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Facebook just can't stop growing
In stark contrast to Twitter's recent woes, Facebook is enjoying what is probably its most successful year-to-date. The social network has reported that it made $6.44 billion in revenue and $2.05 billion in profit this past quarter, which is 59 percent over this time last year. What's even more amazing is that its user numbers continue to grow: it now has 1.71 billion monthly active users overall, while 1.57 billion of its monthly users are on mobile. Indeed, it now has over 1.03 billion mobile users a day. Mobile is such an avenue of growth for the company that a whopping 84 percent of its advertising revenue came from mobile ads.
Nintendo's lack of breakthrough games hit profits hard (update)
Despite Nintendo's attempts to lower expectations ahead of announcing its financial results, its latest quarterly earnings aren't good. At all. Net sales are down 31 percent compared to the same quarter last year, down to 62 billion yen ($587 million). Meanwhile, it saw an operating loss of 5.1 billion yen (roughly $48 million). Nintendo managed to sell 220,000 Wii Us, nudging the total number of consoles sold over 13 million, while the aging 3DS notched another million sales. Despite the company owning parts of Pokémon Go, it isn't reflected in the earnings, as the game was released after the quarter that ended in June. However, the company took to Twitter to announce that its curious Pokémon Go Plus accessory has been delayed two months until September.
Twitter's growth remains flat as its profits continue to dip
Twitter's Q2 2016 earnings report tells a story we've heard many times before: namely, flat growth and a net loss in terms of profit. For the quarter ending June 30th, Twitter saw revenue of $602 million but a net loss of $107 million. The service boasted 313 million monthly active users, up 3 percent over the previous year. Last quarter, Twitter reported 310 million monthly active users.
Qualcomm is selling more chips for high-end smartphones
Qualcomm shipped more Snapdragon chips this quarter than even it expected, and for that reason (and others), made more money. It reported sales of 201 million high-end chips, beating its estimates by at least 6 million. As a result, it raked in sales of $6.04 billion, up 3.6 percent from last year. Not coincidentally, Samsung also reported a very good quarter earlier this month, selling 15 million Galaxy S7/S7 Edge models. The company is, of course, back to using Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 chips (which it actually builds itself), after it stopped with the Galaxy S6.
Netflix's growth slows as its delayed price hike sets in
Our first real peek at the reaction to Netflix's "ungrandfathered" pricing is here, as it releases numbers for the second quarter. What they show is much slower subscriber growth compared to the last couple of years, failing to meet the company's own projections both in the US and around the world. Netflix predicted it would grow by 2.5 million customers in the quarter (500,000 in the US, 2 million internationally) and ended up adding a net 1.68 million customers, up only 160,000 in the US. In a letter to shareholders (PDF), execs noted media coverage of the delayed price hikes was "coincident" with customers leaving, but said the new prices "will provide us with more revenue to invest in our content to satisfy members."
Over one million people swiped right for premium Tinder
According to Match Group, more than one million people have ponied up the $9.99 per month (or more, if you're over 30) for Tinder's premium service level in the first quarter of 2016. That figure is a relatively small portion of Tinder's 50 million global users, but there are still more than a million people out there whose app-based dating experience includes unlimited swipes, extra Super Likes and the ability to change their location to swipe from afar. If you want a robotic meat-swiper, however, you'll have to build one yourself.
Moving the Galaxy S7 launch up helped Samsung's profits
Samsung's Galaxy phones drove rapidly growing profits until sales peaked a couple of years ago, but the company just reported its Q1 2016 operating profit is up 12 percent from 2015. Coming at the same time as Apple faced its first revenue drop in a decade, Samsung is getting a boost from releasing its Galaxy S7 earlier in the year than usual. Even a "one time royalty expense" didn't make a noticeable dent in the segment's performance, which is the highest it's been since the second quarter of 2014.
Apple iPhone sales and revenue finally decline
The inevitable has finally happened. After years of continually growing iPhone sales (and corresponding revenue growth), Apple has hit a bump. The company just announced its fiscal Q2 2016 results, and the company sold 51.2 million iPhones, a 16 percent decline from the 61 million it sold one year ago. It's the first time iPhone sales have ever declined year-over-year. Similarly, revenues of $50.6 billion were down 13 percent from the $58 billion it made in Q2 2015. The company warned on its last earnings call that this was likely to happen, but it's still quite notable. Apple has describing its quarterly revenue as "record-breaking" for so long that it's hard to remember the last time it had a down quarter. (The Wall Street Journal says it's been an incredible 13 years.)
Netflix is putting five percent of its cash budget into films
Now that Amazon is offering a monthly video subscription and Netflix's delayed price hike is kicking in, how are things going for the video streaming king? According to its just-released Q1 2016 earnings report (PDF): Pretty well. Netflix beat its own estimates by growing to 81.5 million customers worldwide (with nearly 47 million of them in the US), while releasing a new original series or film every week. Expect more of those films too, as Reed Hastings confirmed Netflix will release Bright in 2017 starring Will Smith, after debuts this year that include Brad Pitt's War Machine and Mascots with Christopher Guest. The company "will invest 5 percent of our cash budget in original films," and is also getting ready to launch its "near live" 3-nights-per-week talk show with Chelsea Handler.
Nintendo cuts forecasts as 3DS sales fall short
Nintendo may want to send its crystal ball back for a refurb, because it has once again failed at forecasting. It just announced a downgrade to its 2016 estimates because the new 3DS and 3DS XL portable consoles haven't been selling as well as hoped. The company thought it would move 7.6 million units across the world between April 2015 and March 2016, but it's now revised that figure to 6.6 million. It also lowered its 3DS software sales estimate by 9 million units. With Wii U sales estimates unchanged, that means the company expects 2016 revenue to fall 70 billion yen, or approximately $620 million.
Tesla will unveil its $35,000 Model 3 on March 31st
Tesla has long promised a $35,000 electric car is on the way, and in today's earnings release (PDF) it announced that we'll get to see the Model 3 on March 31st, ahead of it going on sale in "late 2017." That's in addition to the currently shipping Model S sedan (shown above) and Model X SUV, and the company recently confirmed it still expects to hit that $35k price target before applying electric vehicle incentives. Also, its battery building gigafactory -- key to achieving that mass market price for the Model 3 -- is up and running in Nevada, with Powerwall units produced there already in use by customers.
HTC burned another $101 million in the last three months
Much as we'd like to sugarcoat it, the unfortunate truth is that HTC is in trouble, and the situation is only getting worse. The phone maker has posted a third consecutive loss-making quarter, eating around $101 million (£69.6 million) in the last three months. A side-by-side comparison of the same period last year is even more doom-laden, since when it was generating a profit, it was only squeaking a meager $5.6 million. Last year, we asked if HTC was going to be the first really big Android manufacturer to slide into the sea. On this evidence, there's very little that's going to change our mind.
Lenovo finally profitable on mobile after buying Motorola
Lenovo is making money in PCs despite a flaccid market, and declining mobile sales apparently aren't bothering it, either. The company made a solid $300 million in net profit this quarter, even though overall sales were down eight percent over last year. And its mobile phone business finally stopped losing money, fulfilling Lenovo's vow to return to mobile profitability within four to six quarters after buying Motorola. Sales of Motorola devices (soon to become Lenovo Moto) jumped 25 percent over last quarter.
Nintendo's profit slump shows the NX can't come soon enough
Nintendo didn't do too bad in 2015, but its latest financial report highlight's one thing: while the company's not struggling, it's depending too much on a handful of legacy titles. Overall, profits reported for the period ending last December were 40,558 million yen (about $336 million), down around a third from last year's 59,515 million yen ($493). A downward trend, but given Nintendo had struggled to make a profit since 2011, the company will be happy to have stayed in the black.
TalkTalk loses over 100,000 customers following hack
It was inevitable that last October's cyber attack would drive some customers away from TalkTalk. At the time, the extent of the damage was unclear but the company has finally shared some numbers as part of its latest trading update. The provider says that in its third quarter, 101,000 subscribers (95,000 of which were directly tied to the attack) cancelled their contracts, costing the company as much as £60 million.
PlayStation sells well (again), but mobile is hurting Sony
Sony made money. Again! The company saw in tiny increase (0.5%) in sales compared to the same quarter last to 2,581 billion yen (or $21.5 billion), but income now stands at $1.69 billion. This quarter's financial results was yet more balancing (and canceling) out of Sony's many moving parts -- profitable and not. Gaming and Motion Picture arms saw increases in sales, but these were cancelled out by woes in Mobile and Devices arms. Once a positive part of the company's earnings sheets, Sony's smartphone camera sensors saw a decrease in sales -- reflecting the tough times that all companies are experiencing with phone sales. The company seems to be stabilizing its giant electronics ship.
Samsung is still making a ton of money, but 2016 will be tough
Korean mega-tech company Samsung just dropped its fourth quarter results and while the short term looks meh, year-over-year it's doing pretty well. It posted an operating profit of $5 billion during the quarter that ended in December a drop from the third quarter operating profit of $6.1 billion. But quarterly profit was an increase of 16.2 percent over last year's fourth quarter results. It blamed the quarterly drop on slowing demand for high-end mobile phones, weakened prices for memory and LCD panels and "global economic headwinds."
LG's weak mobile sales drag down profits again
The weak smartphone market is reportedly affecting even Apple, but it's proving especially difficult for second tier players like LG, which has recently seen meager profits turn into losses. The Korean company's mobile division continued that trend by losing 43.8 billion KRW ($36 million) this quarter, contributing to to an operating profit of 349 billion KRW ($290 million), but a net earnings loss of 141 billion KRW ($117 million). That's a bit better than its last quarter, but is significantly down from the same time last year when mobile profits were positive and net earnings were a healthy $125 million.
Netflix reminds us that its price hike to $10 is coming
Now that Netflix is worldwide, how are things going with its business? The company announced its quarterly earnings today (PDF), and noted that its number of subscribers has reached nearly 45 million in the US, and nearly 75 million worldwide. It also reminded us of an important milestone that's coming up soon, and might affect how much you pay for streaming. It announced a pair of price hikes over the last couple of years, but grandfathered existing users in at the old rates of $8 or $9. That price hold will start expiring in a few months, but the company notes that if $10 per month is just too much to pay, users can drop down to the "basic" $8 package -- if they can live without HD.
Lenovo blames smartphones for its first loss in six years
Lenovo had a nice run of profits thanks to its PC business, but like many others, it's finding smartphones to be a tougher go. Thanks to charges related to its Motorola acquisition and $300 million worth of unsold phones, the company incurred a hefty $714 million net loss for the first time in six years. PC sales didn't actually help much, with revenue in that division dropping 17 percent over last year (though still less than its rivals). Despite all that, Lenovo said overall sales were actually up over last year to $12.2 billion, and added that the changes it made will save $650 million this year alone.
