Hasta La Gadget!

Despite a bit of bad press for its Model S and a less-than-ideal close to the 2012 financial year, things have been looking up for Tesla. Sales are on an upward climb, company CEO Elon Musk has sworn to deliver more superchargers, better service for customers and continues to tout his EV’s high resale value. After promising in Q4 of 2012 that Tesla would turn a profit the next quarter, the EV manufacturer has done so — generating $15 million in net income and $562 million in revenue in Q1 2013.

During the first quarter the company built 5,000 Model S cars, and is scheduled to build the same number in Q2 to keep pace with the 20,000 orders expected this year. To better service all those vehicles, Tesla opened 12 new service locations in Q1, with 18 more to come online by the end of 2013. Additionally, the company plans to start deliveries of Teslas in Europe in Q3. An investor call with Mr. Musk will be starting shortly, and we’ll update things here should he have any other news to share.

Update: During the call, Musk said that the company plans to build upon its newfound financial success by continuing to focus on increasing production efficiency for the Model S — which is why the Model X has been delayed until late 2014. He also made mention of the fact that roughly half the folks buying the 60 kWh Model S are upgrading to supercharging hardware at purchase (85kWh cars have it standard), and he expects that number to grow as the Supercharger network grows in 2013.

Filed under: Transportation

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Source: Tesla [PDF]

The PC market may be shrinking, but ASUS’ plan to avoid being swept away by its rivals seems to be working. The Nexus 7 maker’s latest financials reveal it made $3.5 billion in revenue, coining a quarterly profit of $202 million in the process — up 5.8 percent compared to both the previous quarter and the same quarter in 2012. While ASUS did see sales drops in its Notebook and PC Component divisions, these were offset by sales of 3 million tablets in the first three months of the year. The company is also making gains in America, which now accounts for 23 percent of ASUS’ business — up from 17 percent at the start of last year. While these current results are the company’s seventh consecutive earnings increase, ASUS is predicting sales will remain flat in the next quarter — perhaps affirming the rumor that we won’t see that rumored Nexus 7 replacement until Q3.

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops, Tablets, ASUS

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Source: ASUS (.PDF)

HTC’s financial results released today don’t contain much good news — take a quick look at the unaudited figures we reported last month. But despite its worst ever quarterly profit earlier this year, it’s banking on a substantial turnaround over the next few months. During an earnings call today referencing its audited results, HTC said that its outlook for Q2 2013 includes a revenue jump to around $2.4 billion — a huge increase from $1.45 billion registered in Q1. HTC CEO Peter Chou said that the company was fine “in terms of cash flow,” and that it would continue to support both Android and Windows Phone hardware in the near future. How about those recent supply woes? “We are working as hard as possible to meet the demand everywhere.” The company, however, wasn’t giving away any handset sales figures, something that the competition does enjoy flourishing.

When asked whether he was concerned with its recent hardware being copied, Chou was frank: ” In this industry, everything can be copied. I think there’s no point [in] thinking you can prevent this… but whether they would get this original quality — I think the most important [thing] is that you are first.”

Richard Lai contributed to this article.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, HTC

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Source: HTC

ZTE has managed to break a run of two straight quarterly losses by posting a net profit of $33 million in its first 2013 financials. Unfortunately, the extra cash has come from selling a $133 million stake in surveillance firm Shenzhen ZNV, rather than any surge in handset popularity. A three percent fall in sales, project holdups, and squeezed margins have all helped to heap woes onto ZTE’s plate — not to mention the ongoing hostility from the folks in Congress.

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile

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Source: Bloomberg

Samsung Electronics has released its Q1 2013 numbers and as it predicted a few weeks ago, business continues to boom. Operating profits are 8.78 trillion won as predicted, while net profit is up to 7.15 trillion won ($6.4 billion), up sharply from the same quarter last year when its net profit was 5.50 trillion won. Last year at this time we were still anticipating details on the Galaxy S III, but this time around Samsung is on the eve of its worldwide launch for the Galaxy S 4, which should push sales even higher. According to the documents, it’s maintained a “steady pace” for Galaxy S III sales, while Note II sales increased and the Tab2 series increased momentum. The news isn’t as good for PCs, shipments decreased due to weak demand. earnings in its TV business were also down from last quarter, blamed on the same lower overall market demand noted by LG in its earnings.

While analysts asked the questions w’ed like to hear more about on the earnings call — software updates to Android phones, the future of Tizen — the responses were predictably bland. Samsung did mention it plans to push Android updates to customers faster than the competition, a trend that hopefully catches on. Hit the link below to check out a PDF with all the slides, or look after the break for a press release detailing this quarter’s results.

Filed under: Cellphones, Home Entertainment, HD, Mobile, Samsung

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Source: Samsung (PDF)