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AAPL shares close up 8 percent
If you bought Apple at its lowest low yesterday, for just over a hundred bucks a share, you'd have made $13 per share back today. That doesn't cover your loss, of course, if you bought at its 52-week highs of just over $200 per share, but if you were a smart shopper yesterday, you got a heck of a deal. Goldman Sachs analyst David Bailey said that the yesterday's price drop was "overdone" and reiterated his "buy" rating and $200 price target. Citi analyst Richard Gardner also recommended buying, but cut his price target to $170 per share. "The recent sell off creates an opportunity as we think Apple will outperform our group through the end of the year, driven by iPhone unit upside and a strong product pipeline," said Bailey. AAPL closed today at 113.71, up 8.45 points, or eight percent from its close yesterday. [Via BusinessWeek.]
Activision doing well, Blizzard has spent $200M in upkeep on WoW
Activision Blizzard (the parent company of Blizzard Entertainment) held an Analyst's Day earlier this week (in which a bunch of stock analysts sit down to crunch numbers and predict the future), and they came out of it really well -- according to those in the know, Activision Blizzard is set to do very well in the future. Buoyed by Blizzard and their other big franchises (do we have to name them by now? Call of Duty, Guitar Hero, etc.), 99% of analysts give the stock a "Buy" or "Hold" rating, and many were impressed with what Activision told them about their releases in 2009.And we got another interesting insight into just what kind of money Blizzard is looking at -- they reported on the call that since 2004, they've spent $200 million on the upkeep of World of Warcraft alone. That includes things like payroll, customer support, and hardware updates, of which there have been plenty of those. $200 million does seem like a lot, but of course when you consider just how much revenue they've pulled in via subscriptions (ten million players paying up to $15 a month, though Blizzard has all kinds of different subscription plans around the world), $200 million over four years isn't all that much.We're told, though, that that money doesn't include any development costs (pre-release, and we're not sure if it includes patch/expansion development or not, either). And it certainly doesn't include Blizzard-wide costs, like their new HQ, or what they spend on advertising, promotion, and those big events held around the world. There's no question, however, that there's plenty of money coming both in and out of Blizzard's doors.
Sony recalls are killing the bottom line
Look Sony, nobody's rooting for your recovery more than your pals at Engadget. But seriously, two major recalls -- first the $200+ million battery fiasco now 440,000 VAIOs -- in two years? No wonder your stock is at a 3-year low.
Take-Two fiscal Q3 sales led by (GASP!) Grand Theft Auto IV
Take-Two Interactive's third-quarter fiscal results have proven that crime really does pay, with law-breaking blockbuster Grand Theft Auto IV leading sales, alongside Top Spin 3 and Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution. The three-month financial period, ended July 31, 2008, saw the publisher rake in net revenues of $433.8 million, nearly double the $206.4 million it earned during the same, GTA-less quarter of 2007. If you're reading this paragraph, we can only assume that you're keen on seeing even more numbers. Like $51.8 million, Take-Two's net income for the quarter and a considerable improvement on last year's net loss of $58.5 million. In terms of notable expenses, Take-Two burned through $12.6 million in "stock-based compensation," $1.8 million for "business reorganization" and $5.4 million for "professional fees and legal expenses," primarily aimed at warding off the advances of EA. Finally, net revenues for Take-Two's first three quarters in total were just over $1.2 billion, versus $689.2 million for the same period a year ago.In summary: Grand Theft Auto IV = money.
TiVo completes hat-trick of profitable quarters, then slips
It's hard to believe that TiVo has been with us for 11-years, and even harder to understand how it's managed to hang around all that time with only three profitable quarters. TiVo closed out its second profitable quarter in a row on July 31st, but don't call off that deathwatch just yet -- the company followed up the good news with a gloomy Q3 forecast to the tune of a $7M - $9M net loss, and revenue below expectations. Mounting competition from cable and satellite operator is eating into the DVR pie, and getting things up and running with Comcast has been painfully slow. For TiVo's sake, we hope that things with Cox and Australia's Seven go a whole lot better, because cutting marketing costs to profitability in the competitive DVR market doesn't sound like a viable long-term strategy to us.
Apple expected to beat the Street in September quarter
We recently reported on Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster's expectations of phenomenal iPhone sales over the next year, and now he's back with more happy Apple news!As reported on Macsimum News, Munster looked at preliminary July sales results from NPD Group, did some extrapolation, and came up with numbers showing that both iPod and Mac sales could beat Wall Street's expectations for the quarter ending September 30, 2008.Munster's prognostications show Apple selling 2.7 - 2.9 million Macs, which is up 28% year-over-year from the same period in 2007 and beating Wall Street's expectations of 2.65 million units. He also expects iPod sales to hit 10.7 - 11.2 million units, which is slightly above Wall Street's 10.8 million unit guesstimate on the high end. If Apple happens to hit the high end of these estimates (2.9 million Macs, 11.2 million iPods, 4.1 million iPhones, and a 32% gross margin), Munster calculates that Apple could post earnings per share in the range of $1.19, much better than the Street estimate of $1.11.TUAW will definitely be following this monster news during the earnings call in October. [via Macsimum News]
Analyst: 45M iPhones in 2009
Despite issues with the iPhone 3G -- less-than-stellar battery life, dropped calls, crashes, etc. -- stock market analysts are very bullish on Apple's product.BusinessWeek reported that Piper Jaffray tech analyst Gene Munster is forecasting sales of 13 million iPhone 3Gs in 2008, and a whopping 45 million on 2009. That's considerably higher than what other analysts are proposing, which is in the range of 11 million in 2008 and "only" 26 million in 2009. The BusinessWeek article also mentioned Apple's new production goals point to 40 to 45 million handsets between now and August of 2009, which fits into Munster's forecast nicely. Of course, supply is only half of the picture. Demand for the 3G depends on Apple and carriers fixing issues quickly, decent rate plans from carriers, and killer apps in the App Store.As Apple rolls into large and previously untouched markets such as Russia and China, forges deals with other retailers such as Best Buy, and works with developers to bring hot applications to the App Store, we'll see how the forecasts compare with reality.How accurate do you think the projections are? Share your opinion in a comment.
Apple market value exceeds Google's
Digital Daily, part of the Wall Street Journal's All Things Digital site, is reporting that Apple's market value is now greater than that of Google. The current market capitalization of Apple is US$159.37 billion, squeaking by Google's market cap of US$157.56 billion. Next in Apple's sights ought to be the old man on the block, IBM. Their current market value is around US$170 billion. It may take a while for Apple to catch up with Microsoft, though -- at the present time MSFT is worth about US$255 billion.What's your take on when Apple will overtake IBM? I'm betting on April 1st, 2009.Financial information from Forbes.com
The9 scores again in Q2 '08
The9, which is the company in China that runs Blizzard's World of Warcraft game there, has released their second quarter financial numbers, and they're rocking yet again -- they pulled in record income and revenue, nabbing about US$66.3 million, a full $60.7 million of which came directly from World of Warcraft and all the deals they have surrounding that property there. And their peak concurrent user total for WoW topped 1 million, which means one million accounts (not necessarily people) were logged on and playing at the same time.Apparently the company is also running a few other games, but clearly WoW is dominating their income, and, needless to say, doing very well for them. And probably won't be stopping anytime soon -- if Blizzard follows through on their plan to release Wrath asap in China, odds are that The9's biggest game will get even more popular.
Oh, to have Apple's cash problems
Not unlike this guy, Apple is going to need avalanche insurance for the mountain of cash that it's sitting on. According to BusinessWeek, Apple has amassed $20.8 billion in cash and short-term investments, adding nearly $1 billion each and every quarter. It's not necessarily odd for a company to have a lot of cash (Microsoft, for example, has $23 billion socked away), but it's beginning to irk the investors. If Apple's stock price continues to rise, everyone's happy. But if it starts to dip, experts say Apple should consider investments like acquisitions (possibly in the music business) or raw materials and components. Matt Asay of Cnet is suggesting something probably unpopular with the Cupertino crowd: tax it. Since Apple's profit margins (as a percentage of sales) are higher than Exxon's, Apple might fall prey to Congress' plan to tax windfall profits, if it becomes law. Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer said earlier this year that "Our preference is to maintain a strong balance sheet in order to preserve our flexibility." Charles Wolf of Needham & Co. says the company doesn't need more than $5 billion on hand, but he'd be more worried "if this was a sleepy company with no growth." "That's not Apple," Wolf said.
N2 recall leaves Neonode reeling, pleading for patience
From the outside, it has been easy to assume that everything was humming along nicely at Neonode's California / Sweden-based offices. Based on a recent open letter issued by the interim CEO and chairman Per Bystedt (not to mention the earnings report), that is indeed not at all the case. Neonode has failed at meeting guidance and anticipated sales for this year, with a number of things partially to blame. For starters, it admittedly tried to enter "too many markets, too fast," and a recall of the N2 surrounding "reception issues" didn't make things any better. Bystedt confessed to having just south of $3 million of his own money invested in the outfit, while he asked for other shareholders to be patient as he attempted to right the ship. Best of luck to ya -- we hear it's a pretty tough sector. [Warning: PDF read link][Via RCRWireless]
Nintendo makes ridiculous amounts of money in Q1
Nintendo has to be a short step away from building an evil fortress in a volcano, because now they have super villain money. Like, the kind of money Dr. Doom could use to take over the entire world. Good thing Nintendo isn't evil and just wants us to play games.During Q1 of this year, Nintendo earned nearly 1 billion dollars (107.2 billion yen). We can only imagine how many Deathstars that could build. Hardware sales showed the DS at 6.94 million units (which was down from 6.98 million year-over-year), bringing lifetime DS sales to 77.54 million units. As for DS software, sales were up, increasing by 2.33 million units to 36.59 million. With this slight dip in DS hardware sales, some analysts are showing concern.Hiroshi Kamide, an analyst at KBC Securities Japan, commented to the AFP in Tokyo that "for the first time, we've actually seen DS hardware sales fall year-on-year. The DS has hit a bit of a high-water mark." If the opinions of gaming bloggers count for anything, we're going to go on the record and state that we aren't worried in the least. With a Grand Theft Auto game coming to the DS, along with the DS just being awesome overall, we think the handheld still has a fighting chance.
EA doubles Q1 revenues, troubled by $95 million loss
Monolithic publisher EA has reported the preliminary financial results for its first fiscal quarter, ended June 30, 2008, and noted a dramatic increase in net revenues. Despite sales rising $409 million to $804 million (more than double that of Q1 2007's $395 million), the publisher still suffered a net loss of $95 million, which according to our admittedly rudimentary mathematical abilities, is smaller than the previous year's $132 million. We want net loss to be smaller, right?EA's rise in sales can be attributed to the strong commercial performance of titles like UEFA Euro 2008, the "continued strength" of Rock Band and Battlefield: Bad Company, which managed to shift 1.6 million copies. "We are now seeing the early returns of the change agenda we started last year," stated CEO John Riccitiello. He went on to use words like "innovation" and "quality" to describe EA's forthcoming lineup, calling it "the best title portfolio in the company's history." We would totally agree, especially after experiencing the publisher's strong E3 showing ... but we're worried that doing so might just trigger Armageddon.
Analysts: EA revenues up in Q2, $100 million in losses expected
EA will announce its second-quarter results on Tuesday and, according to an average estimate by analysts, is expected to report a loss of $111 million. Forbes reports EA had a $132 million loss the same quarter last year. Not that EA is hurting for customers, revenues are estimated to be up about $200 million this quarter despite the overall loss.This second-quarter loss isn't surprising as EA -- along with almost every other publisher -- "backloads" its games to cause a hellish purchasing climate during the holiday season. Analysts are uppity with EA because this is the first quarter the company hasn't provided them with guidance, causing analysts to have a huge spread on the quarterly financial expectations. EA is also waiting for the results of an FTC investigation into its buyout of Take-Two. There's probably going to be a lot more cloak and dagger as the dethroned publishing king tries to crawl its way back to #1.
Samsung SDI expected to post first profit in two years
Samsung SDI has definitely been on the offensive of late, producing the world's first WVGA OLED panels for handhelds, a 3D AMOLED display and plans to crank out medium to large OLED TVs in just a year or so. Its efforts are paying off, as the firm is expected to post its first profit since dipping into (and remaining in) the red back in Q1 2005. According to Kim Dong-won, an analyst at Hyundai Securities, the outfit is forecasting a ???3.1 billion ($3.05 million) profit for Q2 2008 -- quite a bit better than the ???31 billion ($30.5 million) in losses analysts were expecting. Here's a hint for staying in the black: get a few big screen OLED HDTVs out before everyone else. Simple, right?
Nintendo stocks rise, execs get jewel-encrusted unicorn bonuses
Or, in the case of the fellow to the right, the Tony Montana bathtub.For those of you who've been keeping track of the business situation with Nintendo, then you've already got your party hat on and have made several copies of your butt with the Xerox machine. Nintendo's stocks are on the rise. In fact, they're at a five-month high.What's behind this rise? Well, The Telegraph is reporting that it's due to those of us here in the United States, because we've been buying up Wiis and Nintendo products like it's going out of style. So, if you've bought a Wii or Nintendo game recently, pat yourself on the back. You're helping Nintendo prosper.[Via GamesIndustry.biz]
Apple announces third-quarter earnings call
Once again, it's that time of year when tourists flock to the beaches, students leave their books behind and Apple executives describe how they've made much more money than the rest of us.Earlier this week, Apple announced that their third-quarter earnings call will take place on July 21, 2008, at 2 p.m. Pacific time. It's been an up-and-down quarter for Apple's stock. It should also be noted that this will be the first report to contain information on sales of the iPhone 3G, assuming they do go on sale on July 11th without a glitch.We'll be live blogging the call, so be sure and check back on the 21st. See you then!
State of the PlayStation: Second-half FY07 numbers
SCEI boss Kaz Hirai provided some new numbers for the gaming masses to look at and commence with the "wow," "um," "huh," and "yay?" Peering into the abyss that is a collection of PowerPoint slides, we've concluded a couple of things. First, PS3 is hurtin' for games, with a mere 475 having been released in total at the outset of FY07. Second, PS3 is certainly selling a lot better. Here's how things look on whole.
Take-Two quarterly revenues up 163% on GTA IV sales
In light of all the important news coming out of Take-Two's just-released financial report, it would be easy to skim over the actual financial numbers at the core of the release. That would be a shame for Take-Two, as the report shows incredible growth for the company when compared to last year.Quarterly revenues were up a staggering 163% year over year, from $205.4 million to $539.8 million, mainly on the strength of Grand Theft Auto IV (and not on the strength of titles like Go Diego Go! Safari Rescue). These revenues were enough to turn a loss of $29.2 million during last year's second quarter into a profit of nearly $115.4 million during this year. The company's coffers have ballooned to include nearly $1.1 billion in assets, up from $830 million at the end of the last fiscal year in October.The report also reveals that 2008 might finally be the year that the PS2 finally starts its slow decline, at least from Take-Two's perspective. At this time last year, 37% of Take Two's revenues (a plurality) came from PS2 games. This year, that ratio is down to 10%, while the Xbox 360 and PS3 shot up to 41% and 31% of revenues, respectively. The company only has one PS2 game listed on tap for the rest of the year: MLB Power Pros 2008.
GTA IV ships over 11 million copies
As part of Take-Two's glowing second quarter financials, the publisher confirmed that Grand Theft Auto IV has been flying off shelves (GASP!), announcing that as of May 31, more than 11 million copies "have been sold in to retailers," while nearly 8.5 million units "have been sold through to consumers." Take-Two further puffed out its financial chest this afternoon concerning the high profile title, boasting that GTAIV surpassed all-time entertainment records for day one and week one sales, selling about 6 million units worldwide and filling company wallets with more than $500 million in its debut week.
