Hasta La Gadget!

Barnes & Noble reported its fiscal fourth quarter earnings this morning, and the financials make it clear that the company is still struggling to figure out how it fits into the larger digital reading ecosystem. All told, BN reported a quarterly net loss of $118.6 million (compared to $56.9 million from the year ago quarter) which works out to a loss of $2.11 per share on $1.3 billion in revenue.

Analysts weren’t expecting much going into this quarter (and BN’s own anemic guidance from Q3 didn’t inspire much confidence): the consensus according to Bloomberg was for the company to report a loss of $0.96 per share on $1.3 billion in revenue. They also predicted a 4% drop in annual revenue for the company, which was just about right on the money — the company reported $6.8 billion in revenue for fiscal 2013, as well as a corresponding loss of $154.8 million.

Ouch.

BN’s retail business didn’t look too hot this time around, as quarterly revenue was down 10% year-over-year to $948 million (though the company cites the strength of series like Hunger Games and Fifty Shades of Grey as inflating last year’s numbers). That may not be BN’s problem for too much longer though, as company founder Leonaro Riggio started openly opining on the notion of buying back the company’s 689 brick-and-mortar stores (not to mention bn.com) back in February. Should the transaction eventually come to pass — which is by no means a given — Barnes & Noble will effectively be left with its Nook Media business.

Meanwhile, Nook Media (which BN owns 78% of after you factor in Microsoft and Pearson’s stakes) continues to look like a real stinker this quarter. It reported a relatively scant $108 million in quarterly revenue, which represents a staggering 34% drop from the year-ago quarter.

The intensity of that dip is surprising, but not to some — some analysts have pegged the sales slump on the fact that Nook tablets lacked the productivity acumen and app access to compete with other low-cost devices. Barnes & Noble finally managed to fix that this past May by striking a deal with Google to fold Google Play Store access and a few stock Android applications like Gmail and Chrome into Nook tablets, while simultaneously trying to jump-start Nook sales by announcing slashed nook prices put in place for Fathers’ Day will stay in effect for the foreseeable future.

What is new is that Barnes and Noble is looking to open up the Nook brand to other OEMs itching to make their own tablets. The company will continue to offer its own first-party e-readers like the Simple Touch series as time goes on, but in a bid to minimize the risk inherent to churning out tablets in a crowded market, BN is leaving that work to third-party manufacturers. There’s no word yet on exactly when the company will officially kick off its so-called partnership program (though I suspect they’re already in talks with some OEMs), but it seems likely that the existing Nook HD and HD+ will be the last to bear BN’s fingerprints. Don’t expect them to disappear completely just yet though — they’ll be around at least through the holidays.

HP just posted its Q2 financial report, and despite somber news of falling profits and revenue, the company managed to beat consensus estimates and the stock has jumped more than 10 percent in after-hours trading. As for concrete figures, HP pulled in $1.1 billion in profit, which is down 32 percent from just one year ago. Revenue of $27.6 billion reveals a similar story, which is down 10 percent year over year. With respect to HP’s Personal Systems group, the company is pulling in a 3.2 percent margin, where revenue is down 20 percent year over year. Here, total unit shipments are down 21 percent, with an 18 percent decline for desktops and a 24 percent hit for notebooks.

Just three months ago, company CEO Meg Whitman promised a bright future for HP with plans to bring “a number of new programs and disruptive innovations to market in the coming quarters,” which likely includes such products as the Split x2. Whether consumers will respond remains to be seen, but for the moment, HP is keeping investors happy by returning $1.1 billion to shareholders through dividends and stock repurchases. Meanwhile, in a move to further set expectations, Whitman reiterated her confidence for the rest of the year, but followed with, “As I have said many times before, this is a multi-year journey.” The future remains just that, but for the moment, you can hit up the source link for a peek into the current financial health of HP.

Filed under: HP

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Source: HP

We doubt recent earnings reports at Dell have been met with balloons on the quad and sheet cake in the cafe. And that’s likely the case this time around as well. The PC maker reported revenue of $14.07 billion, but earnings of just $372 million or 21 cents per share — a bit shy of estimates. The company’s stock price is hovering around the $13.65 mark, the amount shareholders have been promised once the firm goes private later this year. As you might imagine, Dell’s books won’t be open to public scrutiny once that transaction closes, making this one of the very last earnings reports. Things may not be looking so good for Q1 2014, but will the company end its public streak on a high note? We’ll find out soon enough.

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops, Dell

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Source: MarketWatch, Dell (Business Wire)

Sony has reported its fiscal year Q4 2012 quarterly earnings results, and the company ended up in the black for the first time in five years, earning its first full-year profit since their 2008 fiscal year. However, the increased income surprisingly comes after the company experienced lower revenues for its camera, gaming, and home entertainment products.

As for the figures, Sony raked in $458 million in net profit for the year on $72.35 billion of revenue during the 12-month period. Sony originally predicted a net profit of $404 million, so the company certainly did better than they expected at first. It certainly beats a $5.7 billion loss the previous year.

Sony reported lower sales of several different product categories, including compact cameras, LCD televisions, and PlayStation gaming consoles. The PlayStation department brought in only $18 million of operating profit for the company, while compact cameras brought in $15 million. TVs also saw a loss at $897 million.

However, Sony raked in $509 million of profit in their movie division, which was one of their most profitable categories for the year. Overall, Sony’s year-over-year revenue was boosted up 4.7%, and the company expects to turn a profit of over $500 million for this current fiscal year, as well as selling 42 million phones during the next 12 months.

Sony shows first profitable year since 2008 is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Tesla Motors has released its Q1 2013 quarterly earnings results today after the company reported a pretty good quarter back in February. At that point, it seemed that the electric car maker couldn’t make any more money, but it seems they proved us wrong, raking in more cash for the quarter, as well as profiting for the first time ever.

The company sold 4,900 vehicles during the three month period, raking in $562 million in revenue, which is up a whopping 83% from last quarter’s $306 million. After it was all said and done, Tesla profited $11 million, which is barely pocket change, but it marks the first time in the company’s ten-year history that they’ve finished in the black.

Throughout the first quarter, Tesla claims that they built “400 or more” Model S vehicles per week on average, and they beat their original guidance of 4,500 cars for the quarter, shipping almost 5,000 Model S cars during the past three months. The company also reduced the amount of time it takes to building a Model S, lowering that time by around 40%, which allowed them to build more units.

Currently, Tesla says that they’re receiving orders for new cars at a rate of around 20,000 per year globally. However, Tesla doesn’t sell cars outside of North America, but the company hinted that there is an interest in selling Model S cars to regions in Europe and Asia. The company made a lot of announcements this quarter, including a new financing plan and a new warranty program that aims for guaranteed customer satisfaction.

Tesla Motors shows first profitable quarter in 10-year history is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.