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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.
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.
Facebook posts $59 million net loss in fiscal Q3, touts 1.01 billion active users
The bloom is slightly off the rose for Facebook. After a banner first post-IPO quarter, it's recording a net loss in its fiscal third quarter of $59 million despite its revenue climbing to $1.26 billion -- a big swing that the company is blaming on payroll tax tweaks and income taxes, which becomes clearer when you learn that the company posted a $311 million profit before factoring in standard accounting practices. Facebook hasn't said exactly what had the biggest impact, although its closing the Instagram deal wouldn't have helped matters. Still, the company isn't glum about its prospects: following an earlier mention of the milestone by founder Mark Zuckerberg, the earnings report touts that there are over 1.01 billion active Facebook users who check in at least once a month, over 604 million of which were mobile. Between a reworked iOS app, a freshened Facebook Messenger and new ad-friendly SDKs, the social network is bracing for a potential bonanza ahead.
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]
AMD reports $1.27 billion in revenue for Q3 2012
While AMD wrestled to get back on the good foot last quarter, the Sunnyvale chip maker continued to struggle for the third three month financial period of 2012. While reporting $1.27 billion in revenue, the company still saw a ten percent sequential decrease and a 25 percent decrease year-over-year. The hurt not ending there, AMD's graphics division saw a revenue decrease of seven percent sequentially and 15 percent year-over-year. "The PC industry is going through a period of very significant change that is impacting both the ecosystem and AMD," said Rory Read, AMD president and CEO. Such words mirror that of longtime rival Intel, which also continues to struggle with a very unfriendly PC market. In an effort to rebound, AMD announced a restructuring plan to reduce operating expenses that will hopefully give the company more leeway to develop and produce new products and strategies.
Google's Q3 2012 earnings: $14.10 billion in revenue, $2.74 billion in operating income
In an apparent error, Google's Q3 2012 earnings have gone live smack dab in the middle of the trading day, instead of after the closing bell as expected. Early indications are that the search giant has notched third quarter revenues of $14.10 billion, representing a 45 percent uptick compared to Q3 2011. GAAP operating income in the third quarter of 2012 was $2.74 billion, or 19 percent of revenues, and that would explain the near 10 percent slide in the company's stock price. A year ago Google nailed down $3.06 billion, or 31 percent of revenues, when looking at operating profit; investors were expecting some $10.65 per share, while they got just $9.03 per share. When looking at net income, Q3 2012 saw that figure at $2.18 billion, whereas the company raked in $2.73 billion in the same quarter a year ago. Presently, trading has been halted on the company's stock as the dust settles, but one thing is exceptionally clear: pulling in billions in a single quarter won't go over well with Wall Street if its expectations see you pulling in even more.
Intel reports Q3 earnings, revenue holds steady at $13.5 billion
Hot off the heels of a slightly disappointing Q2, mega chip-maker Intel's Q3 results are in. Good old Chipzilla managed to wrangle $13.5 billion in revenues with a net profit of $3 billion. While Intel's latest figures reflect a profit of about 5.1 percent sequentially, the company is still taking a dip year over year of around 19 percent. "Our third-quarter results reflected a continuing tough economic environment," said Paul Otellini, Intel's CEO. Happy to take progress in any form during a trying economy, the company's fourth quarter strategy will highly focus on the success of ultrabooks, phones and Intel-powered tablets. While its recent gains may be somewhat slim, last we checked, a win is a win.
Gartner and IDC: PC shipments tumbled over 8 percent in Q3, only ASUS and Lenovo escaped unhurt
We don't often summarize market share in one word, but: ouch. Both Gartner and IDC have trotted out their preliminary estimates for PC market share in the third quarter, and the two agree that this summer was a dire one for the traditional computer. Outside of ASUS and Lenovo, whose price-focused strategies and key acquisitions kept them ahead of rivals, virtually every major vendor saw its PC shipments collapse versus a year ago, often by more than 10 percent. Total worldwide shipments declined by more than 8 percent in either estimate -- enough to make a flat second quarter seem rosy by comparison. Lenovo took the top spot in Gartner's study, although IDC is counting workstations and kept HP in its usual lead. As for the US, it's almost better that we don't look. Gartner and IDC believe that the American market sank by respective 13.8 or 12.4 percent amounts, and the steep global declines repeated themselves in the one country for everyone but Lenovo. Even a market share gain for Apple came only because its shipments dropped at a gentler rate than most of its peers. Whether it's the US or worldwide, don't assume that inventory clearances ahead of Windows 8 were the only factors at work, though. Both research teams point to continuing world economic troubles as influences, and IDC contends that buyers are still skipping PCs in favor of smartphones and mobile tablets. There's often a jump in computer sales between the summer and the fall, especially with a new OS on the way, but we wouldn't count on a return to the halcyon days.
Samsung expects around $7.28 billion in operating profits for Q3, setting another record
Samsung has provided investors guidance ahead of its full Q3 earnings report that's due before October 26th, and as has been the custom, the numbers are huge. It's expecting a fourth straight record quarter with overall operating profit of 8.1 trillion won ($7.28 billion), an amount that would more than double last year's results for the same period and clear Q2s $5.86 billion, all on sales of 52 trillion won ($46 billion). We'll have to wait for the full report to see numbers broken down by department, but it's safe to say that there's a lot of Galaxy S IIIs (it ticked past 20 million last month) adding up to reach that pinnacle. Reuters and Bloomberg have predictions from various analysts on how many handsets, RAM chips and flat-panel HDTVs were sold, but if its legal battle with Apple ends in the worst-case scenario, at least we figure Samsung will have enough left over to keep the lights on.
Disney Interactive is only division running at a loss
The Walt Disney Company saw the largest earnings in the company's history for the quarter ending June 30, which is all sunshine and lollipops until you get down to the interactive (games) division. A year after gutting nearly all its core projects – and shuttering all core studios except Epic Mickey studio Junction Point (under the protection of Warren Spector) – the interactive division is the only part of the conglomerate operating at a loss.Sales during the quarter were down 22 percent from the same period last year to $196 million, with an operating loss of $42 million, which is better than the $86 million loss last year. The improvement is thanks to social games. The company is still in an "ongoing shift from console games to social and other interactive platforms."There is one exception to that: Junction Point's Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two, which will be available this November. Hopefully, sales of the sequel will let the House of Mouse continue to show leniency toward Junction Point.
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.
Apple's Q3 hardware sales by the numbers: 17 million iPads, 26 million iPhones, 4 million Macs
Apple's out with its third quarter financials today and, as is customary, it's provided some sales figures for all of its big hardware categories. Those are headlined by record sales of the iPad, which jumped a whopping 84 percent year-over-year and 44 percent from the previous quarter to 17 million units sold during Q3 (no word on a breakdown by iPad model, though). iPhone sales were also up year-over-year to 26 million units, although that represents a more modest year-over-year growth of "just" 28 percent (and a drop from 30 million in Q2), no doubt due in part to folks holding off on a purchase until the next model comes out. A bit more surprising are the company's Mac sales numbers which, despite a new slate of MacBooks, saw year-over-year growth of only two percent for sales of an even four million in the quarter -- compared to growth of seven percent in Q2. That seems to be explained at least in part by a dip in desktop sales, which were down 13 percent year-over-year while laptops were up 8 percent, resulting in some fairly flat growth overall. Lastly, as has been the trend for some time now, the company's venerable iPod line is the one area that continues to see a consistent decline as phones and tablets take over, with it dropping ten percent year-over-year to sales of 6.8 million for the quarter. As Apple noted on its earnings call, though, those iPod numbers were actually better than it expected, and the iPod touch continues to be the most popular device in the category far, accounting for more than half of all iPod sales. Update: Apple didn't divulge any Apple TV sales figures in its earnings report, but Tim Cook was happy to provide them on the earnings call. The company sold 1.3 million Apple TV units during Q3, up an impressive 170 percent year-over-year. Still officially a "hobby," apparently, but not one that Tim Cook says he'd be pursuing if the company didn't believe 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!"
Qualcomm Q3 2012 earnings show revenue ($4.63b) and profit ($1.21b) up sharply over last year
Qualcomm is reporting its financial numbers for the last quarter and has been the trend, it's a good time to be everywhere in the wireless business. Continued strong demand for 3G and 4G-connected hardware is keeping sales high, driving "strong year-over-year growth" according to CEO Dr. Paul E. Jacobs, contributing to a bottom line of $4.63 billion in revenue and net income of $1.21 billion. The company's MSM (mobile station modem) chipsets continue to be the main contributor with 141 million units sold, also up yearly by 18 percent but down 7 percent from Q2, with reported device sales following the same pattern at $47.8 billion. About that slight drop from last quarter, the Doctor continues by saying the company expects demand to be back-loaded as "new devices" are launched for the holiday season. With that in mind, it's ramping up production for 28nm Snapdragon S4 chipsets, a move that reportedly has required help from Samsung and UMC. With the next iPhone, new Android Jelly Bean hardware, Windows Phone 8 / Windows 8 devices and much more expected to arrive soon, we'll keep the old money-flying-at-Qualcomm's-HQ graphic close by. For more details, hit the source link for the PDF or read the press release after the break.
Microsoft announces Q3 2012 earnings: $17.41 billion in revenue, $6.37 billion income
Microsoft has announced its earnings for the third quarter of its fiscal year this afternoon, and it's reporting some record numbers that beat expectations: a six percent increase year-over-year to $17.41 billion in revenue and a 12 percent increase to $6.37 billion in operating income. Breaking things down by division, that includes $4.57 billion in revenue from Server & Tools, $5.81 billion from the Business Division (which includes Office), $4.62 billion from Windows and Windows Live, and $707 million from Online Services -- all increases from between four to 14 percent. The one division seeing a big drop is Entertainment & Devices, which dipped a hefty 16 percent year-over-year to $1.62 billion in revenue -- something Microsoft blames on a "soft gaming console market," though it is happy to note that the Xbox 360 remains the top console in the US for the 15th consecutive month. Notably absent is any mention of Windows Phone, though perhaps we'll hear more about it on the company's earnings call in just under an hour. Update: Microsoft didn't exactly have a ton of new info to share on the Windows Phone front on its earnings call, noting only that it remains pleased with its Nokia partnership and the launch of the Lumia 900 on AT&T, and that it is "working to bring Windows Phone to more people."
Barnes & Noble 2012 Q3 Report: loss-making Nook generates sales, tears
It's that time of the year when Barnes & Noble's accountants reveal the figures for the quarter to determine if the age of print is over. Turns out there's some good news for bookseller. Overall sales for the chain increased five percent: the company took $2.4 billion through the cash registers. That was split $1.49 billion (up two percent) in high-street retail, online sales took $420 million (up 32 percent year-on-year) and the Nook in all its forms and glories took $542 million (up 38 percent). The only grey cloud was that sales in college-only stores dropped three percent, thanks in part to renting textbooks to impecunious freshmen. They're probably all using that money on buying digital content on their Nooks: digital content purchases increased by 85 percent in a single quarter. Like rival Amazon, it wouldn't release how many devices were sold, except to say it likely maintained its market share. However, all of that (pretty) good news is a bit of a smokescreen: B&N won't reveal its profits after interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization has been deducted. Pre ITDA income dropped 12 percent from the same period in 2011 and the company has revealed that the BN.com and Nook businesses made a combined loss of $94 million, with annual income looking to be in negative figures. Update: A tidbit from the conference call, the company believes the device currently holds around 30 percent of the overall e-reader market: using numbers direct from the publishers themselves.