Q42016
Latest
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.
BlackBerry's share of the smartphone market is virtually zero
BlackBerry may be hoping for a recovery in its smartphone business, but it's hitting rock bottom right now. Gartner analysts estimate that BlackBerry's once-dominant platform hit 0.0 percent market share in the fourth quarter of 2016. Yes, zilch. The company did ship 207,000 phones, but that gives it less than half the unit volume of the "other OS" category. This wasn't hard to see coming given BlackBerry's years-long decline, gradual shift toward Android and recent focus on services. It's still incredibly symbolic, however, and shows that the company's deal with TCL effectively amounts to starting from scratch.
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.
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.
PC shipments were still in the pits this holiday
So much for the PC world recovering from 2015's holiday disaster. Both Gartner and IDC estimate that worldwide computer shipments were down year-over-year in the fourth quarter of 2016. The decline wasn't nearly as bad as it was a year ago (1.5 percent with IDC's methodology, 3.7 percent with Gartner's), but that's not saying much -- it just means that the industry didn't stay in freefall for long. Just why things turned out so glum varies depending on who you ask, though.
