Q4
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GM's Q4 sales suggest a banner 2022
Strong sales of its existing pickup and SUV lines in Q4 have GM positioned for a strong start to 2022 as the company works to electrify and automate its vehicle offerings.
Sony has already sold 7.8 million PS5s
Sony can't make enough PlayStation 5 consoles to satisfy demand.
A quarter of Spotify users now listen to podcasts
Spotify's fourth-quarter financial results show a spike in user growth, and much more love for podcasts on the platform.
Netflix grows to over 200 million subscribers globally
Netflix now has over 200 million subscribers worldwide.
Twitter doesn’t want to call its users ‘users’ anymore
Twitter has announced that, at least in its public documents, it's going to stop calling the people who use its platform "users." It's "an effort to demonstrate more empathy for the people who use Twitter," explains the company's most recent financial results covering the fourth quarter of 2019. Instead, it's reframing the talk to be about Monetizable Daily Active Usage, Twitter's shorthand for users people it can sell ads against.
Spotify reports 124 million paying users and 'exponential' podcast growth
"This was the highest net add quarter we've ever experienced," said Spotify in its fourth-quarter earnings report, adding that the service had added 10 million subscribers. The company is riding high after seeing the number of paying customers surge to 124 million and its overall user base grow to 271 million. It says that the source of (some) of this blockbuster success is the same as it has been for the last few quarters: Podcasts.
Audi’s E-Tron line gets a bit more crowded with the Q4 crossover concept
Audi impressed us with the E-Tron SUV. It wowed us with the E-Tron GT and now it's hoping that its third EV will turn just as many heads. Unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show, the new Q4 E-Tron Concept takes the formula of the automaker's electric EV and shrinks it down a bit. The vehicle has an expected range of 280 miles and will probably compete with the Tesla Model Y more than the Model X. The automaker also announced an augmented reality HUD that project images so they look like they're 12 meters ahead of the vehicle. Sadly, they didn't have a demo of the system. Once it goes into production around the end of 2020, this crossover will be the first Audi where owners can customize their headlight startup signature.
Audi teases its all-electric Q4 concept car
The third car in Audi's all-electric lineup isn't going on sale until early 2021, but that two-year wait gets a little bit harder when you see what's coming. Ahead of the Geneva Motor Show, the Automaker has shown off a series of concept designs for the Q4 e-tron, a compact SUV. According to a terse statement, Audi says the concept "provides a glimpse of the next stage of Audi electric mobility."
Twitter says abuse reports have fallen by 16 percent
Twitter's attempts to improve the "health" of its conversation are paying dividends, according to the company's latest financial figures. The company is reporting a 16 percent fall in the number of abuse reports year on year, and a commensurate surge in profitability. In the last three months, Twitter pulled in revenues of $909 million, coining a tidy $255 million net profit.
LG fails to turn a profit for the first time in two years
Both of South Korea's electronics giants have announced fourth quarter results that were less than ideal. Within hours of Samsung posting a double-digit reduction in quarterly profit, LG has revealed that it lost 80.7 billion Korean won ($72.5 million) in the last three months.
What does Fitbit need to succeed?
Fitbit is the current king of wearables, but for how much longer? The company has recorded four successive quarters of losses since the tail end of 2016, and that's a problem. Fitbit will publish its latest earnings results later today, and those numbers won't just tell us how the company is faring, but also how the wearables industry is doing as a whole.
Twitter made its first profit, but still can't grow its user base
Back in October, Twitter promised that by the time the fourth quarter rolled around, it would be profitable, or just about. Since then, however, the company lost its de-facto CEO and continues to raise the ire of figures on both sides of the aisle. It comes as something of a surprise then, that Twitter has managed to turn its first ever quarterly profit of $91 million. If there was ever cause for optimism that the 12-year-old company will survive, it's the fact that it's now making money.
LG's latest financials explain its shift in mobile strategy
Earlier this month, LG said that it would row back on its smartphone ambitions by abandoning an annual cycle of smartphone launches. Rather than releasing a flagship just because Samsung did, LG would only pump out a handset when it felt that it should. The report speculated that the move was in anticipation of more bad news for LG Mobile when its fourth-quarter financials were published. Now that the figures are out, it's clear that LG's patience for the division has worn thin, since it managed to lose $204.8 million in just three months.
Netflix added 8.3 million customers in Q4, its biggest growth ever
While Netflix is facing more competition than ever, its growth isn't slowing. The company just announced its four quarter earnings results, and revealed that worldwide it added 8.3 million customers, "the highest quarter in our history and up 18 percent vs. last year's record 7.05 million." While the Will Smith-starring movie Bright wasn't a hit with critics, the company seems happy, saying that it's one of the most viewed titles ever and drove a "notable" lift in customer acquisition. As a result, Netflix is planning to invest more in original films, as well as international content to follow its first German original series, Dark. The company counts over 110 million paying subscribers worldwide, with 52 million of them in the US. The letter suggests it will continue on as planned, investing more money in original content as mentioned above, encompassing second seasons of The Punisher and Mindhunter, and overall deals like the ones it reached with OITNB/Glow creator Jenji Kohan. The letter did not mention Kevin Spacey or Danny Masterson by name, however it did note that "We took a $39m non-cash charge in Q4 for unreleased content we've decided not to move forward with," without specifying what it referred to. We'll have to wait until 6 PM ET to see the video of its earnings call to find out if there's any comment on those situations, or Mo'nique's recent call for a boycott. Update: The video earnings call is live, and it provided a few quotes on some things we were wondering about. Regarding that cash charge, exec Ted Sarandos referred to it as "related to the societal reset around sexual harassment." Source told Deadline and the Financial Times that the charge related to Kevin Spacey's departure, covering both House of Cards and the Gore Vidal biopic it had planned to release this year. CEO Reed Hastings said of Bright that many of the critics are English speaking or in the US, and "disconnected from mass appeal" worldwide. According to Sarandos, both the movie and season two of Stranger Things matched Netflix's adoption almost perfectly around the globe, showing how content can travel. Finally, they didn't appear to be afraid of Disney's upcoming contender, with or without Fox content. "I'll be a subscriber," said Hastings.
Surface, LinkedIn, and cloud revenue are bright spots for Microsoft
Good news for Microsoft: Its Surface revenues have rebounded from last quarter's slump, when sales fell 26 percent over the previous year. For the fourth quarter, Microsoft reports that Surface sales only fell 2 percent year-over-year. Sure, decreases aren't generally good, but in this case it's a sign that sales have actually picked back up. It's not a huge surprise why: Microsoft revealed the Surface Laptop and Surface Pro in June. Even though they arrived during the tail-end of the quarter, they likely added a bit to the company's ledger. Overall, Microsoft reported revenues of $23.3 billion for the fourth quarter, a 13 percent increase over last year, and it also doubled its profits, reaching $6.5 billion.
Tesla: Model 3 production is on track to start in July
Tesla's final earnings report for 2016 is most notable for what it tells us to expect in the upcoming year. In a letter to shareholders (PDF), Elon Musk & Co. report that Model 3 production is on track to start in July, ramping up to full-scale production in September. As our friends at Autoblog note, that means the earliest pre-ordering customers could see their cars by the end of this year.
GoPro is planning to release a Hero6 camera in 2017
If you've been following GoPro for the last few months through its Hero5 production issues and Karma drone recall (now back on shelves), you're probably not surprised by a disappointing earnings report showing a net loss of $116 million. Now, the company has closed offices and shut down its entertainment division with an eye towards returning to profitability this year. Of course, for fans of its products, the question is what new devices are on the way, and while CEO Nick Woodman didn't drop any specific details, he did confirm that there will be a new Hero6 action camera this year.
LG loses money, thanks to smartphones (Updated)
It no longer feels hyperbolic to say that LG's persistence with mobile, while laudable, is also a pretty toxic business decision. After all, the conglomerate has been propping up its flagging handset division for a good long while now. The final quarter of 2016 saw the company take a severe blow, actually losing $223.98 million, mostly thanks to its failing handset division.
Samsung's chip business posted record earnings in Q4 2016
Samsung expected a 9.2 trillion won ($7.8 billion) operating profit for Q4 2016, but the final figure is slightly larger despite the Note 7 scandal rocking its world last year. According to the Korean conglomerate's full earnings report, it posted a 9.22 trillion won ($7.9 billion) operating profit for October to December 2016. That's 50 percent higher than the fourth quarter of 2015 and its highest in over three years. Samsung says it did well despite pulling the problematic phone from the market because its chip business had a record quarter: its operating profit (KRW 4.95 trillion or $4.25 billion) was up 77 percent from the same period the year before.
Netflix expects HBO to go binge-first in an 'internet TV world'
Netflix just announced its final earnings report for 2016 (PDF), revealing that it grew by seven million customers to 93.8 million. That's two million more than it had projected, up more than 25 percent for the year and puts the 100 million benchmark squarely in its sights for 2017. Beyond revealing that House of Cards will launch in Q2 instead of Q1 this year, Netflix mentioned the strong performance of original series like The OA and 3%. Regarding the latter, Netflix says it was watched by "millions" of US viewers and is the first Portuguese-language show to travel that way.
