Hasta La Gadget!

Instead of reaping the rewards of putting out a lovely new flagship, HTC has just reported its lowest ever profit — a mere $2.8 million in unaudited net income — during the first three months of this year. That compares to $173 million in the same quarter of last year, representing a pretty catastrophic fall of around 98 percent. Underlying revenue dropped by a third to $1.4 billion. The reason? The top-end smartphone on which the company’s fortunes currently rest, the HTC One, mostly missed its scheduled global arrival date in March due to manufacturing delays, so it effectively didn’t exist during the period in question. It has only just become available to pre-order in the US and won’t start shipping to customers until April 19th. At this rate, the HTC First — the manufacturer’s second big announcement of the year — might actually deserve its name.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

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Source: Bloomberg, HTC

General Motors, maker of that awesome new Corvette, has reported its Q1 2013 sales figures, and it looks to be all good news. During the first quarter of this year, General Motors sold just under 665,000 vehicles, resulting in a 9.3% increase over the company’s total vehicles sales from Q1 2012. The company also recorded its best March sales in five years, selling almost 246,000 vehicles in just 31 days.

As for a breakdown of some of GM’s subsidiaries, Cadillac sales were up 38% from last year, while Buick was up 28%. GMC saw a 14% increase, and Chevrolet saw the smallest gain, with a 5% jump. Overall, GM saw an increase in sales across the board, which is no doubt a good sign for a company that recently found itself in a deep hole.

As for what types of cars have most popular during the past year, GM reports that crossover vehicles saw the biggest increase from last year, with a 25% jump, while trucks were up 10%. As for the folks who want more fuel-efficient vehicles, those numbers saw an increase, but not as much as you’d think — combined mini, small, and compact cars were up 14% from last year.

Unfortunately, GM didn’t report any of their financial earnings — just sales numbers this time around, but with such an impressive increase in sales, we have to guess that GM is slowly starting to make progress digging themselves out of that wretched hole. With the launch of the 2014 Corvette later this year, we should hopefully see GM further into the black as we go along in 2013.

GM reports 9.3% sales increase in Q1 2013 is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Though we don’t get to see its smartphone wares too often stateside or in Europe, NEC has always said its mobile division was a big part of its business. Now it looks to be trying to fob that arm off to PC venture partner Lenovo, according to unnamed Bloomberg sources. The Japanese company is also said to be eying potential domestic buyers if that doesn’t pan out, and Reuters recently reported that it’s selling retail subsidiary NEC Mobiling to the tune of $850 million. The move is said to be in the works to bolster profitability after two straight years of smartphone operation losses and 10,000 layoffs, but as always, such unattributed material needs to be digested with beaucoup salt.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Lenovo

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Source: Reuters

Samsung has sold a lot of phones lately, including over 50 million Galaxy S III devices since its launch early last year. However, the company isn’t seeing a slowdown any time soon. It’s expected that Samsung’s Q1 2013 sales will hit record numbers yet again, even though demand hasn’t been as high as the company would like.

According to Hong Kong-based research company Counterpoint Research, Samsung has sold around 25 million smartphones each month so far this year, and that’s expected to drive the company’s quarterly sales to over 70 million units for Q1 2013. Samsung’s last earnings report showed a profit of $8 billion over those three months.

Samsung’s market share during January and February reached 35%, making them the largest smartphone manufacturer on the planet. Compared to Q4 2012, that’s a 3% increase in market share. With the upcoming release of Samsung’s GALAXY S 4, it’s possible that the company may even see a record Q2 2013 as well.

Back in January, it was estimated that Samsung would sell around 10 million GALAXY S 4 devices per month, and the company says that they want to sell at least 350 million smartphones in 2013, which is quite an ambitious goal. They eventually want to reach 500 million devices total for the year. The GALAXY S 4 is expected to early May at some point, with T-Mobile the only major carrier to offer a timeline.

Samsung expected to hit record sales in Q1 2013 is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Adobe has reported its quarterly earnings for Q1 2013 that ended on March 1. The company has made $1.008 billion during the past three months, exceeding its own expectations of $750 million to $1 billion for the quarter. The company also announced that it has passed 500,000 Creative Cloud paid subscribers, while free users are past the two-million mark.

Compared to last year, the company’s revenue dropped slightly this quarter compared to Q1 2012, which showed a $1.045 billion revenue during the three months. However, the company’s paid subscriptions to Creative Cloud could boost the company’s financial results in the long term, but it may take a few quarters for that boost to occur.

The company’s user base for Creative Cloud is quickly gaining steam, since the service passed the 1 million user mark back in December, and already that number is over double. It was quite the year for Adobe, with the launch of Creative Cloud and a new version of Creative Suite, dubbed CS6, which includes a ton of software for designers and developers.

As for Adobe’s income for the quarter, operating income chimed in at $98.2 million, and net income was $65.1 million on a GAAP basis. On a non-GAAP basis, operating income was $240.7 million while net income was $177.9 million. Not a bad quarter for the company, even considering its revenue is down just slightly from last year.

Adobe rakes in $1.008b of revenue in Q1 2013 is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.