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Panasonic's 2013 Q1: things are looking up with a $164 million profit
Panasonic's financial year runs from summer to summer, so its first-quarter results for 2013 just hit the wire. The figures proudly show that the company has managed to turn around the losses it suffered so badly in the previous period -- with $23 billion in turnover generating a tidy profit of $164 million. While sales dropped by six percent compared to the first three months of the year, it's been reducing fixed costs and restructuring each segment of the business to ensure a return to profit making despite the worsening financial crisis in Europe. The company's even been able to stick some cash into the savings account, tucking $16.6 million into the piggy bank for a rainy day.
iPhone app and debit card from Simple aim to streamline consumer finance
Considering the amount of time your wallet and your iPhone spend sitting right next to each other, is it any wonder that banks and payment services are making iOS job #1 for their mobile strategies? Big banks like Citi and Chase have capable iPhone apps for handling your money on the go, with features like photo check deposit and quick payments. There are also pure mobile payment plays like Dwolla, Venmo and PayPal with sophisticated iPhone apps to handle sending money to friends and businesses. (PayPal recently acquired Card.io which makes an API for app developers to capture credit cards via the iPhone camera, rather than with a dongle or hardware sled.) The latest entry in the race to replace your traditional banking experience with something new and better comes from Simple, which puts a sophisticated web front end and sleek app atop a traditional debit card. Simple has just come out of beta for public account invitations, after several months of private testing. Founding CTO Alex Payne (formerly of Twitter) has also announced that he's stepping away from Simple to focus on other technology interests. Simple aims to provide a (wait for it...) simpler take on managing your money, whether it's from your computer or on the go. It's not a bank, exactly; it's a customer service firm that works with wholesale banks to provide a checking account and matching Visa debit card. You use the card just like any debit card, and you can get cash (fee-free) from any ATM in the Allpoint network. Unlike Mint, it doesn't aggregate your fiscal data from lots of accounts; it shows you just the one account, but with greater detail and responsiveness. %Gallery-161332% With a debit card, unlike credit cards, you can't spend more than you've got -- which makes them a great choice for tight budgets. Traditional debit cards still leave a window for you to get overdrawn, however, if you've got pending transactions that haven't hit your account yet. Simple helps your fiscal transparency by showing your "Safe to Spend" funds number, which incorporates your unreconciled transactions and docks your available cash as appropriate. The integrated Simple iPhone app provides immediate feedback and approval on your transactions as they're made; in fact, you can't sign up for a Simple account if you don't have an iOS device. You can use an iPad or iPod touch, as long as you also have a cellphone that accepts SMS text messages. The app is protected by a simple PIN code, rather than the username/password pair common for banking apps. Since your card transactions are immediately reflected in the app, you can do a lot of easy tracking and tagging to keep track of your money. The app and the website offer powerful search tools so you can figure out where and when you did your spending; the site also includes Gmail-style keyboard shortcuts for power users. One feature that's not ready at launch is check depositing via the iPhone camera. Right now, to add funds to your account you use direct deposit, EFT from your current bank, or mailed deposits. As for sending money out, you can direct payments to companies or individuals right from the iPhone app, but you'll need their full mailing address as Simple defaults to sending a check if it can't do an electronic transfer. I've only had my Simple account for a few days (card unboxing gallery above -- it's very nicely packaged, in a linen bag) and I'm not sure how much utility I'll get out of it. For anyone with a moderately complicated financial life, such as a joint account with a spouse or multiple sources of income, Simple may be too simple to gain much traction. For basic banking and debit transactions, however, it might be just the ticket. I'm going to try using my Simple card instead of cash for daily spending so I can get a better sense of how much money is going into coffee and sundries (and how much I could be saving for a new MacBook Air instead).
Visualized: the iDevice influence on Apple's bottom line
Apple's Q3 earnings last week rang loud and clear: iDevices are paying Cupertino's bills. The customary numerics laid down the bare facts, citing an 84 percent increase in iPad sales since 2011 and a similar 28 percent jump for the iPhone. Of course, well-organized tables of sales data aren't for everyone, but who doesn't love a good chart? Stuart Carlton took it upon himself to graph the percentages of Apple's revenue that each of its product categories fill out, producing the above criss-cross of colored statistics. The graph compares Apple's Q3 sales data going back several years, and a second chart (after the break) compares the iPhone, iPad and iPod's share of the revenue directly with the rest of Apple's fare. Read on to take in the data for yourself, or hit the source link below for Carlton's own commentary.
MetroPCS 2012 Q2 sees profits skyrocket to $149 million despite losing nearly 200,000 subscribers
MetroPCS has announced that it pulled in $1.3 billion in the second quarter of the year, only slightly more than it managed in the first. It made a profit of $149 million, well up from the $21 million it pulled in between January and March, despite shedding around 200,000 subscribers in the process. The company's deliberately concentrated on raising cash at the expense of new subscriptions in preparation for its 4G LTE for All project, due to begin in the third quarter. It revealed that it now has 700,000 LTE subscribers, up from the 580,000 present in March and that it plans to have a full 10MHz of spectrum allocated for the super-fast mobile standard in "most major metropolitan areas" by the end of the year. As for devices that'll take advantage of the 4G goodness, MetroPCS says that we can expect to see either six or seven new LTE handsets by year's end, each which will be priced between $99 and $149.
Facebook posts first earnings as a public company: $1.18 billion in revenue, 955 million users
Facebook revealed its Q1 earnings in an SEC filing leading up to its big IPO earlier this year, but it's now officially out with its first earnings report as a public company. For Q2 of 2012, it brought in $1.18 billion in revenue, up 32 percent year-over-year and slightly better than what analysts were expecting, while GAAP net income sat at a loss of $157 million (down from a profit of $240 million a year ago). Looking at things on a non-GAAP basis, though, net income is actually up from $285 million to $295 million. What's more, the company also confirmed that it has 955 million monthly active users (or what it calls MAUs) as of the end of June, up 29 percent year-over-year. As you can see in the chart after the break, those users are distributed fairly evenly across the world, including 186 million in the US and Canada, 246 million in Europe, 255 million in Asia, and 268 million elsewhere. Daily active users totaled 552 million for the same time period, up 32 percent year-over-year, while mobile users now stand at 543 million, up 67 percent from last year. Not surprisingly, a huge chunk -- 84 percent -- of the company's revenue comes from advertising, which brought in $992 million for the quarter, an increase of 28 percent from last year. That apparently wasn't enough to please investors, though, who have sent the company's stock to a new low of less than $25 (down over ten percent) in after hours trading. Update: Expectedly, the ever-recurring topic of a Facebook phone came up during the Q&A portion of the company's earnings call, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg didn't avoid the issue entirely. While not completely dismissing recent rumors of an HTC-built, Facebook-branded phone, Zuckerberg did say that building a whole phone "really wouldn't make much sense for us to do," which should put at least a bit of a damper on some of the hype.
Amazon Q2 2012 earnings: net income down 96 percent to $7 million, net sales up 29 percent to $12.83 billion
When internet mega retailer Amazon kicked off its fiscal year this past spring with $13.8 billion in net sales, the prognosis for the quarter ahead was dour, to say the least. At the time, the company projected its Q2 2012 performance would see an operating loss of $40 million to $260 million versus Q2 2011, as well as a slight down tick in revenue at $11.9 billion to $13.3 billion quarter to quarter. Well, the numbers are in and it looks like the forecast was right on the money. The Seattle-based outfit posted $7 million in net income for the quarter, a year over year loss amounting to a whopping 96 percent decrease. As for net sales, that picture's a bit rosier given the 29 percent increase over Q2 2011 that saw the Bezos-backed co. pull in $12.83 billion -- a figure that would have risen to 32 percent were it not for a $272 million hit due to "changes in foreign exchange rates[.]" Operating cash flow for Q2 2012 was down by nearly half at $107MM compared to the same segment last year. Unsurprisingly, the company's budget Kindle Fire tab -- which has enjoyed relatively weak competition up to now -- is still the number one item across Amazon's site, with titles in its Lending Library growing to over 170,000. Bezos also made note of Prime's growth, pegging that subscription offering's catalog of items at 15 million and highlighting the addition of 18,000 movies and TV shows to its streaming service. As for the future, the company expects Q3 net sales to grow by at least 19 percent year-over-year, landing somewhere between $12.9 billion and $14.3 billion, with a projected operating loss of $50 million to $350 million. Hit up the PR after the break for the full load of financial highs and lows.
Sprint's iPhone gamble isn't paying off as 2012 Q2 figures reveal $629 million operating loss
Sprint's second quarter figures have arrived, showing that the company's billion-dollar gamble on the iPhone isn't working right now. While it sold 1.5 million Apple-branded handsets in the three month period (40 percent to new and postpaid customers), it recorded an operating loss of $629 million and a colossal net loss of $1.4 billion -- compared to an operating loss of $255 million and a net loss of $863 million in the first quarter. Operating revenues of $8.8 billion improved on those in the first quarter by a single percent -- mostly due to higher service fees from its wireless offerings. It's also grown its cash reserves, up from $128 million last quarter to $267 million today, and can point to 442,000 postpaid and 141,000 new prepaid subscribers pushing the company's customer base up to 56 million nationwide -- mentioning that 60 percent of former Nextel users chose to remain with Sprint during the enforced change. The figures reveal that Sprint's eating around $782 million due to the shutdown of the Nextel platform and a further $184 million to end leases on antenna sites for the moribund network. It's also having to take a hit of $204 million due to its investment into infrastructure partner Clearwire. It's affirmed its $1 billion lending facility, contingent upon purchasing gear from Ericsson to help build its LTE network, which it aims to have installed in 12,000 sites by the end of the year. Of course, that purchase was prompted by the collapse of Philip Falcone's doomed LightSquared project, which caused the Now Network to lose $66 million in cash and its childhood innocence when it comes to trusting other people. Update: Big Yellow also mentioned that it has no plans to adopt a shared data plan to follow AT&T and Verizon.
ARM sees profit surge 23 percent, tests forecasters' patience
Just when financial boffins expected ARM's consistent double-digit growth to slow-down, the company has beaten their projections with a 23 percent rise in pre-tax profit compared to Q2 of last year. It made £66.5 million ($103 million) in profit from £135.5 million ($213 million) in revenue from its numerous mobile and low-power processor design licensees. Analysts expected lower performance for the simple reason that the world's biggest chip-makers have warned of tougher "macroeconomic" times ahead -- rival Intel has been careful to dampen people's hopes for its next quarter, for example, and Qualcomm (a major ARM customer) has also reduced its forecasts. Still, it's all just different shades of rolling in it.
Apple announces Q3 2012 earnings: $35 billion revenue, $8.8 billion in net profits
It's hard to believe its been just three months since we were here last, but it's true. It's already earnings season again and, in the feast of financial conference calls, Apple is an entree. Not surprisingly, Cupertino was raking in the big bucks yet again, but it wasn't quite the windfall of revenue the company has seen in the past. All told the company pulled in $35 billion in revenue, pocketing $8.8 billion of that as pure profit, a record for both in Q3. But, just cause it wasn't quite as lucrative a quarter doesn't mean the boys in Cupertino aren't happy with the results. Profits were up $1.5 billion from Q3 of 2011, allowing the company to carry forward with its plan to issue a cash dividend to its share holders. During the last three months the company shipped 17 million iPads, an 84 percent increase over the same quarter last year -- a simply staggering number. And don't think that its other premier gadget has plateaued. 26 million iPhones were also sold, representing a 28 percent increase year-over-year. Interestingly, Mac sales slowed, increasing just two percent over last year, largely thanks to a 13 percent drop off in desktop sales. The biggest money maker for the company continues to be the iPhone and its related products and services, however. More than $16 billion of the total revenue is directly attributable to the smaller member of the iOS family. The iPad is quickly closing the gap, netting Apple over $9 billion in this quarter alone. As a percentage of revenue, the iPod continued to decline, marking the slow death of the once flagship product line. While revenues were down sequentially, it's the year-over-year numbers that tell the real story. Revenue was up $9.5 billion from Q3 of 2011 and net income by $1.5 billion, as the company has continued to increase its market share and open up to niches to itself. For the next quarter Apple actually expects a small drop in both revenue and earnings per-share, but not enough that we expect Wall Street types to start yelling, "sell, sell, sell!"
Netflix Q2 2012 earnings: 530,000 more US subscribers and a return to profitability
Netflix recently let it drop that its users clocked in more than one billion hours of content-viewing in the month of June alone, although the big question for CEO Reed Hastings is how that relates to the company's subscriber base. The results are in from its Q2 2012 earnings report, and it's claiming 27.56 million streaming subscribers worldwide, up from 26 million last quarter. In the US alone that includes 23.94 million customers, after it reported 23.4 million in Q1, while DVD customers dropped by 850k to 9.24 million. While the number of new subscribers wasn't as high as some had hoped, the good news is the company is finally back in the black, with $889 million in revenue providing $6 million in net income. On the flip side, a plan to launch service in an "additional attractive European market" in Q4 is expected to result in temporary losses, but we'll find out more about those plans later in Q3. One other issue that has been resolved is the search for a new Chief Marketing Officer resulting in the hiring of Kelly Bennett, formerly a marketing executive with Warner Bros. This morning Verizon and Redbox began to carefully pull back the cover on their competing offering, and Amazon has also been making significant waves in the space. However in response, Netflix says Amazon and Hulu Plus have yet to gain meaningful traction in relation to its viewing hours, and it expects Redbox Instant to face a "big challenge" to break into the existing top 3. Its current content deal with Epix will lose online exclusivity "shortly" although it will still offer those titles, we'll see if any of the competition joins in. Their biggest competition however, is expected to come from efforts like Comcast's new X1 and Sky's Now TV, while for HBO, the possibility of cooperation is actually raised (again). We'll see if that happens or if there are any more juicy details revealed on the investor call in a few minutes.
Apple gets paid for products faster than it has to pay for manufacturing
Here's yet another sign of what a great position Apple has put itself in in terms of manufacturing: According to the Wall Street Journal [paywall], the company gets paid by its customers much faster than it is required to pay its suppliers. The difference between the inflow of sales and the outflow of manufacturing capital means that Apple's capital investment is actually negative -- a sort of fiscal antigravity. Apple is getting paid by customers after 18 days on average, but it has leveraged into a position where it has up to 83 days to pay its suppliers. That's phenomenal, and it's a result of quite a few different initiatives by the company in the past. First, not only are Apple's products built around high profit and high demand, but Apple has made various company acquisitions and locked down powerful supply deals. This also means that the companies that Apple has teamed up with end up taking on more of the risk than usual, leaving Apple in a very agile and flexible position. According to the WSJ, in 2011 Apple paid to keep only four days of inventory on hand, versus 10 days of inventory held in 2010. Again, this is of course the product of years of spending on R&D, acquisitions and investments, and Apple's legendary advertising budgets and reputation for quality. But it's obviously a very impressive place for Apple Inc. to perch. [via 9to5Mac] #next_pages_container { width: 5px; hight: 5px; position: absolute; top: -100px; left: -100px; z-index: 2147483647 !important; }
AMD reports Q2 earnings: continues to see revenues drop, $37 million net income
Well, things are looking slightly better for AMD this quarter. While revenues continued to decline the company actually posted a profit of $37 million, a stark contrast to $590 million net loss from last quarter. Still, with revenues down 11 percent sequentially and 10 percent year-over-year to just $1.41 billion the company isn't meeting expectations. Earnings per share were aticipated to hit $0.07, but the Sunnyvale crew only managed an EPS of $0.05. The company blames the softening PC market for its continued struggles, especially in the desktop space where it has traditionally enjoyed more success. It continues to plug away with its A and E series APUs, but it's still struggling to make much of a dent in a world increasingly dominated by Intel. The Computing Solutions division saw its revenues decrease 13 percent both sequentially and year-over-year, while the GPU department was down five percent for the quarter, but steady compared to the same time last year. For more detail hit up the source link.
Microsoft announces record Q4, $18.06 billion in revenue
Microsoft has just dropped its Q4 2012 earnings report and things are looking pretty darn good... depending on your angle. The company reported a record fourth quarter revenue of $18.06 billion, but did suffer a net loss over the last three months of $492 million. While the net loss was in stark contrast the net profit of $5.87 billion from the same time last year, Microsoft is still optimistic heading towards the launch of Windows 8 and its sibling mobile platform. And who can blame them, the new OS is sure to drive plenty of consumers to their local Best Buy with fists full of cash. And, it's easy to paint a rosy picture as long as revenues continue to grow, as they did by roughly $700 million compared to Q4 2011, and roughly $600 million sequentially. It's also important to realize that that loss is due to a one-time "goodwill impairment charge" associated with the collapsed aQuantive deal that set Redmond back $6.2 billion. A good chunk of the revenue increase is thanks to the company's Business and Server divisions, which saw growths of seven and 13 percent, respectively. Income from the Entertainment and Devices division, which makes up a much smaller chunk of revenue over all at just $1.78 billion, also grew dramatically year-over-year, largely because of the inclusion of Skype. Alongside Q4's results, Microsoft also released its year-end financials and, while that $6.2 billion lump drove profits down, revenues were up by $3.76 billion from 2011. Even with the aQuantive related hit, Redmond still managed to post a net income of $16.98 billion for the year. For all the finer financial details hit up the source link.
Ubisoft sales up in last quarter thanks to Ghost Recon
Ubisoft sales for the first quarter of fiscal 2012-2013 (which ended June 30) are up 27.2 percent over the last year, coming in at €131 million ($160.6 million). The company attributes the better-than-expected performance to surprisingly high sales of Ghost Recon Future Soldier, indicating that Ubisoft didn't think to ask the title character about the future of his own game. In addition, digital distribution was a boon for Ubisoft, including free-to-play games and the phenomenon of Trials Evolution.For the second quarter, Ubisoft expects to come in short of last year's performance, because Driver: San Francisco did so well last year.
Intel reports Q2 earnings: rakes in $13.5 billion, pockets $2.8 billion
Intel is back to its old games in Q2 of 2012, raking in $13.5 billion during the second three month financial period of the year, up from $12.9 billion in the first quarter and a solid five percent year over year. Of that impressive pile of cash, Chipzilla was able to pocket $2.8 billion in net income, up $100,000 from Q1 and three percent from the same time period last year. That equates to a healthy $0.57 per share in earnings, which should make investors happy. PC Client Group enjoyed slow but steady growth, seeing its revenues grow by three percent, but the big story is the Data Center division which saw revenues climb 14 percent to $2.8 billion, sequentially. It's not all wine and roses however, the processor giant also lowered its expectations for Q3 after falling slightly short of its goal this quarter. Growth is expected to continue, but at a much slower rate thanks to the "challenging macroeconomic environment." Of course, an estimated $14.3 billion in Q3 would match its previous earnings record and is hardly anything to sniff at. During today's earnings call Paul Otellini took time to brag about how well the current generation of products was performing. Production had ramped up quicker than previous gen hardware, and was selling better than earlier lines of CPUs. And, though he gave no specifics, he said the company's tracking at least 20 Windows 8 tablets powered by Intel's hardware. The company also said that it credited most of its (admittedly limited) growth in the PC market to reclaiming a tiny sliver of the bottom end from AMD. Otellini also reaffirmed that Clovertrail devices will be on the market just in time to be shoehorned inside Windows 8 tablets at the launch of the new OS.
RIM announces Q1 earnings: $518 million net loss, 5,000 job cuts, BB10 not due until Q1 2013
The last quarter has been about as rough as they come for RIM, and it's now detailed just how things stacked up in terms of hard numbers. For the first quarter of its 2013 fiscal year, the company brought in $2.8 billion in revenue, down a full 33 percent from the prior quarter, while it reported a net loss of $518 million -- much worse than analysts were expecting. What's more, it's also announced that it's cutting an additional 5,000 jobs as part of its ongoing restructuring efforts, and that the first BlackBerry 10 smartphones now won't launch until sometime in the first quarter of the 2013 calendar year (that includes a QWERTY model launched in "close proximity" to the touchscreen-only device). As for why, RIM only went as far as to say that the integration of some key BlackBerry 10 features and the "associated large volume of code" has "proven to be more time consuming than anticipated." For his part, though, CEO Thorsten Heins says he remains "confident that the first BlackBerry 10 smartphones will provide a ground-breaking next generation smartphone user experience," and that he's "encouraged by the traction that the BlackBerry 10 platform is gaining with application developers and content partners." He further notes that the response to BB10 from key carrier partners has "been very positive." In terms of its existing devices, RIM reports that BlackBerry smartphone shipments (not sales) for the quarter totaled 7.8 million, while there were about 260,000 PlayBooks shipped -- on the company's earnings call, Heins noted that the total BlackBerry subscriber base now stands at 78 million. Not surprisingly, the company is warning of more bad news to come. It says it expects the "next several quarters to continue to be very challenging," with everything from the "increasing competitive environment," lower handset volumes, impact from the BlackBerry 10 delay, and the company's plans to "continue to aggressively drive sales of BlackBerry 7 handheld devices" expected to cut into its bottom line. In another bit of news, the company also announced that it has appointed Steve Zipperstein, Verizon's former General Counsel, as its new Chief Legal Officer. You can find the full earnings report at the source link below.
Schilling 'tapped out' after loss of 38 Studios
Curt Schilling has spoken to a Boston radio station about the lingering effects of 38 Studios' demise. The former Red Sox pitcher has been vilified by some gamers who assume that he's living the high life while former employees are suffering, but he tells WEEI that that's pretty far from the truth. "The money I saved and earned playing baseball was probably all gone... life is going to be different," he says. Rhode Island taxpayers will also be tightening their belts, as they'll pay nearly $12 million annually through the year 2020 to cover 38's $150 million debt, according to Joystiq. Schilling also revealed that 38 Studios was close to signing a deal to produce a Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning sequel prior to remarks made by Rhode Island governor Lincoln Chafee that supposedly damaged the negotiation process. Schilling also expressed remorse at the plight of former 38 Studios employees. "The employees got blindsided," he said. "They have every right to be upset. I always told everybody if something were going to happen, you're going to have a month or two of lead time, and I bombed on that one in epic fashion."
THQ vice president steps down
THQ vice president, corporate controller and chief accounting officer Teri Manby officially resigned on June 14, but is scheduled to remain at the company until July 6 to help with the transition, an SEC filing reveals.Rose Cunningham, current senior director of financial reporting, has been promoted to vice president, corporate controller, and chief financial officer Paul Pucino will take over as chief accounting officer.Among its ongoing financial troubles, THQ yesterday announced it would cancel a standalone expansion for Saints Row: The Third, a move expected to cost the company $20 million in revenue for its fiscal year.
World of Darkness information revealed in open letter to fans
Outside of confirmation that CCP Games is still working on World of Darkness, news on the game has been hard to come by. Some of the reasons behind that were revealed by senior producer Chris McDonough in a recent letter to members of the Mind's Eye Society, a fan group devoted to the tabletop and LARP games in the same IP. While the focus in the letter was not on the MMO, McDonough did still discuss the state of CCP as a company and what it means for the game. In short, after a difficult financial year, CCP is devoting the lion's share of its resources to ensuring that DUST 514 is a successful game on launch. That doesn't mean that World of Darkness is being shelved -- McDonough stresses that development is still ongoing -- but it does mean that the company's first priority is elsewhere. How long that will be the case remains to be seen, but if you're hoping for more substantial news on the game this year, the odds are low.
RIM warns of loss for Q1, hires JP Morgan and RBC Capital Markets to help with strategic review
RIM announced last quarter that it would no longer be providing its traditional financial guidance for upcoming quarters, but CEO Thorsten Heins has nonetheless seen fit to deliver a "business update" today that offers some indication of what's in store for the company. The headline is that it's unsurprisingly projecting an operating loss for the next quarter (Q1 of its 2013 fiscal year), although it's not saying exactly how much, noting only that the "on-going competitive environment is impacting our business in the form of lower volumes and highly competitive pricing dynamics in the marketplace." The company's also confirmed that it has hired JP Morgan and RBC Capital Markets to aid in its so-called strategic review, which it says includes "opportunities to leverage the BlackBerry platform through partnerships, licensing opportunities and strategic business model alternatives." On the slightly brighter side of things, RIM was able to boast that it now has a worldwide subscriber base of 78 million, and that it now counts 80,000 BlackBerry apps and 15,000 PlayBook apps -- both significant increases from a year ago. It also further notes that BlackBerry 10 remains on track for the "latter part of calendar 2012." You can find the company's complete statement after the break.