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Nintendo Q3 earnings show 3 million Wii Us sold, sales forecasts lowered again
Nintendo's Q3 earnings report is out, and it's sold just over 3 million units of its new Wii U console (at a loss) along with 11.69 million pieces of software. The other big news is that it's adjusted sales forecasts downward -- again, after it announced they were being cut back in October. However, since the flagship console is sold at a loss, while Nintendo is predicting 17 percent lower revenue, its prediction for net income has actually moved up by eight billion yen ($87 million). It's not all bad news however, as it's showing about $160 million in net income for the year, compared with last year's losses. The 3DS has jumped up to 29.84 million sold, while the original Wii is within shouting distance of the 100 million number. Need more numbers? Hit the source links to check out all the sales data firsthand.
IDC: Samsung and Apple rule connected device share, those who snooze in mobile lose
Most market share studies are broken down by individual categories that don't tell the whole story of their successes and failures. IDC has stepped forward with a more holistic look that covers PCs, phones and tablets all at once -- and paints a very different picture. Samsung and Apple lead the pack in the third quarter of this year with an estimated 21.8 and 15.1 percent share each, based mostly on their mobile dominance. Lenovo's equal balance between its rapidly growing PC and phone businesses put it at 7 percent. It's those who haven't done well outside of PCs that have struggled: IDC is quick to point out that HP's exit from mobile left it at 4.6 percent and sinking fast, while it's commonly known that Sony has yet to enjoy a truly blockbuster hit with its Android-based smartphones or tablets. The situation is changing quickly, but the data shows that companies can't lean solely on traditional computers to thrive in the broader technology landscape.
Best Buy posts $13 million loss in fiscal Q3 on lowered $10.75 billion in revenue
Best Buy had warned that its fiscal third quarter wouldn't be great, and the company clearly isn't putting on any rose-tinted glasses. Its revenue declined year over year from $11.15 billion to $10.75 billion, and it swung from $173 million in profit on continuing operations last season to $13 million in losses this time around. While the company hasn't drilled into the specifics of what led to the downturn, it's pointing to trends of the "last three years" as the culprits -- we'd say that's shorthand for shifts towards online sales and away from traditional electronics like TVs. Whatever the specifics, the company doesn't expect an immediate turnaround and has lowered its guidance for free cash flow in the next fiscal year from a minimum $1.25 billion to $850 million. If there's a ray of sunshine, it's that the big-box store chain already knows the belt tightening needs to continue: it recently kicked off a Renew Blue strategy that it hopes will improve our shopping experience and get its own fiscal house in order.
Gartner: smartphone sales up 47 percent in Q3, Android's OS market share increases (updated)
Third quarter figures from Gartner are out, reporting worldwide mobile phone sales slowed again in Q3 2012. Smartphones, however, showed a 46.9 percent increase in sales over the same period last year, with 169.2 million units sold. As you would imagine, Apple and Samsung sold the most, accounting for almost half of all worldwide smartphone purchases. Nokia sales declined during the quarter, and with only 7.2 million of its smartphones filling customers' hands, its ranking in this segment plummeted from third to seventh (although Gartner expects sales of the new Lumia devices should soften the fall in Q4). In contrast, Apple had a solid quarter, with sales up 36.2 percent year-on-year, which is expected to continue into the fourth quarter as the iPhone 5 launches in more markets. Samsung didn't do too bad either, increasing sales by 18.6 percent year-on-year thanks to its Galaxy range (although it's important to note this figure is for total phone sales, not just smartphones). In the OS wars, Android continued to grow its market share up to 72.4 percent, with iOS taking the second spot with 13.9 percent. Stalwart RIM made a leap into the top three with its BlackBerry OS, as aging Symbian saw its usage decline further. If you want to pour over the figures yourself, check out the source below. Update: We've tinkered with the post to remove some confusion between total mobile phone sales and smartphone sales. None of the figures have been changed.
Hon Hai Precision sees profits surge in Q3
The two-headed beast that is Foxconn / Hon Hai has just released its latest financials, showing that the oft-troubled manufacturer has seen profit margins jump around two percent. It brought in $24 billion (NT$ 711.0 billion) in net sales, generating a net profit of $1.3 billion (NT$ 30.2 billion). At the end of September, it had $1.4 billion stashed in the bank, and the company has said it is striving to enforce "social and environmental responsibility," as it should, really.
Asustek Q3 net profits said to be up 43 percent to $230 million thanks to Nexus 7, convertibles
Asustek has just painted a pretty Q3 financial picture, showing a 43 percent jump in net profits -- $230 million compared to $160 million last year, according to the WSJ. Gross revenue also climbed 9 percent to around $3.8 billion, which the company attributes to the popularity of its Google-partnered Nexus 7 tablet, along with convertibles like the Transformer Prime TF201 and a healthy notebook lineup. Asus boosted PC shipments nearly 12 percent according to the last round of Gartner surveys, helping it stay the fifth largest player in that market. The company sees good things ahead for Q4 too, expecting double digit gains in PC and tablet shipments due to its burgeoning Windows 8 lineup finally hitting the market. That'll depend, of course, on how well users gravitate toward the fledgling OS.
MetroPCS breaks 1 million LTE customers, makes $193 million profit despite losing 312,000 users in Q3
MetroPCS might be the smaller of the two parties in the proposed merger with T-Mobile, but it certainly knows how to coin a profit in difficult times. The carrier recorded a massive $193 million net profit this quarter, $44 million more than it made in Q2, despite losing 312,000 subscribers in the three month period. The reason behind the rosy numbers was a combination of cash-saving exercises and canny investments in securities, pushing total revenue to $1.3 billion. The network now has just under nine million customers, with more than a million of those subscribing to one of the company's LTE packages. It's also managed to reduce churn down to 3.7 percent, a reduction of 0.8 percent since Q3 2011. CEO Roger D. Linquist remarked that the next quarter will see the business "re-energize" subscriber growth at the expense of its bottom line -- probably wise, given that it's lost just over half a million customers in the last six months.
IDC: Samsung and Apple still kings of the smartphone market, Nokia loses top five spot to RIM
IDC's third quarter figures are in, complete with a few unexpected shake-ups. The entire cellphone market grew 2.4% over the same time last year, but smartphones drove the majority of that, showing growth of 45.3% and beating the analysts' expectations. Of the 179.7 million smartphones shipped, Samsung and Apple devices accounted for almost half of them, with the companies retaining their number one and two positions in the market, respectively. IDC notes that iPhone shipments didn't increase, but this is somewhat expected given the latest iteration was released only a short time before the end of the quarter. What we find particularly interesting is that Nokia was ousted from the top five smartphone players and replaced by RIM. Whether Nokia's upcoming Windows Phone 8 devices will put it back in contention remains to be seen, as does the effect BB10 and RIM's new handsets will have on the market. ZTE finished fourth in the list thanks to increased sales in North America, with HTC rounding up the top five vendors with continued uptake of its power devices. With a bunch of new handsets coming to the table and the holiday season fast approaching, look out for even more surprises in the fourth quarter numbers, due early next year.
Samsung makes $7.4 billion in Q3 profits, surpasses expectations
Samsung set the bar a little lower than the final mark when it told investors its expectations earlier this month, posting $7.4 billion in operating profits for Q3 and $5.97 billion in net income. This handily bests the $7.28 billion profit it told investors to expect, nearly doubling what it made over the same period last year. Why the jump? You can blame the Galaxy S III, which increased shipments "significantly due to global expansion," the company says. Indeed, smartphone sales are credited to Sammy's quarter over quarter leap in revenue. Consumer electronics sales also boosted profits a fair deal, achieving "industry leading profitability" in the TV market, according to Samsung, who cited growth both in the consumer space, and in the sales of OLED panels for televisions, tablets and high-end smartphones. The company's semiconductor sales, on the other hand, dropped by eight-percent in the face of weak PC demands. Samsung expects demand for PC DRAM and other high value-added chip products to remain weak, but optimistically notes that the sector is still profitable, and may pick up as new devices come to market. Got the basics? Great -- dive into the details and charts at the source link below, or read on for Sammy's official Q3 press release.
Amazon Q3 2012 earnings: $13.18 billion revenue, net loss of $274 million
Amazon has just released its earnings for the third quarter of the year and it looks like it's slightly off analysts' expectations. The company reported $13.18 billion in revenue (a growth of 27 percent) and an operating loss of $28 million, with net income standing at a loss of $274 million. As Amazon notes, though, a chunk of that, some $169 million, comes from losses resulting from its investment in LivingSocial -- it says the figure is "primarily attributable to its impairment charge of certain assets, including goodwill." Expectedly, the company still isn't offering any specific numbers for device sales, noting only that the Kindle Fire HD is the number one selling product across Amazon worldwide, and that the next two bestselling products worldwide are the Kindle Paperwhite and the $69 Kindle. As for its outlook for the next quarter, the company is expecting net sales of between $20.25 billion and $22.75 billion, and operating income of anywhere from a loss of $490 million to a profit of $310 million. You can find the company's full breakdown of all the numbers at the link below.
Sprint sells 1.5 million iPhones, 1 million other smartphones, but makes a net loss of $767 million
Sprint's latest financials show that while the network is slowly stemming the flow of cash from its veins, it's not quite there in terms of turning a profit. The country's third biggest carrier suffered a $767 million net loss and an operating loss of $231 million -- much less than the $629 million operating loss it had in Q2, but on-par with the $208 million lost in the same period last year. The business did manage to bring in total revenues of $8.8 billion, but had to take a hit on a $397 million write-down on costs related to Network Vision and the continued pain of the Nextel shutdown. On the customer size, it added a further 900,000 users, sold 1.5 million iPhones and a further 1 million "LTE smartphones" in the quarter. Those with long memories will know that the company sold the same number of Apple handsets in the last two quarters, with around 40 percent going to new customers then as now. However, churn, the deadly enemy of all carriers, increased to 1.88 percent, up from 1.69 percent in Q2. The network did manage to coax 59 percent of former Nextel customers to stay tied up with Big Yellow, which may account for it selling nearly 1.2 million Direct Connect devices. While it's hardly a rosy estimation of Sprint's financial health, this report doesn't take into account Softbank's $20.1 billion buy-out or the regained controlling stake in Clearwire -- so we're expecting the next financial announcement to contain some more exciting news. Update: During the conference call, Dan Hesse was asked about adopting a shared data plan to rival Verizon and AT&T, but unlike the last call, he was dismissive of the idea.
Canon announces Q3 2012 results: operating profit down 42 percent to $908 million
Canon just released its Q3 2012 earnings reported, and things aren't looking peachy right now for the camera maker: revenue is down 13 percent to $10.3 billion from last Q3 last year, while profit tumbled by 42 percent. The Japanese company directed the blame toward the "negative impact of economic deterioration" in Europe and emerging markets like China, as well as the strong yen (again). DSLR sales fell over last year, with Canon mentioning that its launch of new models like the EOS 5D Mark III didn't help to shore its camera figures up. Other units within the company didn't fare much better, with printer sales falling and business-to-business numbers flatlining. The company doesn't see a bright fourth quarter either, and is projecting that sales will stay in lockstep with the sluggish economy, resulting in a 6 percent decline in operating profit for the year. It may not want to count so much on the new mirrorless offering pulling it out of the mud, though -- it got fairly mixed reviews.
TSMC's 28-nanometer process pays off as it rakes in $1.68 billion profit in Q3
Everything is relative, so when a chip foundry like TSMC (which produces gear for the likes of NVIDIA) has a bad quarter, that means it only made a $1 billion in profit. Today's numbers reveal that the company has managed to rescue its halting fortunes after turning over $4.8 billion and making a tidy $1.68 billion in profit. The cause of this upswing was that orders for its coveted 28-nanometer process doubled in the period -- repaying some of the $8.5 billion spent developing it and keeping profits just a little over that of its close pal, Qualcomm.
Corning touts 1 billion Gorilla Glass devices: that's a lot of face-saving surfaces
You could argue that toughened glass is the cornerstone of the modern mobile industry: without the knowledge that our touchscreen phones and tablets could survive the everyday risks of scratches and minor drops, many of us would be terrified of leaving home with a glass-covered mobile device in our hands. Corning now has evidence to prove just how important that silicate can be. In addition to the mostly upbeat third quarter fiscal results you'll find after the break, the firm brags to us that more than one billion devices have shipped with some variant of Gorilla Glass in place, spread across 33 major brands and 500 individual models that are occasionally very immobile. We can't give Corning all the credit when alternatives like Dragontrail exist, but numbers like these make it hard to dispute that millions of gadgets have been spared an untimely end (or a flimsy plastic display) by some clever primate chemistry.
Broadcom's 2012 Q3 sees $2.13 billion sales turn into a $220 million profit
If you need to borrow a couple of bucks to tide you over until payday, then the folks over at Broadcom should be feeling altruistic. The chip maker's latest financials show that it pulled in $2.13 billion turnover and a cool $220 million profit. While that's more than the $160 million it pulled in in the second quarter, it's a little off the $270 million it made in the same period last year. Given that the company's innovating with both 802.11ac chips and branching out into the wireless headphone business, they might even lend you some cash next month, too.
AT&T sells 4.7 million iPhones and 1.4 million other smartphones, makes $3.6 billion profit in Q3
AT&T's third quarter figures have shown that the network certainly has a handle on this "selling smartphones" malarkey. In the last three months, it's managed to ship 6.1 million smartphones, of which 4.1 million were iPhones -- which has helped the company to maintain a turnover of $31.5 billion, just $0.1 billion below the previous quarter. Notably, net profits tumbled to $3.6 billion, down from $6.8 billion in Q2, but that's easily explained away with a $3.8 billion share buyback scheme and the company's continued cost of building new LTE infrastructure. It's also managed to squirrel away $6.5 billion in cash under the mattress for a rainy day. Digging into those numbers, it's been able to add a new 678,000 new wireless customers to its business, making a total of 105.9 million users on its network. 44.5 million of those people, or 63.8 percent of 'em, are now smartphone users, and AT&T said it had a "record sales quarter" with Android and Windows Phone handsets. It also coaxed 200,000 new U-verse TV subscribers and 613,000 high-speed internet users to sign up with Ma 'Bell. If you'd like to see Ralph de la Vega give you his personal take on the company's rosy financials, then head on past the break -- but be warned, at no point does he swim through a pool of money screaming "I'm king of the world!"
LG records a 'solid' $138.57 million net profit for Q3, keeps the positive trend going
LG Electronics has reported its earnings for Q3 2012, notching its third straight quarter of positive income with a net profit of 157 billion won ($138.57 million) and "solid" performances from its home theater and mobile businesses. Revenue is down from the same period last year, but seeing as it's actually making money this time around it's probably still reason to celebrate. On the mobile side of the aisle it reports an operating profit of $19.42 million with slightly higher sales than Q2, mostly thanks to those LTE smartphones it's been rolling out. Its home entertainment biz noted a rise in LCD sales, with 3D TVs and LED-lit models growing from last quarter in most markets. Looking towards the future it's obviously going all-in on the Optimus G (although our interests run towards the Nexus G that should debut next week), and also looks for its Ultra HD television to raise its standing as a premium brand. Check the press release after the break and PDF linked below for more numbers if that's your thing.
Netflix Q3 2012 earnings: 2 million more streaming subscribers worldwide, $8 million net income
Netflix saw a return to profitability and more than half a million new US subscribers in the second quarter of this year, and it's now announced that it's added a full two million more streaming members worldwide for the third quarter. That brings the company's global base of streaming subscribers to 29 million, 25.1 million of which are in the US. It's also announced another bump in profits to $8 million in net income, with global revenue of $905 million. It's unsurprisingly a different story when it comes to DVD subscriptions in the US, however, with the company reporting a drop from 9.24 million total subscribers in Q2 to 8.61 million in Q3. In terms of usage, Netflix says that its streaming members have now consumed over three billion hours of content, and that TV shows now account for about two thirds of that viewing activity. The company has also reiterated its commitment to original programming in its letter to shareholders, although it notes that commitment comes with some front-loaded expenses that will result in negative free cash flow for the next "several quarters" beginning with Q4. The company further adds that it believes "investment in originals is wise, and we will evaluate the performance of the slate next year to determine at what level we should fund additional original." You can find the full letter and all the numbers at the source link below.
ARM posts healthy Q3 profits: up 22 percent thanks to smart TVs and other growing markets
British chip designer ARM has just revealed its accounts for Q3 2012 and they show a familiar pattern: namely, a double-digit rise in both revenue (up 20 percent to £144.6 million, or around $230 million) and pre-tax earnings (up 22 percent to £68.1 million). According to Reuters, the company is attributing its latest bout of success to making "further inroads" into growing markets like smart TVs and microcontrollers. Of course, all of this is stands in stark contrast to the traditional x86 PC world, where giants like Intel and AMD have been struggling with weak demand.
Acer see sales decline in Q3 2012 as customers hold out for Windows 8
Acer has reported a net profit of NT$68 million ($2.3 million) for Q3 of this year, ducking far below many estimates for the Taipei computer maker. According to Reuters, the company isn't offering up any reasons why profits disappointed just yet, and it plans to hold a briefing on Thursday to add more detail on the figures and its outlook. The reported results, currently unavailable direct from Acer, note that consolidated revenue in the third quarter was down 5.6 percent since Q2, although its after-tax profit has improved since then. It's a difficult time to be a PC maker. [Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons]
