QuarterlyReport
Latest
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.
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]
Barnes and Noble sees quarterly sales surge, losses fall to $41 million
Barnes & Noble has had a quarter worth remembering, bringing in $1.5 billion and reducing its losses to $41 million -- down from $57 million last year. Retail business was up, thanks to the closure of Borders branches and blockbuster sales of Fifty Shades of Grey, while College sales increased quarterly losses by $2 million to $14 million. While online sales fell 7.6 percent and the Nook business remained flat, the company saw digital content purchases skyrocket by 46 percent -- and the company couldn't produce enough GlowLight devices to satisfy demand. Wondering about the company's tie-up with Microsoft? There's still no news beyond that it hopes the new partnership will be up and running by the fall.
Acer scrapes $1.87 million in profit as it becomes world's third biggest PC maker
Acer rose a place to become the world's third biggest PC maker this quarter, with net profits rising to $14.48 million, up net profit a slender $1.87 million, down from $11.2 million last quarter. Despite the drop, it's the company's second positive period since it ended 2011 with a $212 million loss, but the financial crises in the US, Europe, China and Asia Pacific all hampering its recovery. Like many of its PC brethren, it's pinning hopes on Windows 8 to spark a buying frenzy, but thanks to tight margins, only expects profits to be "on par" with those it's just announced. [Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons]
Panasonic 2012 Q3: $9 billion loss, Sanyo writedowns, restructuring
Panasonic's released its 2012 quarterly report (its financial year runs from summer to summer) and concedes it's been as bad for them as it was for Sony and Sharp. It's blaming the Japanese Earthquake for damaging its supply chain, a strong yen for keeping prices high, plus having to write-down the costs for its acquisition of Sanyo. The company's promising to restructure (in the face of stern competition from Samsung and LG) to become a "green innovation" business as well as to streamline its operating costs. It's predicting a quarterly loss of $9.2 billion as it takes the hit for this turmoil, and it doesn't look like things will improve with an anticipated further loss of another $2 billion at the end of the (financial) year.
Nielsen: Android still top dog, but Q4 buyers preferred iPhone 4S
Nielsen crunched Q4 numbers today, and the results will likely have Apple analysts jumping up and down. The findings, focused on those who've purchased a smartphone within the previous three months, indicate a huge spike -- from 25 percent in October to 45 percent in December -- in iPhone purchases since October as an obvious result of the launch of the 4S. Conversely, the number of recent Android buyers fell by 14 percent in the same period. Of course, these numbers are directly affected by Apple's latest product launch and by no means should be any indicator that Apple is poised to win the battle against its bitter rival, as iOS continues to trail Android by over 16 percent in market share. Looking at the war for the third spot, RIM's US market share declined by 2.9 percent from Q3 to Q4, falling to 14.9 percent -- not a surprise, since it only captured the hearts of six percent of recent buyers this quarter -- and Windows Phone slightly increased from 1.2 to 1.3 percent. Full press release and chart can be found after the break.
Intel delivers record earnings yet again in Q2 -- let the boardroom bragging begin
We know, you've heard it all before, but the chip maker's once again reporting record revenues, reaching a whopping $13.1 billion in Q2 2011. If you're keeping track, that's up $2.3 billion, or 22 percent, from Q2 2010, and bests last quarter's earnings of $12.9 billion by 2 percent. Net income was up 10 percent year-over-year, but down three percent from last quarter, ringing in at $3.2 billion. As Intel humbly points out, this is the outfit's fifth consecutive quarter of record revenue. So, perhaps a little bit of gloating is in order.
Sony Ericsson stems -- but doesn't stop -- losses in fourth quarter
Sony Ericsson still has a hell of a trek to get back on its feet, but by all appearances, it's taking baby steps toward that goal on news of its fourth quarter '09 earnings. The joint venture did €1.75 billion (about $2.47 billion) in sales in the most recent reported quarter -- an improvement of €131 million over the quarter prior -- and posted an operating margin of -2 percent, an improvement of 10 percent against the third quarter and the closest Sony Ericsson has come to turning a profit since 2008. Here's the problem, though: that operating margin reflects data before €150 million in restructuring charges. Once you factor that little problem into the equation, its net income is actually just as bad as it had been earlier in '09. So yeah, a mixture of good and bad news; maybe this X10 can make a dent, eh?
Sony Ericsson posts $299 million Q2 2009 loss, PlayStation-integrated phone (probably Aino) coming Q4
The good news, if you want to call it that, is that Sony Ericsson's most recent quarter loss is not as bad as its epic $382 million tab prior, and at this point there's no talk of further en masse job cuts. That said, this new report isn't exactly sunshine, and the Q2 results show a 213 million Euro ($299 million) net loss. Product shipments were around 13.8 million, down 43 percent compared with last year. Some blame is attributed to the focus on mid-tier feature phones in lieu of a greater smartphone push -- SE says it's working to correct that direction, but its higher end devices won't hit until fourth quarter. One interesting note is that one of those late-year handhelds is said to "integrate with PlayStation," but before you get excited over the oft-rumored PSP phone, we'd venture to say it's more likely that description's referencing the Remote Play-supporting Aino. From what we can tell, there's no indication of what's in the cards to improve Q3, so we won''t exactly be surprised if the story repeats itself three months from now.
LG phone revenue up, but profit down
It's a tough operating environment for even the healthiest manufacturers right now, and LG's no more immune than anyone else -- or is it? Despite a dismal global economy, the Korean electronics giant and world's number three phone maker reported that it actually took in some 23 percent more revenue on phone sales over the same quarter last year -- a total of 3.92 trillion won (about $2.9 billion) -- though profit fell some 41 percent. Overall, phone shipments declined 7 percent to 22.6 million in the quarter, blamed in part on the perennial post-holiday decline, but saw strength through its midrange with models like the Cookie and KS360 (we're not sold on lumping those two in the same market segment, but whatevs). Perhaps the best news to come out of the quarterly report is that it expects 10 percent growth going into the current quarter thanks to a new concentration on upper-tier devices like the Arena, Viewty Smart, and GD900 along with message-centric phones like the Neon and Xenon. You know what'd really spur sales for ya, LG? A US release of the Viewty Smart... yeah, that's it. [Via mocoNews]
Sony Ericsson posts epic quarterly loss, adds another round of job cuts
Some good news, please, Sony Ericsson? Anything? Perhaps a surprise Idou ship date? You desperately need something to counter this dismal quarterly report you just dropped on a bad news-saturated public, showing a net loss of €293 million (about $382 million) in the three-month period ending March 31 -- more than €100 million more than the amount you shed in the quarter prior. Despite reassurances to the contrary, we suspect that neither Sony nor Ericsson are prepared to tolerate red ink out of their joint venture forever, and it doesn't help that you've put Android on the back burner indefinitely. What's more, we thought your staff might be able to exhale now that the "cost saving program" to curtail spending by €300 million by cutting 2,000 jobs is complete, but you've coupled the bleak report with the announcement of an additional 2,000 cuts. Your shipped units are off a staggering 35 percent year over year, to boot; maybe the "good" news -- and we're really reaching here -- is that your European rivals are sharing in your pain right about now. Chins up, guys, and get some quality product out of the labs.
Nokia's net income slips 30%, sales and market share slide too
Man, what a difference a year makes. Almost 12 months ago to the day, the suits in Espoo were celebrating with extreme joviality after seeing profits soar a whopping 85% to $2.2 billion. Today, those same folks (plus / minus a few) are hanging their heads along with just about every other mega-corp on the planet. As credit tightens and the economy slows around the globe, people have apparently decided that another shiny new Nokia probably shouldn't be numero uno on the priority list. To that end, Nokia saw its net income sink 30% to around $1.47 billion while sales slipped 5% and market share fell ever-so-slightly to 38% (from 40% in January). Granted, it's not like Nokia didn't warn us that this was coming, but we're sure that doesn't make things any easier to swallow for shareholders. At least the gift giving season is just around the bend, right? Happy thoughts, happy thoughts.[Via mocoNews]
Sony profits soar despite PS3 losses -- PS2 hot as ever
Sony is reporting that its overall net profits more than doubled during the past quarter, bolstered by the success of films such as Spider-Man 3, and snappy sales of its traditional electronics. Things in the company's PS3 camp, however, still looked a little bleaker than the Japanese giant had probably hoped for. Losses for the game system rose from 26.8 billion yen to 29.2 billion yen, with 710,000 units sold worldwide -- not real impressive when compared to competitor Nintendo's Wii sales of 3.43 million. In a somewhat ironic aside, Nielsen GamePlay Metrics, a division of Nielsen Co. which tracks video game activity, says that the most played game system last month was Sony's seven-year-old PS2. The report shows the aging system leading other consoles with 42 percent of use, followed by the original Xbox at 17 percent, and Xbox 360 at 8 percent. The Wii and PS3 fall at 4 and 1.5 percent, respectively. Should be food for thought for everyone at Sony who doesn't think backwards compatibility is a big deal.Read -- Sony net profit doubles despite PS3 lossesRead -- PS2 most-played console in June
Apple to webcast quarterly earnings call today
We don't get to watch the Macworld keynote live anymore, buy you can still watch the quarterly conference call. Apple will webcast this report today at 2pm PT (5pm EST) here. We know that things are going well, based on what Steve said at Macworld earlier this month, but it's still fun to hear those enormous numbers.[Via MacDailyNews]
