Apple’s 4th quarter earnings report here in 2013 had mention of the best of said quarters for iPhones sold in the history of the company – but even that didn’t sway one user from asking Apple CEO Tim Cook what the benefits were for the newest set of features for the iPhone 5s over the […]
There’s little negative to be said about this fourth quarter of 2013 for Apple, especially given the fact that they’ve released several iPhones and no iPads for the past several months. What we’re seeing here is a revenue that’s gone down from the quarter immediately before this one, and up from the quarter one year […]
Well folks, Apple has just put up some mixed numbers in its fiscal Q4 2013 earnings release – $37.5 billion in revenue and $7.5 billion in net profit to be exact – but how exactly did the tech titan fare in terms of hardware sales?
This time around Apple sold 33.8 million iPhones (which it notes is a record for Q4), 14.1 million iPads and 4.6 million Macs during the quarter.
To put that in perspective, the average analyst prediction was for Apple to sell a grand total of 33.4 million iPhones in Q4, along with just under 14 million iPads and about 4.26 million Mac computers. Meanwhile, Apple sold 31 million iPhones, 14.6 million iPads, and 3.8 million Macs last quarter, and 26.9 million iPhones, 14 million iPads, and 4.9 million Macs in the year-ago quarter.
Phew.
So yes, if we’re taking those averages as gospel, Apple managed to come out ahead on every one of them. Despite that big iPhone sales boost (thanks in part to the recent launch of the iPhones 5s and 5c, iPad sales are essentially flat year-over-year – we’ll see if that trend sticks once those refreshed models start hitting shelves in November. The nature of the electronics lifecycle means that a cyclical dip or lull is to be expected though – with the holidays right around the corner, the company’s Q1 2014 earnings are going to be where the real money is.
Speaking of dips, we saw a few of them last quarter: Apple sold just 14.6 million iPads back then which was heralded as the first yearly iPad sales decline ever, and (perhaps more notably) the average selling price of the iPhone dipped from $613 to $580 sequentially.
It’s not exactly a shock then to see that both of these trends are still in effect, especially when it comes to iPhone ASPs. Apple makes it a point to never break down iPhone sales numbers by model, so at this point it’s tough to say how many 5s and 5c units have been sold (a situation that’s compounded by iPhone 5s supply constraints and the frequent assertion that people aren’t really buying the 5c). While iPhone ASP is down to $577 this time, though, it seems that the popularity of the higher-priced iPhone 5s has managed to keep the figure from eroding too much.
And what of the iPods? The music players (which eventually evolved into much, much more) were one of Apple’s first runaway hits, but the company generally seems happy to relegate them to the background. They haven’t been called out in an earnings release for the past six months, and they were conspicuously absent when Apple updated the rest of its hardware portfolio just in time for the holiday shopping frenzy. In case you were curious, though, Apple moved a hair under 3.5 million of them in Q4.
This is a developing story, please refresh for updates.
Well, it’s that time again — famed chipmaker Intel has just reported its fiscal Q3 2013 earnings and they’re just a bit better than expected. The company reported quarterly revenue of $13.5 billion (which is pretty much flat compared to its performance last year) and earnings of $0.58 per share (again, same as last year).
To put that in a little perspective, the analyst consensus as per Yahoo! Finance was for the company to report $13.47 billion in revenue for the quarter, along with earnings of $0.53 per share. It’s not the biggest beat you’ll ever see (Intel CEO Brian Krzanich said this quarter saw “modest growth in a tough environment”), but it’s a beat nonetheless.
Still, that’s not to say everything is downright peachy in Intel’s world. Industry analysis firm Gartner said that global PC sales were down 8.6 percent this past quarter, making the sixth consecutive quarter of decline. Granted, that’s not as big a dip what we saw last quarter, but it’s further proof that the traditional PC market isn’t done contracting just yet. That shift is reflected in the performance of the company’s PC Client group, which raked in a respectable $8.4 billion in Q3… though it’s still down some 3.5 percent year-over-year. As such, it’s no surprise to see Krzanich point out the fact that Intel is steadily increasing its focus on “ultra-mobile devices and 2 in 1 systems.”
This is also one of the first quarters where we’re getting to see what sort of impact Intel’s new Haswell chips are having — they’re already seeing widespread use in devices across OEM borders, especially in devices that seek to bridge the performance gap between more traditional PCs and newfangled ultraportable designs like Ultrabooks and Surface-esque tablets. As it happens, Haswell has helped the situation somewhat but perhaps not as much as Intel had hoped right now. To quote CFO Stacy Smith from his commentary addendum, “the worldwide PC supply chain saw a small increase in inventory levels in the third quarter as customers continued to build inventory of Haswell based PCs but inventory levels are still being managed well below historical averages.” Fortunately, things looked a little brighter for the company’s Data Center group as it saw revenues surge just over 12 percent since last year.
All in all, this has been a solid (if admittedly unremarkable) quarter for Intel, and the company’s share price has surged slightly in after-hours trading as a result. What’s really interesting here though is that Intel has offered up some guidance for the next quarter which is lower than what analysts had previous called for, but we’ll tackle that when the time comes. For now, I’ll be sitting in on the customary earnings call in just a few moments and will update this post with any interesting tidbits that come up.
Things haven’t been going well at BlackBerry for awhile, what with lackluster adoption of BB10 and the hardware running it, and rumors that massive layoffs are coming before the end of the year. Today, the company confirmed the latter rumor, announcing that it will lay off around 4,500 employees as a part of a plan to reduce its operating expenditures by half over the next year. The plan’s necessitated by an expected Q2 2014 net operating loss of almost one billion (955-995 million) dollars, driven primarily by the lackluster sale of its BB10 phones — the company will take a pre-tax charge of $930-960 million which can be attributed mostly to the failure of the Z10 to sell. BlackBerry expects revenue for Q2 to be $1.6 billion, which is roughly half of the $3.1 billion it pulled in last quarter.
Needless to say, the financial outlook for the company isn’t good, and some changes are in order. In the near term, the Z10 will be priced “ to make it available to a broader, entry-level audience,” leaving the Z30 as BlackBerry’s all-touch flagship. To try to turn things around in the long term, the company’s going to refocus on its enterprise offerings and will reduce its device portfolio from six devices to four, with two high end and two entry level phones. And, don’t get it twisted, the days of BlackBerry courting mainstream consumers is all but over — its future phones will be aimed at the “enterprise and prosumers.”
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Blackberry
Don’t look now, but Lenovo just became an industry bellwether. While reporting strong first quarter results that include a record $8.8 billion in revenue and $170 million in profit, the tech giant revealed that its combined smartphone and tablet sales have overtaken those of its PCs. Yes, you read that correctly — the world’s largest PC vendor is now a mobile-first company, unlike previous title holders such as HP. It’s not hard to explain the shift, however. About 42 percent of Lenovo’s total sales come from its native China, where the company’s predominantly Android-based phones and tablets fare very well. The firm’s Windows PCs and tablets are also performing above industry averages, but CEO Yang Yuanqing makes it clear that Lenovo is quickly becoming a “PC Plus” brand — IdeaPads and ThinkPads are just parts of a larger puzzle.
Filed under: Cellphones, Desktops, Laptops, Tablets, Mobile, Lenovo
Source: Lenovo
It looks like T-Mobile was onto something with its UnCarrier remake, as the US wireless outfit picked up 1.1 million customers in Q2 2013 and saw a major boost in revenue. It also managed to keep postpaid churn (turnover of customers on contract) to its lowest level ever at 1.58 percent. The carrier said the numbers were helped by its Jump upgrade program and Simple Choice family plans, launched just last month. Despite a recent price bump in the iPhone, T-Mob said the model accounted for 29 percent of its handset sales, but added that other models, like Samsung’s Galaxy S 4, also moved well. In all, it sold 4.3 million total smartphones, making up 86 percent of total phone sales — up from 71 percent over last quarter.
Meanwhile, its 4G LTE network has rolled out to 116 metro areas so far, a more rapid pace than it promised, and now covers 157 million people. That was helped along with the rapid transition of freshly acquired MetroPCS, which T-Mobile said would expand to 15 new markets. It’ll get a further boost from its US Cellular spectrum acquisition, expected to be completed soon. The result of all that was a 20 percent boost in revenue to $6.3 billion over $4.4 billion last year, albeit with a year-over-year drop in net income from $207 million to a loss of $16 million. Still if T-Mobile keeps up its highly energetic marketing and new program additions, it should get back in the black soon.
Filed under: Wireless, Mobile, T-Mobile
Source: T-Mobile
Despite posting a small 15.36 million yen ($182 million) loss, it would be hard to call Sharp’s latest Q1 2013 financial quarter anything but a success after last year’s $1.2 billion debacle. After gaining investment from companies like Samsung and, more recently, Qualcomm, Sharp saw revenue up 32.6 percent to 607 billion yen ($6.2 billion) on strong LCD demand. In fact, sales of small- and medium-sized panels for smartphones and tablets were up a hefty 54.8 percent over Q1 2012, with its electronics division up 46.6 percent overall. The company thinks it’ll hit a net profit for the fiscal year thanks to “high-value” 4K LCD TVs, Aquos phones in Japan and more IGZO displays for upcoming handhelds. If devices like a rumored Retina iPad mini with a Sharp-built display bear fruit, we may just believe it.
Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets
Via: TNW
Source: Sharp
Sony’s first earnings report of the new financial year is in and it’s eked out a profit, albeit a small one. The $35 million net profit is an improvement from last year’s results for the same period, and the good news is most pronounced in its Mobile Products & Communications department. Revenue grew 36 percent from last year, partially due to changes in the value of the yen, but also thanks to higher sales for smartphones (9.6 million units), and a higher average selling price. The games division recorded an operating loss for the quarter, as sales of the PS3, PSP and PS2 dropped slightly while spending on R&D for the upcoming PlayStation 4 rose. Sony’s new TV strategy may have shown some results, with year-on-years sales up 18.2 percent and attributed to an “improved product mix in LCD TVs” and cost reductions.
Filed under: Cellphones, Home Entertainment, HD, Mobile, Sony
Source: Sony Q1 2013 earnings (PDF), Slides
Nintendo has just revealed its consolidated results for the April-June quarter, and they show a significant 3.8 percent decline in sales compared to the same quarter last year — despite (or perhaps because of) the release of the semi-next-gen Wii U. This console sold just 160,000 units during the quarter, or less than half the number of units shifted between January and March. The company’s original sales projections for the device, and its hope of selling nine million units by March 2014, are now a distant dream — we’re looking at a lifetime total of just 3.61 million sales. On a more positive note, however, it still managed to sell a million Wii U games, and 1.4 million 3DS handhelds. In addition, the year-over-year fall in revenue was much smaller than the one Nintendo suffered in Q2 2012, and its operating loss was much smaller too — just under five billion yen in the red. Factoring in all the company’s various sources of income, it managed to eke out a net profit of 8.6 billion yen, or $88 million, so there’s some life in this playful old outfit yet.
Source: Nintendo (PDF download)
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