q42018
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NVIDIA suffers as crypto crash and trade wars bite
NVIDIA wasn't joking when it warned that its performance for the quarter ending in January 27th, 2019 will fall short of expectations. The chipmaker's earnings report for the period shows that it posted a $2.2 billion revenue, which sounds impressive until you realize that it's down 24 percent from the year before. That figure is also down 31 percent from the previous quarter, which saw NVIDIA posting $3.18 billion in revenue. In addition, the company made $294 million in operating income, down a whopping 73 percent year-on-year and down 72 percent from the previous quarter. Meanwhile, its operating expenses went up by 25 percent from the same period a year before.
Apple wasn't the only smartphone brand struggling in China this fall
Apple wasn't joking around when it warned that the Chinese smartphone market gave it grief in the fall. IDC estimated that iPhone shipments fell just shy of 20 percent year-over-year toward the end of 2018, hitting 11.8 million. It's the third consecutive year of declines, the analyst group said, blaming this year's drop on a combination of higher prices and relatively modest updates. Customers just weren't in as much of a rush to upgrade as they were in years past. Throw in China's economic woes and stiff competition from local rivals and it's not shocking that iPhone sales took a dive.
Twitter says abuse reports have fallen by 16 percent
Twitter's attempts to improve the "health" of its conversation are paying dividends, according to the company's latest financial figures. The company is reporting a 16 percent fall in the number of abuse reports year on year, and a commensurate surge in profitability. In the last three months, Twitter pulled in revenues of $909 million, coining a tidy $255 million net profit.
'Battlefield V' didn't sell as well as EA hoped it would
Video game sales were particularly cutthroat last holiday, and it appears EA's Battlefield V was one of the casualties. The publisher lowered the outlook for its revenue this quarter after revealing that its sales in the last quarter of 2018 "did not perform to our expectations." While it didn't explicitly blame BFV for the shortfall, that was undoubtedly the company's flagship game -- it otherwise relied on sports titles and the mobile-only Command & Conquer Rivals. The firm wasn't shy about acknowledging "intense competition" as a factor.
LG fails to turn a profit for the first time in two years
Both of South Korea's electronics giants have announced fourth quarter results that were less than ideal. Within hours of Samsung posting a double-digit reduction in quarterly profit, LG has revealed that it lost 80.7 billion Korean won ($72.5 million) in the last three months.
Samsung's profits dropped sharply at the end of 2018
Samsung warned people when it released its earnings projection for Q4 of 2018 that it was expecting a sharp earnings drop. Turns out the tech giant really did have a relatively rough fourth quarter due to a drop in demand for memory chips, which fall under Samsung's top-earning semiconductor business, used in data centers and smartphones.
Samsung is the next tech giant expecting a sharp earnings drop
Apple isn't the only tech industry behemoth dealing with a rough fourth quarter. Samsung has warned that its earnings likely dropped significantly during the last three months of 2018 due to both tougher competition in the smartphone space and mediocre demand for memory chips. Analysts were predicting sales equivalent to about $56.2 billion, but Samsung now expects 'just' $52.7 billion -- not a huge drop, but disappointing for a company used to growth. Accordingly, the Korean firm now expects profits around $9.7 billion versus the $11.8 billion observers thought they'd see.
Apple blames China struggles and slow iPhone upgrades for earnings miss
Smartphone sales are struggling, and Apple is now feeling the pinch from that decline. The tech firm has lowered its guidance for its first fiscal quarter (October to December of last year) from a minimum of $89 billion down to $84 billion due to a variety of factors, most notably due to "fewer iPhone upgrades than we had anticipated." Most of the shortfall, Apple said, stemmed from China's weak economy.
Apple’s more expensive iPhones are making them a lot more money
We spent time with Apple's new hardware not long ago, but the company is keeping the party going with another new release: its Q4 2018 earnings. Right off the bat, we're looking at total revenues of $62.9 billion — that's up from the $52.6 billion the company reported last year, and comfortably above the consensus estimate of $61.57 billion thrown around by Wall Street analysts. To hear Apple CEO Tim Cook tell it, this has been the company's strongest September quarter ever. And as usual, Apple was also quick to point out its sales strengths overseas, noting that a full 61 percent of its overall revenue came from international markets. So, yes, this is another big quarter on the books for Apple, and iPhones again accounted for the lion's share of the company's total intake. That's not because it's selling more of them than usual, though.
