deal with Sharp in the future, plus an 86 percent collapse in profits.
Logitech president celebrates end-of-year earnings with management cull
Logitech's Q4 and full-year report makes for uncomfortable reading. Despite profits increasing by a factor of nine in the last quarter of the year, overall annual profit fell 44 percent from $143 million to $71 million. The company has already parachuted in former Whirlpool exec. Bracken P. Darrel to turn things around and recover the losses made when the company went big on Google TV. His first action has been to kick-start a restructuring operation that will save $80 million in costs, starting by cutting a whole management layer -- demoting current product VP Junien Labrousse and firing sales VP Werner Heid. Mr. Darrell is now working directly with his team on a new lineup of "stronger" products to be unveiled later this quarter, with an emphasis on Windows 8 peripherals and LifeSize video conferencing gear. [Image credit: Wikimedia Commons]
Lenovo releases Q3 earnings report, shipments rise, profits soar
Lenovo turned in another stellar earnings report yesterday, following up on a huge Q2 with an encouraging Q3. For the fiscal quarter ended December 31st, the PC maker saw its net profits reach $153 million, marking a 54 percent increase over last year's $99.7 million. Revenue also rose 44 percent last quarter to a record $8.4 billion, thanks in large part to a surge in PC sales. In mature markets, Lenovo saw revenues increase by a whopping 81 percent to $3.6 billion, while emerging market sales reached $1.3 billion, marking a 13 percent rise over the previous year and accounting for about 15 percent of the company's global revenue. The manufacturer saw particularly strong growth in China, where it now enjoys a market share of 35.3 percent, its highest ever. Lenovo attributed much of this to strong smartphone and tablet sales in China, while confirming plans to release a Smart TV within the country, as well (according to CEO Yang Yuanqing, it should hit the market in April). Laptops, however, remain the company's bread and butter, comprising 53 percent of its total revenue last quarter, with sales reaching $4.5 billion -- 30 percent higher than last year. For more numbers, check out the full press release, after the break.
Nikon posts Q3 2011 earnings, sees significant losses due to Thailand floods
Nikon posted its Q3 earnings report this morning, and there isn't a whole lot to smile about. The cameramaker had to swallow a one-off loss of ¥10.9 billion last quarter (approximately $143.1 million), due to widespread flooding that devastated its Thailand manufacturing plant, in October. Today's report comes just a day after Sony issued similarly dire figures, which it largely attributed to last year's flooding, as well. For the third quarter ended December 31st, Nikon posted a ¥3.7 billion loss (about $48.6 million), compared with the ¥9.7 billion ($127.3 million) it saw in net profits over the same period in 2010. Operating profits also fell to ¥8.2 billion from ¥18.6 billion in 2010, while total revenue dropped from ¥253.8 billion in Q3 2010 to ¥215.4 billion, last quarter. The company remains optimistic about the future, though, forecasting net gains of ¥55 billion this year, coupled with an expected revenue of ¥925 billion. For the full report, check out the source links below.
Canon announces middling Q4 2011 earnings report, president steps down
In the wake of a relatively strong Q3, Canon today unveiled a slightly less rosy earnings report for the fourth quarter of 2011. Net sales for the quarter reached ¥964.8 billion (about $12.6 billion), up from the ¥916 billion the company reported last quarter, but down about 9.7 percent from Q4 2010. Quarterly operating profit, meanwhile, rose 14.2 percent on the year, to ¥94.6 billion ($1.2 billion). Profit for the full fiscal year, however, declined by 2.4 percent to ¥378.1 billion (approximately $4.9 billion), compared with the ¥387.6 billion ($5.1 billion) Canon raked in for all of 2010. Net income, on the other hand, rose by nearly 14 percent over Q4 2010 (¥61.4 billion from ¥54 billion), but only 0.8 percent over the full fiscal year (¥248.6 billion in FY 2011, ¥246.6 billion in FY 2010). Looking forward to 2012, the cameramaker expects net income to increase to ¥250 billion, which would mark the second straight year of less than one percent growth. This forecast is lower than what many analysts expected, though Canon based its projections on assumptions that the yen will continue to rise against both the dollar and the euro, making Japanese exports more expensive in Western markets. It was against this backdrop of disappointment that company president and COO Tsuneji Uchida announced his resignation today, effective March 29th. The 70-year-old Uchida will be replaced by 76-year-old chairman Fujio Mitarai, with Uchida slipping into an advisory role. Coming off a year that saw a devastating tsunami in Japan and supply chain disruptions in flood-ravaged Thailand, Canon underscored its cautious outlook for 2012, in a statement: "The future remains increasingly uncertain amid growing concern over a global economic slowdown." Find Canon's full report at the source link, below.
Microsoft Q4 FY11: revenue, earnings, and profits all up, beating expectations
The news wasn't so good for Nokia this morning, but its new bedmate is in much, much better shape. Microsoft's Q4 earnings for the 2011 fiscal year have been posted, showing revenue of $17.37 billion -- up eight percent over the same period last year, and besting the $16.43 billion record Q3. That drove $5.87 billion in net income, which is a whopping 30 percent climb over the year previous. Looking back over the full year, revenue broke another record, clocking in at $69.94 billion, 12 percent higher than the year before. Why all the good news? Well, the Entertainment & Devices Division saw a 30 percent revenue jump in the quarter, 45 percent over the year, as the Xbox 360 and Kinect continue to sell like gangbusters. Bing and Online Services also had good news, 17 percent revenue growth in the quarter thanks to the plucky search engine gaining ever more ground against the competition. But, not everything is rosy, with the Windows-related revenue staying flat -- down one percent this quarter, two percent over the year. Windows 8 will surely turn things around on that front, though, right?
Apple could sell record-breaking 4.3 million Macs this holiday
Sometime in January Apple will hold their FY2011 Q1 earnings call, and you will be sure to hear these words: "The quarter that just ended was the best quarter in Apple's history." It's something many of us have gotten used to hearing as Apple has said it (or a derivative of it, adding "non-holiday" between "best" and "quarter") every quarter for at least the last seven years. That familiar catchphrase shows no sign of stopping as NPD says Apple is on track to sell between 4.1 million and 4.3 million Macs in the December quarter. As AllThingsD points out, Apple's U.S. Mac sales are up 20 percent year-over-year for the first two months of the current quarter. International sales are growing even faster than domestic sales with 22 to 28 percent year-over-year growth for the first two months of the current quarter. Still haven't picked up Apple stock? There's still time as many think there's a 30ish-percent 12-month upswing coming.
RIM sells 100 millionth BlackBerry, hints at two more devices in the near future
Say what you will about BlackBerrys -- although with the Bold 9800 slider and OS 6, things might be looking up -- Research in Motion is still doing strong in the pocketbooks. The company just released its first fiscal quarter 2011 results with revenue growth of 24 percent year-over-year, and here's the rounded-number kicker: its 11.2 million shipments of smartphones this quarter has raised total shipments to over 100 million BlackBerrys. Quite a feat, but enough chit chat about the past -- what does the future hold? In a conference call pertaining to the fiscal results, RIM alluded to two new devices shipping soon, with one for the summer and one closer to fall. We'd bet a pretty penny one of them is the aforementioned slider, but as for the second? Guess we'll just wait and see.
Schappert clarifies EA's sweeping DLC and online strategy
During this week's quarterly earning's report, EA COO John Schappert answered an investor question with a somewhat vague but potentially far-reaching comment regarding the publisher's future strategy for implementing online functionality into its games. "In fiscal 2011 [from April 31, 2010 to March 31, 2011], every one of EA's releases will have an online component, both downloadable content and online play," Schappert said, according to a VG247 report. CFO Eric Brown then cited Mass Effect 2's Cerberus Network as the company's "most recent example" of how this plan might manifest. The obvious question: Does the plan apply to all platforms, including Wii, DS, PSP, and mobile? Schappert clarified to Joystiq today: "My statement wasn't in reference to any specific platform as most of our titles are multiplatform and have different features per platform. Though you can expect our PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 titles to have very robust online features. Of course, depending on the title, this may extend to other platforms as well." While this clarification is not exactly the firestarter statement one might interpret from Schappert's original comment, the plan still raises concerns -- based on recent experiences -- that EA games' online components could continue to induce headaches so long as they are tied to EA.com accounts and the issues that have arisen as EA has increased its DLC efforts. If the plan is to include online components in all EA games in the future, then the wrinkles need to be ironed out of Project Ten Dollar now.
