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Demand for wearable tech is growing (but not for smartwatches)
If you were hoping the smartwatch market would bounce back from its recent slump when a slew of new models hit the market, you're about to be disappointed. IDC estimates that wearable device shipments grew ever so slightly (3.1 percent) in the third quarter of 2016, but that fitness trackers were almost exclusively responsible for the increase. Fitbit, Garmin and other activity band makers improved their shipments by the double digits, while the smartwatch world actually shrank.
GoPro's production issues cut into its sales and stock price
Despite including the release of its new Karma drone and Hero5 camera, GoPro's quarterly earnings report had some bad news today. With sales falling to $240.6 million (compared to $400 million in the same period last year), and a forecast for the year that dropped from a range of $1.35 billion to $1.5 billion, to $1.25 billion to $1.3 billion, shareholders sent its price diving to under $10 per share in after-hours trading. The company lost $104 million during the quarter, but founder and CEO Nicholas Woodman said: "Looking forward to 2017, we expect to return to profitability, driven by the strength of our new products." On a call about the earnings, Woodman said the company launched fewer cameras and drones than expected due to production issues that will also probably keep it from meeting demand during the holiday season.
Facebook racks up more users, nearly triples profits
While Twitter is trying to rebuild itself, Facebook recorded yet another blockbuster quarter. Over the past three months, the social network had $7.01 billion in revenue and $2.38 billion in profits, which is an astounding 166 percent increase over this time last year. You read that right; Facebook's profits this quarter has nearly tripled year-over-year.
iPad regains share in a shrinking mobile tablet market
Apple's share of the tablet market has been sliding for a while, but it's making a comeback... if not for the reasons the company might prefer. Strategy Analytics estimates that the iPad climbed from 19.1 percent of the market in the third quarter of 2015 to 19.9 percent a year later. However, that's mainly because the market as a whole shrank 10 percent. The analysts believe that many tablet manufacturers' shipments dropped year-to-year, and that Apple simply experienced a smaller decline than most. The one major exception is Amazon, whose $49 Fire tablet helped its shipments more than double.
LG would make more money if it wasn't for smartphones
You know it's bad when your mobile business gets trounced by the rival that sold a smartphone that actually blew up in its customers pockets. That's the situation over at LG, whose mobile communications division contrived to lose $389.4 million across the last three months. In the company's latest financials, it's revealed that LG shipped 13.5 million devices and saw US sales increase by 14 percent quarter-on-quarter. But that's pretty much the same thing the company achieved in every quarter since the start of 2014, and that plan stopped making a profit partway through 2015.
Smartwatch shipments dropped ahead of new models
The smartwatch market isn't quite as red-hot as it looked in recent months. IDC estimates that smartwatch shipments fell by just shy of 52 percent year-over-year in the third quarter of 2016, with the biggest names often being the hardest hit. Apple was still the top dog, but its shipments fell almost 72 percent to 1.1 million. Samsung's shipments were virtually flat, while Lenovo and Pebble saw their unit numbers drop sharply. Interestingly, the only company in the top five to see a big surge was Garmin -- its shipments more than tripled to 600,000. Should the industry be worried? Not necessarily.
Netflix's price hike didn't hurt subscriber growth
Netflix's delayed-price-hike strategy has apparently paid off, as its earnings report for the third quarter (PDF) showed it added more customers than expected. By the end of the quarter, Netflix says about 75 percent of its older customers have been un-grandfathered to the new price. Despite that bump, it outdid its forecast of adding 2.3 million customers worldwide by adding 3.57 million (370,000 or so in the US), and it expects to add more than 5 million new accounts to that list over the next three months. As a result, Netflix's shares are up nearly $20 in after-hours trading.
Apple's iPhone sales are still down, but Wall Street is happy anyway
After seeing Apple struggle through 2016, Wall Street set its sights pretty low for the company's Q3 earnings report. Those financial results just dropped, and while they're still not amazing for the folks in Cupertino, Apple did well enough to allay some nagging fears and get its flagging stock price up a bit in after-hours trading.
