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AMD collects half a billion in Q1 profit, Fusion APUs now account for half of its laptop shipments
AMD's net income for the past quarter was $510 million, generated from $1.61 billion in total revenues. That should make happy reading for a company that's been raising similar gross revenues previously but finding itself losing cash -- though the more intriguing figures are a little deeper in its latest disclosure. CFO and interim CEO Thomas Seifert has noted that AMD "tripled" its Fusion APU shipments relative to last quarter -- meaning that at least 3.9 million units have made their way out to OEM partners in Q1 -- which now account for "roughly half" of the company's notebook shipments. In less upbeat news, average selling prices in both the microprocessor and graphics divisions were down sequentially, with AMD having to react to pressure from its traditional foes Intel and NVIDIA. You might surmise that with the mainstream Llano APU out and shipping to computer makers, AMD might have a happier second quarter, but the company's guidance is for revenues to be flat or slightly down. A final note of pride is reserved for the Radeon HD 6490M and HD 6750M GPUs, which figured prominently in Apple's latest MacBook Pro refresh and mark a bit of a coup for AMD, who's now responsible for all of Apple's discrete graphics across the MacBook Pro and iMac computing lines. Click the links below for even more intel on Advanced Micro Devices.
Nokia's Q1 2011: smartphone share down to 26 percent, 'more challenging' times ahead
Nokia has just published its first quarterly results in the era of its Microsoft partnership and things aren't looking too bright. Smartphone market share, which had been at 41 percent this time last year and 31 percent in January, has now dipped to 26 percent, while operating profits have taken a 17 percent tumble relative to last year. The company managed to ship one percent more phones in Q1 2011 than in Q1 2010, but its 108.5 million units was an 18 percent drop from last quarter's totals. CEO Stephen Elop describes the first quarter as solid, but warns that the second will be "more challenging." The impact of Japan's disaster earlier in the year will be felt more strongly in Q2, we're warned, with respect to component supply and logistics, while new products won't figure too strongly as Nokia intends to "start shipping the majority of our new products in the second half of the year." Elop is, however, encouraged by the "roadmap of mobile phones and Symbian smartphones" that Nokia has in store for 2011, which sounds good on the surface, but we'd be more comforted if he'd have inserted the words "Windows Phone" or "MeeGo" in that sentence too. Hit the links below to see the full financial details.
AT&T reports best-ever first quarter for smartphone sales with 5.5 million, 60 percent of them are iPhones
We've been waiting for this one, the first indicator of the mythical Verizon iPhone's impact on the fortunes of the formerly exclusive Applephone carrier, AT&T. As it turns out, business is rolling along as usual over on the blue team, where AT&T spent Q1 2011 activating a total of 3.6 million iPhones, a nice round million more than the same period last year. Also interesting is AT&T's note that somewhere around 40 percent of its smartphone sales come from Android, BlackBerry and Windows Phone 7 devices, leaving the iPhone to account for the remaining 60-ish percent. Taken as a whole, that group totaled up 5.5 million sales in the quarter, a new best for AT&T in the first three months of the year, and the smartphone segment is now said to account for 46.2 percent of the company's postpaid user base. Jump past the break for more details in AT&T's press release.
Philips sells HDTV business to Hong Kong-based TPV Technology, will sate itself with royalty payments
Philips has been making teevees for over 80 years, but today its new CEO has announced that this storied history is coming to an end. Unable to generate a profit from its HDTV division -- it lost the company €87 million in the first quarter -- Philips will soon sell the majority stake in it to Hong Kong manufacturer TPV Technology, while retaining a 30 percent ownership share and agreeing guaranteed royalty payments of €50 million per year from 2013 onwards. It's not a bad deal for the Dutch consumer electronics maker, whose bottom line for the first quarter was €137 million in the black, but would have been double that had the new arrangement been in place. All 4,000 Philips employees working under the HDTV umbrella will be transferred over to TPV, though the company says it doesn't want the "market to misread that [it] intend to lay-off a lot of employees." Which is not to say that it won't. A video interview with Philips' chief Frans van Houten discussing the change of direction can be found after the break.
HTC breaks its own sales and profit records, keeps riding the smartphone wave to success
Another quarter, another spectacular set of financial results for HTC. The once-small Taiwanese phone maker reports its net income for the first quarter of 2011 nearly tripled earnings in the same period of 2010, now totaling an impressive $513 million. Overall quarterly revenue was in the vicinity of $3.6 billion and the causes cited were, rather predictably, demand for Android smartphones and higher-speed internet connectivity (as provided by the likes of the EVO 4G and Thunderbolt). Guess now we know why the stock markets are loving HTC so much -- the company just can't stop growing! [Thanks, Karan]
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.
Samsung Tabulates 2 million slates, 80 million phones sold in Q4 2010, breaks revenue records
Score one for Samsung in its eternal struggle against South Korean nemesis LG. Whereas the Life's Good crew were licking their Q4 2010 wounds yesterday, Samsung's had the pleasure of announcing that the final quarter of last year helped it bust through all its previous fiscal records: total revenue ($139b), net income ($14b), and operating profit ($15.5b) all reached all-time highs. The fourth quarter's contribution was $2.7b in operating profit, 80.7 million mobile devices sold, 12.72 million flat panel TVs shipped, and two million Galaxy Tabs distributed to Android lovers yearning for some Froyo. That last number's pretty important as it shows the Tab's sales have almost doubled over the last month of the quarter -- it reached one million sales in early December -- indicating that there is indeed a hunger for slate-based computing. Oh, and if you're wondering what Samsung's planning for the future, there's a reminder that a device with a Super AMOLED Plus screen and a dual-core processor is coming to replace the Galaxy S in the first half of 2011. Good to know. [Thanks, Tascien]
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.
Qualcomm has best quarter ever, teases a host of Snapdragon tablets
If you've got a speedy Snapdragon in your smartphone, Qualcomm's the one to thank -- but considering the raw earnings figures shared yesterday, your dollars have applauded the firm enough already. Qualcomm reported record earnings of $3.35 billion for its first fiscal quarter of the year, up 25 percent since Q1 2010, and it raked in a nice fat $1.17 billion of that in profit, 39 percent more than last year. That's thanks to shipping 118 million of those Mobile Station Modem (MSM) chips that power mobile devices, as well as other ventures, and the company expects revenues to continue their upward bent as 2011 progresses -- thanks to new devices on the way. Qualcomm EVP Steve Mollenkopf told investors that "we currently have more than 150 Snapdragon devices in development, including more than 20 tablets," and that the dual-core 1.2GHz MSM8660 in particular was picking up steam, with over 60 devices slated to use the dual-mode chipset with HSPA+ and EV-DO Rev. B. What of a groundbreaking deal with Apple to power new iPhones and iPads? CEO Paul Jacobs wouldn't say: "We're happy to see the Verizon iPhone announcement since it's been the subject of intense speculation, but we have no other comments on that topic." Guess we'll have to wait and see.
Nokia smartphone market share shrinks to 31 percent, operating profit takes a beating too
Stephen Elop's first quarterly results as Nokia CEO have just come out, and while the company's still growing, others seem to be speeding ahead of it. Nokia's reporting its converged mobile devices (smartphones, to you and us) reached volumes of 28.3 million during Q4 2010, which is a neat bump from 20.8 million at the same time last year and 26.5 million in the previous quarter. However, in the context of the broader smartphone marketplace, that figure now amounts to only a 31 percent share, according to Nokia's own estimates, which is a major dip relative to its 40 percent slice in Q4 2009 and 38 percent in Q3 2010. Elop's perspective on the matter is as follows: "In Q4 we delivered solid performance across all three of our businesses, and generated outstanding cash flow. Additionally, growth trends in the mobile devices market continue to be encouraging. Yet, Nokia faces some significant challenges in our competitiveness and our execution. In short, the industry changed, and now it's time for Nokia to change faster." When your operating profit goes from €1.47b (€950m net) a year ago to €1.09b (€745m net) this year, the response should indeed be to change and to change fast. Nokia's still not disclosing sales figures of the N8, but given that this was the first full reporting period where the company's Symbian flagship has been on sale, it doesn't seem to have had quite the impact Espoo will have hoped for. Wanna try again with the N9? Update: Nokia's investor relations call has borne a few more interesting tidbits from the new man in charge. Elop is quoted as saying Nokia must "build or join a competitive ecosystem," with the latter verb in that sentence sure to renew discussions of why the Finnish company should / shouldn't switch to an OS such as Android or Windows Phone 7. We still think that'll be the very last resort over in Espoo, but Elop apparently believes Nokia has the brand recognition and operator relationships to make such a move if it wanted to. Which of course it doesn't. Or does it? Let's wait for Nokia's Strategy and Financial Briefing in London on February 11th -- Mr. Elop's expected to be a lot more specific about his company's roadmap going forward on that day.
Motorola Mobility reports robust growth in last quarter, but predicts difficult times ahead
Yes, we are deep in Q4 2010 financial reporting season, and Motorola's freshly independent Mobility arm is latest to step up and deliver its figures. Total revenue over the past three months reached $3.4 billion, marking a 21 percent increase year-on-year, net revenue from mobile devices was $2.4 billion, up by 33 percent year-on-year, and handset shipments were a seemingly healthy 4.9 million. That figure's disappointed Wall Street estimates, however -- the collective expectation, according to MarketWatch, was 5.2 million -- and the net profit of $80 million is barely (for a company of this size) in the black. More doom and gloom is cast by Motorola itself, which is predicting a difficult first quarter of 2011 that will end with the company losing between 9 and 21 cents per share in net terms. Ah well, let's try to enjoy the sunshine of Moto making money today and forget the rainclouds of tomorrow.
Apple's 'PC' shipments grow by 241 percent in iPad-inclusive Canalys stats
Canalys is a pretty well respected global stat-keeper and now it seems to be relying on that reputation to push through a pretty controversial message: tablets, such as Apple's iPad and Samsung's Galaxy Tab, are PCs. "Accept new market realities," urges its polemic press release, before laying out global quarterly shipments that peg Apple as the world's third most prolific PC vendor (without tablets, Apple doesn't even break the top 5 according to IDC and Gartner). The company that was laboring with a mere 3.8 percent market share in 2009 has shot up to 10.8 with the aid of its 10-inch touchscreen device. Canalys' stance will inevitably be controversial, but then it's kind of hard to deny that machines like Samsung's Sliding PC and ASUS' Eee Slate make the distinguishing lines between tablets and netbooks look like a particularly technical form of bokeh.
AMD ships 1.3 million Fusion APUs, 35 million DirectX 11 GPUs, says it has 'momentum'
Hey, this interim CEO thing doesn't seem to be too hard at all. Thomas Seifert, the temporary solution to the problem created by Dirk Meyer's departure from AMD's top spot, has had a pretty comfy ride reporting the company's latest quarterly results. The pecuniary numbers themselves ($1.65b revenue, $375m net income) were tame and unexciting, but Seifert got to make a pair of juicy milestone announcements. Firstly, on the mobile and ever-so-efficient front, he noted that 1.3 million Fusion APUs (Accelerated Processing Units) have been shipped to partners since AMD started deliveries in November, and secondly, in terms of discrete graphics chips, he disclosed that the Radeon HD 5000 and HD 6000 series DirectX 11 GPUs have surpassed the 35 million units shipped mark. To give you some perspective on what that means, sales of Nintendo's bestselling Wii console are hovering somewhere around the same figure. So yes, AMD, your wagon has momentum, but shouldn't it have a driver too?
McSweeney's revamps iOS app, now universal with a bookstore
I've said before that I'm a huge fan of McSweeney's, the publishing group founded by author Dave Eggers. The company has had an iPhone app for a while, but it recently updated to a universal version, so now all of that great content (from daily posts to various blogs, books, and the eponymous quarterly) is available to read on the iPad any time you want. The app is set up on a subscription basis, so the original purchase of $6.99 gets you access to six months of daily content from the company, plus "semi-eternal delivery" of material from the website (which is publicly available anyway). There's also an ebook store in the new version of the app, where you can buy any books the company has published, at prices from $6 to $15. All together, that may sound like a little much compared to some other apps, but compared to actual print books, that's still cheap, and all of McSweeney's ebooks are manually designed and typeset for the format, which is pretty cool. Good to see that McSweeney's is improving its iOS presence -- the App Store's a great place for smaller publishing houses like this one to find a bigger audience, I think.
HTC profits leaping and bounding up, Peter Chou promises tablet and production expansion
HTC's fourth quarter of 2010 has gone exactly the same way as the first three: the company reports a 160 percent rise in profits (to $500 million) year-on-year and a 31 percent increase relative to Q3 2010. Total revenue for the final three months of last year rounded the $3.5 billion mark, having been a trifling $1.4 billion the year before. Company CEO Peter Chou sees no end to this dramatic growth, forecasting it'll remain in double digits through 2011, and he plans to match up to it by doubling monthly production capacity at HTC's Shanghai plant to two million handsets. If necessary, he says he'll even outsource manufacturing. Even more intriguing, however, is Chou's admission that HTC is strategizing an entry into the tablet realm: "It's a new market with many competitors, and we don't want to rush into it." Hardly a surprise, but good to have it from the horse's mouth.
Sony Ericsson ships 9 million Xperia Android phones, but latest earnings disappoint
Sony Ericsson has just made its financial results for the fourth quarter of 2010 official and the highlight, at least for milestone lovers like us, is the figure of nine million Android-based Xperia handsets shipped since the family's launch. Now, the language used here is important, as Sony loves to report shipments to retailers instead of actual sales, but it's still a pretty grand number of Xperia X10, X10 Mini, X10 Mini Pro, and X8 handsets out and about in our big wide world. Hell, it's even more impressive when you consider that those phones have spent most of their lives riding the ancient Android 1.6 as their operating system. In terms of actual currency figures, however, SE has fallen short of expectations, reporting a moderate €35 million pre-tax profit for Q4, which the company is turning into a positive by noting that it marks its fourth consecutive quarter of being in the black. If the new crop of Xperia Androids are anything to go by, we can probably expect this habit to continue for a good long while.
Apple on iPad competition: Windows is 'big and heavy,' next-gen Android tablets are still vapor
Apple's COO (and current Steve Jobs stand-in) Tim Cook thinks "there's not much" competition to the company's iPad tablet. When queried about Apple's view on what the rest of the market offers, Cook was brutally candid in describing Windows-driven machines as generally being big, heavy and expensive, while current generations of Android-based slates are in his opinion merely "scaled-up smartphones." While we agree that Windows 7 isn't a terribly touch-friendly affair, we don't know that Cook's comments on Android are quite so pertinent now that Google's tablet-savvy Honeycomb iteration has been unveiled. Then again, he has something to say about the next generation of Android tablets as well, noting that the ones announced at CES lack pricing and release schedules, leading him to conclude that "today they're vapor." Ouch. As a parting shot, Tim took a moment to reaffirm Apple's belief that its integrated approach will always trump the fragmented nature of Android and its plurality of app stores. Hear his comments in full after the break.
ComScore: Android jumps ahead of iOS in total US smartphone subscribers
We've seen plenty of data to show that Android is the hottest-selling smartphone OS among US buyers today, but now we have a stat point to show that it's doing pretty well in cumulative terms as well. According to ComScore's latest estimates, Android had 26 percent of all US smartphone subscribers in the quarter ending November 2010, bettering Apple's iPhone for the first time. The major victim of Android's ascendancy has actually been RIM's BlackBerry, whose lead at the top contracted by 4.1 percentage points (nearly 11 percent less than the share it had in the previous quarter). Guess those Verizon iPhones and dual-core BBs had better start arriving pretty soon.
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]
