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Panasonic will layoff 17,000 workers globally (updated)
No matter how you slice it, 17,000 is a big number, especially when its seventeen thousand humans looking for jobs. The layoffs represent a four-percent reduction of Panasonic's 380,000 global workforce due to restructuring efforts, according to Nikkei. They are expected to begin this year and will mainly impact employees outside of Japan. Update: Post updated to reflect the actual number of job cuts, not the 40,000 originally quoted by Nikkei or the 35,000 quoted by the AFP. The cuts will come over two years. The news comes as Panasonic reported a ¥40.7 billion ($499 million) loss for quarter, largely on account of a ¥61 billion ($748 million) restructuring cost. Panny says that its bottom line was also affected by a strong Yen, stiff competition in television sales, and the recent earthquake and tsunami.
Verizon and AT&T combine to sell 5.8 million iPhones in Q1 2011
This morning Verizon released its quarterly earnings for Q1 2011. While the wireless carrier did not reveal its iPhone sales figure in the press release, its earnings conference call confirms Verizon sold 2.2 million iPhones in its first six weeks of sales (compared to the 3.6 million reported by AT&T for the first three months of 2011, a 2x longer period). Combined, Verizon and AT&T sold 5.8 million iPhones, which means that total US sales account for about 30 percent of the 18.6 million Apple sold worldwide in the quarter. Apple COO/acting CEO Tim Cook mentioned on yesterday's Apple earnings call that US sales were up 155 percent year-over-year, and iPhone sales in greater China were up 250 percent versus the year-ago quarter (both leading the curve of 113 percent growth in total sales). According to AT&T, its iPhone churn rate remained steady in the 1st quarter, which suggests most Verizon iPhone sales come from current Verizon Wireless customers who waited patiently for the carrier to land the iPhone. It will be interesting to see how these numbers play out over the next year and a half. A growing number of AT&T iPhone customers will come off their current 2-year contracts and have a choice of carriers. Will the Verizon iPhone lead to a mass exodus from AT&T, as theorized, or will AT&T continue to hold its own? How many would-be carrier jumpers will wait for the hypothetical autumn release of the iPhone 5?
AT&T iPhone sales unaffected by Verizon launch
AT&T announced its first quarterly earnings for 2011 and sales of the iPhone 4 remain strong. According to the earnings statement, AT&T activated 3.6 million iPhones in the quarter ending March 31. This is a one million year over year increase and a slight drop from the 4.1 million activated in Q4 2010. Overall, AT&T added two million new subscribers to climb to 97.5 million total subscribers. This figure is also down from the 2.8 million subscribers AT&T added in the closing quarter of 2010. These sales numbers were recorded in the same quarter Verizon Wireless launched its version of the iPhone 4. Despite predictions the Verizon iPhone would lead to a mass exodus from AT&T, the wireless carrier confirmed that iPhone churn remained the same year over year. In fact, about 23 percent of iPhone buyers in Q1 were new to AT&T. Apple reports it quarterly earnings today at 5 p.m. ET and Verizon reports its earnings tomorrow. It will be interesting to see where the remaining iPhone numbers fall.
Intel shocks everyone, including itself, with record Q1 earnings
This is starting to get a bit repetitive, but we're sure Intel will never tire of hearing it: the chip maker just had its best quarter ever. The company expected to pull in roughly $11.6 billion, topping last quarter (and its previous record) by $500 million. Looks like the company was being conservative enough to make Pat Robertson blush -- it raked in a grand total of $12.8 billion in Q1 of 2011. About $500 million of that discrepancy can be explained by the acquisition of McAfee and Infineon, the rest is thanks to huge increases in sales across all market segments. Now go ahead, Intel, you just pretend to be surprised like last quarter.
Google announces Q1 earnings: $8.58 billion gross revenue, $2.3 billion net income
Well, it looks like Larry Page had a bit of good news and some bad news to deal with on his first quarterly earnings call as CEO of Google. The company has just reported $8.58 billion in gross revenue for the first quarter of 2011, which represents a 27 percent increase over the first quarter of last year, but is actually a bit less than analysts were expecting. That figure also doesn't include the company's so-called traffic acquisition costs, however, which totaled $2.04 billion for the quarter and bring the company's actual revenue down to "just" $6.54 billion. Net income for the quarter was $2.3 billion, which represents a more modest gain from $1.96 billion in the first quarter of 2010. Also cutting into profits quite a bit was Google's operating expenses, which were up a hefty 33 percent to $2.8 billion -- a sizable chunk of which went to the nearly 2,000 new employees the company hired during the quarter. Interestingly, Google also revealed a few Android stats during its earnings call, saying that app downloads are up a full fifty percent from the fourth quarter of 2010, and that there's a total of three billion Android apps installed worldwide. As for Android devices, there's apparently 350,000 of those being activated every day. Head on past the break for company's full earnings report.
RIM earnings show strong revenue and growth, but weak guidance for the months ahead
Research in Motion just kicked out its year-end and Q4 earnings for fiscal 2011, and while things look fairly rosy for now, shares of the company have sunk around ten percent in after-hours trading. Why? Because even the greatest performance in the world can't ward off skeptical investors who are keyed in on guidance. The outfit reported expected revenues of around $5.2 billion and $5.6 billion, with earnings ranging from $1.47 billion to $1.55 per share. Sounds lovely, but not when you consider that analysts had expected those figures to be closer to $1.65 per share. That said, RIM did manage to ship 52.3 million BlackBerry smartphones, representing a 43 percent uptick over fiscal 2010. Furthermore, fiscal 2011 revenue shot up 33 percent over fiscal 2010 (landing at $19.9 billion), and we were given a confirmed ship date of April 19th for PlayBook. If you're looking for a breakdown in revenue for the quarter, you'll be interested in knowing that 81 percent was attributed to devices, 16 percent to service and just three percent to "software and other revenue." Based on what we've gathered from the earnings call, RIM understands that it'll be selling more lower-end devices going forward (during what it continually referred to as "a transitional period"), and it's expecting stronger revenue to come from software and services based around QNX. In fact, QNX (known as BlackBerry Table OS on the PlayBook) was pinpointed as being an OS for future "superphones," and while we heard a brief mention of the impending BlackBerry OS 6.1 release, it's fairly evident which platform the outfit is salivating over. If all goes well, we're told to expect some sort of RIM superphone in 2012, and while our instincts are telling us that just has to refer to a phone with a 4.3-inch display, no specifics whatsoever were given beyond the moniker. When referring specifically to the PlayBook, it was confirmed that WiMAX, LTE and HSPA+ versions were en route, and when asked about incoming 4G products, we were told that while no specific products could be spoken to (and that "no promises" could be made), there's a "super intense 4G effort" ongoing within the company. We also heard that BlackBerry OS 6.1 would be a "major upgrade," and even though no deets flowed from this call, we were assured that this "substantial" overhaul -- which will launch at some point this spring -- would be teased at BlackBerry World.
Amazon celebrates its first '$10 billion quarter' in sales, finds Kindle books overtaking paperbacks
July 19, 2010 marked the day that Amazon's digital book sales eclipsed the sales of hardcover books, and it barely took half a year for those e-book sales to also overtake the sales of paperbacks. According to the ouftit's latest earnings release, "Kindle books have now overtaken paperback books as the most popular format on Amazon.com." The company had surmised that this would happen by Q2 of this year, but it clearly went down a lot earlier than even it expected. Bezos and co. also sold through $12.95 billion worth of goods, representing The Jungle's first "$10 billion quarter." That came up to $416 million in net income, representing an eight percent uptick year-over-year. Of note, operating income slipped from $476 million in Q4 2009 to $474 million this year, with the unfavorable impact from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates generating a staggering $18 million hit. When looking at 2010 as a whole, Amazon's sales were up 40 percent over 2009, with operating income rising some 25 percent to $1.41 billion compared to the whole of 2009. Speaking specifically of the Kindle, the company is now moving 115 Kindle books for every 100 paperbacks sold, but this obviously only takes into account the US book business. We're still no closer to finding out exactly how many Kindles have been moved, but we're told that "millions" of the third-gen model were moved in Q4 2010, and the Kindle Storeitself has over 810,000 books on its digital shelves. Head on past the break if you're thirsty for more, Sir Economist.
Nintendo Q3 profits down 46 percent, slashes console sales projections
Call it an unfortunate coincidence but Nintendo just announced its quarterly numbers only minutes after Sony announced its new quad-core Cortex-A9 pumping PSP (codenamed NGP) and new PlayStation Suite for gaming on Android tablets and cellphones. So what's the damage? Well, to start with, Nintendo's Q3 (October to December) operating profits were down 46 percent (104.6 billion yen ($1.3 billion) compared with 192.3 billion last year) on account of weaker Wii and DS sales coupled with a continued strong yen. The house of Mario also slashed its annual sales expectations projecting 16 million Wii consoles (down from 17.5 million units) and 22.5 million DS handhelds (down from 23.5 million) sold through March. It wasn't all bad news though as Ninty maintained its annual operating profit forecast of 210 billion yen assisted by a projected 25% increase in Wii software shipments. Mind you, that's not chump change, but gone are the days of the Wii / DS one-two knockout punch on the competition. And with a full quarter to go before the 3DS is launched globally, we're not expecting any improvement to the bottom line until the next fiscal year.
Big cable loses 500,000 subscribers in Q3, we neglect to send flowers
Last quarter was the first time ever that US pay TV subscription rates were down. Now, according to GigaOM's calculations, big cable suffered another set back in Q3, waving goodbye to over 500,000 subscribers in total. Comcast was saddled with over half of the carnage and lost 275,000 customers, while Time Warner took a 155,000 subscriber hit. Charter Communications and Cablevision fared slightly better, but still added 63,800 and 24,500 respectively to the industry pit of despair. Naturally, the blame game for the poor numbers was aimed squarely at the weak economy and increased competition from over-the-top video providers. Before you call the undertaker away from his wrestling day job, though, remember that cable's traditional backstop is to raise prices for remaining customers -- vicious cycle, anyone? In fact, Comcast shared on its Q3 earnings call that average customer revenue rose by ten percent year over year to $136 a month. Charter's similarly jumped by nine percent to $126, and while Cablevision's didn't increase by the same rate, monthly revenue per customer still amounted to a whopping $149 a month. So whether the reason is cord cutting or simply hard times, it's hard to get worked up over self-inflicted wounds.
Garmin officially exits the smartphone business, reports mixed Q3 earnings
Based on our experience with relationships, we've learned that it takes two to tango. It also takes two to produce co-branded wares, and with ASUS already withdrawing (respectfully, of course) from the ill-fated Garmin-Asus smartphone partnership, this here is more a formality than anything else. That said, those worried that Garmin would try to loop in another handset maker in order to manufacturer yet another Garminfone that 3.4 people would consider buying can rest easy. In the company's Q3 2010 earnings, it confirmed that it is "winding down" its smartphone efforts, and rather than continuing on a path to doom and destruction, it'll be ramping up marketing efforts in the aviation and maritime sectors. As for quarterly results, the company did see net income rise to $279.5 million (up from $215.1 million a year ago), but shares fell as it issued a depressing outlook for Q4 amid weakening demand for standalone PNDs. Hate to say we told you so...
Samsung notches record profits, aims to sell ten million Galaxy S phones this year
My, how a year changes things. Q3 2009 was a nightmare for mega-corps in terms of earnings, but things have definitely been on the up and up just 12 months later. After Sony pushed out a glowing quarterly report this morning, rival Samsung has done likewise. The company saw record breaking revenues of ₩40.23 trillion ($35.8 billion) as well as profits (₩4.46 trillion; $3.96 billion) in this most recent quarter, with Sammy crediting strong semiconductor performance for the bulk of its newfound fortune. A tip of the hat was also given to its mobile communications business, with the outfit moving a staggering 71.4 million phones during Q3 2010 (a 19 percent boost year-over-year). Reports are noting that between five and seven million of those were of the Galaxy S variety, and it's hoping to sell ten million of 'em before the close of this year. All that said, the firm isn't expecting an equally rosy Q4, noting that a strengthening won and heightened price pressures around LCD panels and DRAM could put a damper on skyrocketing profits. So much for taking a day to celebrate, eh? [Thanks, Rajendra]
Nintendo posts half-year net loss, a first in seven years
After three years of record earnings, the mighty house that Mario built is reporting a net loss of ¥2.01 billion ($25 million) in the fiscal first half ending 30 September versus a profit of ¥69.49 billion a year earlier. In addition to the adverse affects suffered under a strong yen, Nintendo's sales for the first half of its fiscal year were down 35 percent to ¥363.16 billion due to lower demand for its Wii console. According to the Wall Street Journal, this represents Nintendo's first net loss in the fiscal first half in the last seven years. The future outlook is pretty grim too with Nintendo forecasting an annual profit drop to the lowest level in six years as Wii console sales decline for the second year in a row. Ouch.
Sprint fails to impress Wall Street with Q3 2010 earnings, still notches 644k net adds
Sprint certainly isn't out of the woods yet, but at least it's picking up customers from somewhere. The company's Q3 2010 earnings were ushered out today, and while its stock fell around ten percent on the news, a few silver linings were present. The carrier saw postpaid subscriber losses of 107,000, but that's an 87 percent improvement compared to Q3 2009. The CDMA network added approximately 276,000 postpaid customers during the quarter, 471,000 (net) prepaid subscribers and 644,000 total wireless subscribers from a net perspective. It also landed its second best postpaid churn result ever, but the bottom line still looks battered -- the operator announced a net loss of nearly a billion dollars ($911 million, if you're scouting specifics). Of course, phasing out iDEN should probably help things in the long run, but even its 4G advantage could quickly fade if (or more likely, when) Verizon gets its LTE act together next year.
Nokia reports improved earnings for Q3 2010, will still 'streamline' up to 1,800 employees out of a job
Nokia's quarterly results have just been made public and the company's devices plus services sector has actually improved its income relative to last year: €7.2b of revenue was collected over the past three months versus €6.9b in the same period a year ago. Operating profit has also pepped up, going from the previous €785m to €807m. You'd think this would augur well for Stephen Elop's beginning at the helm, but the new man in charge is also presiding over a fundamental restructuring of operations at Nokia, which is expected to result in the redundancy of up to 1,800 employees globally. There are no specifics to tell us who'll be losing out, but the aims are the boilerplate tasks of increasing efficiency, simplifying operations, and reducing time to market. Anyway, we doubt the great people of Finland will be pleased.
Steve Jobs drops knowledge on earnings call: calls out Google and RIM, says 7-inch tablets are 'DOA' (Update: complete Jobs audio!)
Steve Jobs hit today's earnings call with the power of words. In a tone that could be described as "righteous anger" or perhaps just "reppin," Steve launched into a five minute rant that hit hard against RIM's entire business model, Android sales numbers and software fragmentation, and the impending wave of Android tablets. With the iPhone surpassing RIM, Steve says that he "[doesn't] see them catching up in the foreseeable future." As for Android sales, Steve takes issues with the market share figures that are currently floating around, saying that 275k iOS devices were activated on average per day last month, compared to Android's most recent estimate of 250k per day -- though he does admit that Android outshipped iPhone in the June quarter, during the "transition" to iPhone 4. That wasn't Steve's only problem with Android, he takes major issue with the fragmentation and the onus he believes it puts on the user: "we believe integrated will trump fragmented every time." Oh, and 7-inch tablets? You're in for a bag of hurt. Steve pretty much outright killed any potential for 7-inch iPad rumors, saying that the software just isn't right for that size ("This size is useless unless you include sandpaper so users can sand their fingers down to a quarter of their size."), and that users have no need for a pocket sized tablet when they already have a smartphone. He called the iPad's upcoming competition in the space "DOA." After he calmed down a bit, the call entered a Q&A period, where Steve was happy to point out that the iPad has already surpassed Macintosh in sales, and that it's going to affect laptop computers: "it's not if, it's when." We'll get a copy of the audio and put it up as soon as possible... like most CEO outbursts, this is not one to be missed. Hit up our liveblog of the call for a bit more context, and you can try the source link for Apple's stream of the entire earnings shindig. Update: We just ripped the first part of the call, which featured Steve's prepared remarks -- we'll have an edited version of the Q&A session in just a bit. Update 2: And here's an edited version of the Q&A with just Jobs's answers -- hit the source link for Apple's archive of the whole thing with Peter and Tim's answers as well. Update 3: And just for the completists out there, here's an MP3 of both segments combined.
AMD sees a tablet chip in its future, and an end to the core-count wars
AMD told us that it wasn't terribly interested in the iPad market, and would wait and see if touchscreen slates took off, but CEO Dirk Meyer changed the company's tone on tablets slightly after reporting a $118 million net loss (on $1.62 billion in revenue) in a Q3 2010 earnings call this afternoon. First revealing his belief that tablets will indeed cannibalize the notebook and netbook markets, he later told investors that he actually expects AMD's netbook parts to start appearing in OEM slates in the next couple of years, and that AMD itself would "show up with a differentiated offering with great graphics and video technology" when the market becomes large enough to justify an R&D investment. Elsewhere, AMD CTO of servers Donald Newell prognosticated that the number of individual CPUs on a chip won't go up forever: "There will come an end to the core-count wars," he told IDG News. Just as the megahertz race was eventually defeated by thermal restrictions, so too will the number of cores on a chip cease to increase. " I won't put an exact date on it, but I don't myself expect to see 128 cores on a full-sized server die by the end of this decade," he said. So much for our Crysis-squashing terascale superchip dreams, we suppose.
Intel reports record $11.1 billion revenue, brings home $3 billion in bacon
Looks like Intel's having its best quarter ever all over again: this time, the company's reporting $3.0 billion in profit on a record $11.1 billion in revenue. Chipzilla attributes the surplus to three percent increases in laptop and server chips sales respectively, but none to Atom-based netbooks -- sales of Atom chips actually decreased by four percent. That may be more than you needed or wanted to know about the booming processor business, but humanitarians will be pleased to know it's not all about the silicon; Intel also hired 1,300 new flesh-and-blood employees last quarter to keep the machines running.
Apple's Q4 earnings call will take place Oct. 18
Can Apple continue the string of unprecedented financial success? Will the 4th quarter of 2010 (ending tomorrow, September 30th) be even more successful than the 3rd quarter, now that the iPad has had time to dominate the market for three more months, and the iPhone 4 has overcome the negative "grip of death" publicity? We'll all find out on October 18th, when Tim Cook, Steve Jobs, and a rogue's gallery of tech analysts bring us the 4th quarter earnings call for Apple Inc. As usual, TUAW will be providing a liveblog of the event, complete with commentary by our staff of bloggers. The event usually starts about 5 PM ET, and we'll be sure to give you a heads-up as the day approaches. [via The Mac Observer]
Lenovo sees $54.9 million net profit in Q1 earnings, hits double digits in global market share
Look out, world -- Lenovo's on a serious tear, and it doesn't look to be stopping anytime soon. In the company's latest earnings report, it proudly announced its first-ever double digital market share of 10.2 percent. As if that milestone wasn't enough to make upper management grin, the outfit also nailed down just under $55 million in net income (a pre-tax income of $75 million) on sales of $5.1 billion. This quarter also marks the third in a row that it has been the fastest growing of the top five PC makers, and the fifth consecutive quarter that it outgrew the industry. Specifically, the outfit's PC shipments increased some 48.1 percent year-over-year, and consolidated sales for its fiscal Q1 saw an insane 49.6 percent uptick from last year. As of now, things are looking mighty rosy for Lenovo, and it just seems logical for the company to revive the Skylight in celebration. Who's with us?
Dell's Q2 2010 sees 16 percent increase in net income, flat revenue from Consumer unit
First with HP, and now with Dell. The PC maker (and occasional phone dabbler) posted its second quarter fiscal 2010 report, which actually gives a good perspective on the relative position of each company in the global PC market. Whereas the House that Hurd once ran reported a $30.7 billion revenue and $2.3 billion operating profit, Dell posted $15.5 billion (up 22 percent) in revenue and $745 million operating income. Like we said earlier, operating income shouldn't be confused with net income, which deducts those massive corporate taxes. Looking at net, the company profited $545 million, up an impressive 16 percent year-over-year. Focusing on the Consumer unit, revenue was flat at $2.9 billion, while at the same time operating income incurred a $21 million loss. According to the press release, the company "remains confident that initiatives underway will improve operating margins for the segment." Is all this enough to quell irate shareholders? Chances are slim, but hey, it's a start.
