Hasta La Gadget!

In a Chinese press release we just received, phone maker Xiaomi has just announced that it generated a revenue of CN¥13.27 billion or about $2.16 billion in the first half of 2013. This easily exceeds the company’s CN¥12.6 billion or $2.05 billion revenue from the entirety of 2012, so things are already looking good ahead of the annual event on August 16th, when multiple products are expected to be launched — including a TV that got leaked last month.

CEO Lei Jun said that this is partly thanks to the 7.03 million Xiaomi Phones his company sold within the same period, and the release also praised the popularity of the Xiaomi Box plus various other accessories, such as the new in-ear headphones launched recently. In addition to that, Xiaomi now has 20 million users from around the world as of end of June, 14.22 million of which come from mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. The latter two became part of Xiaomi’s larger scope in April this year, with Hong Kong using the classic online retail model, and Taiwan doing the same but also selling devices through a partnership with local carrier Far Eastone.

Despite the surprising good announcements, Lei reminds his team at today’s celebration party to “forget about the results, they’re not the most important,” and that “only making products that make users scream can bring in long-term value.” The real challenge now is to tap into the more exotic markets, and Xiaomi has previously expressed great interest in Europe. Good luck with that, Lei!

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

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Though HTC has fallen shy of the $65 million in earnings investors were looking for in Q2 2013, at least it’s a marked improvement over last quarter’s disaster. It managed to improve profits to $41.6 million from a mere $2.8 million last quarter, based on unaudited figures. Likely reflecting demand for the flagship One and HTC’s ability to finally produce that handset in significant numbers, revenue also jumped to $2.4 billion — that’s bad in the sense that it’s a 20 percent drop relative to the same quarter last year, but it’s slightly better than the 33 percent year-on-year revenue shortfall we witnessed last quarter. Overall, these figures still pale in comparison to HTC’s historical performance and there’s no immediate prospect of things getting better. According to Reuters, the most serious problems occurred towards the end of the quarter, as sales for June swooned 26.4 percent versus Q2 2012 — a trend that puts a lot of pressure on the little shoulders of the HTC One Mini.

Filed under: Cellphones, HTC

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Source: Reuters

Every quarter is pivotal for BlackBerry right now, but the one covered by today’s earnings report (Q1 2014 in fiscal terms, or March through May 2013 on our calendar) is especially important. It’s the first full period of Z10 availability and also the first quarter to cover significant Q10 shipments to markets like Canada and the UK (although not the US). So far, the news looks mixed, but mostly glum: revenues are up to $3.1 billion, compared to $2.8 billion generated in the same quarter last year, which was when RIM (as it was called back then) announced significant job cuts and an equally major delay to its next-gen BB10 operating system and hardware range. However, none of that cash was retained as profit, despite all the cost-cutting measures. In fact, BlackBerry managed to lose $84 million, reversing the positive shift seen last quarter when the company kept a hold of $94 million as profit. Worryingly, the press release provides no breakdown of the crucial BB10 device shipments, versus older devices. There’s just a quote from Thorsten Heins saying “we are still in the early stages of this launch,” which doesn’t bode well — although an imminent earnings call should provide further information.

Update: Execs on the earnings call refused to break down Z10 and Q10 shipments specifically, but did say that 40 percent of the 6.8 million reported shipments were BB 10 devices — which adds up to a disappointing 2.7 million next-gen units.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Blackberry

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Via: Crackberry

Lenovo’s just announced its Q4 and full year 2012/13 financial results, and it’s touched new highs on the two most important indices. It earned $127 million on $7.8 billion in revenue for the quarter and $34 billion for the full year, both records for the company, while netting $635 million in profit for the full year — another all-time high. The only sore spot for Q4 was Lenovo’s laptop business, which dropped two percent over last year to $4.2 billion, but that’s a far milder plummet than many PC makers saw — thanks to a 74 percent revenue growth in China. Otherwise, desktop PCs held flat for the company at $2.4 billion during an otherwise down period, and it held firm as China’s number two smartphone manufacturer, seeing shipments grow at 206 percent year-over-year, double the average rate. It remains to be seen if Lenovo can continue to buck the downward PC trend that’s continued unabated with the release of Windows 8 — but if not, maybe we’d finally see some of its smartphones over here.

Filed under: Cellphones, Desktops, Laptops, Lenovo

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Source: Business Wire

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)