Hasta La Gadget!

Sprint has just announced its second quarter 2013 financial results, and while it’s pay as you go plans are paying off in terms of income, shutdowns and charges caused a huge loss. The company posted $7.2 billion in earnings, its “highest ever” total and an eight percent increase over last year, but also took a net loss of $1.6 billion for the quarter. It’s chalking that up to a huge depreciation charge of $430 million and another non-cash hit of $623 million due to the Nextel platform shutdown, which is finally complete. However, the company added that over 4 million Nextel subscribers were “recaptured” to the Sprint platform since the transition commenced in early 2011. The shutdown and loss were anticipated, though and apart from that, Sprint said it’s in good place, having achieved “record levels of… postpaid subscribers, service revenue and postpaid ARPU.” It also completed its acquisition of Clearwire (at last) and US Cellular’s spectrum and customers, while itself being captured into Japanese carrier Softbank’s orbit. (For its part, Softbank managed a whopping 238 billion yen ($2.4 billion) in net income during the quarter.)

The operator now has 4G-LTE coverage in 151 markets, including 41 that are new as of today, including Philadelphia, the Bronx , Brooklyn, Jacksonville, Nashville and Oakland. As for subscribers, post post-paid customers are up from last year, but pre-paid clients are down due to “planned deactivations related to regulatory changes.” All of that resulted in an increase in churn (turnover) year-over-year to 1.83 percent. Eighty-six percent of its postpaid handset sales were smartphones, including about 1.4 million iPhones sold during the quarter. Going forward, the company just launched a raft of new data plans, including an Unlimited offering that guarantees customers who sign up will get to keep it for life. We’ll have to wait and see whether that and all the other machinations this quarter will finally push the company into the black.

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile, Sprint

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Source: Sprint, (2)

Facebook saw its revenue grow year-over-year in its Q1 earnings reported in May, and that trend has continued for its second quarter. The company has just announced that it’s pulled in $1.81 billion in revenue for Q2, beating analysts’ expectations, while net income stood at $333 million. Of course, much of that money comes from ads: Facebook says that revenue from advertising now represents 88 percent of its total revenue, and that mobile advertising accounted for about 41 percent of its total advertising revenue for the quarter. Mark Zuckerberg highlighted that last bit in a statement, saying that “the work we’ve done to make mobile the best Facebook experience is showing good results and provides us with a solid foundation for the future.”

In other numbers, Facebook also reported that it has 1.15 billion monthly active users as of June 30th, while its daily active users stood at 669 million. Mobile users were again its biggest growth area, with 819 million users actively checking in on their mobile devices each month (up 51 percent compared to the same quarter in 2012), and 469 million active on a daily basis. We’ll keep you posted on any additional developments that may come out of the company’s earnings call in the next hour.

Update: Zuckerberg and co. didn’t have much additional news to offer during the earning’s call, although he did comment briefly on Facebook Home, which he described as a “seed we’re planting,” and something to look at over the long term.

Filed under: Facebook

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Source: Facebook

Netflix has revealed its earnings report for the second quarter of 2013 which shows its worldwide customer base has grown by 1.2 million. The company now has “nearly” 30 million customers in the US (up 630,000) and 8 million internationally (up 610,000), with streaming revenue up 26 percent domestically and 155 percent outside the US. That compares well with the same period last year, when it added 530,000 customers in the US. This year has been highlighted by Netflix’s push into original programming and just last week that initiative resulted in a bounty of 14 Emmy nominations. Expect more in the future, as Reed Hasting’s letter mentions the company expand into documentaries and stand-up comedy specials.

According to the report, the new $11.99 family plan that supports four simultaneous streams has seen “limited uptake” (did anyone know it was available?), while the new individual profiles will be implemented in Q3. The company has rolled out a new streaming platform to its partners, and says its next goal is a single UI that works with various input devices, whether voice, pointer or d-pad. While we paw through the financial documents for more details, don’t forget Netflix plans to live stream video of its investors call on YouTube later. The event should start at 6PM ET and is embedded after the break.

Filed under: Home Entertainment, Internet, HD

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Source: Netflix Q2 letter to shareholders

Intel just posted decidedly mixed results for the second quarter. While it largely matched its outlook from the first quarter with $12.8 billion in revenue and a healthy net profit of $2 billion, it also saw sharp year-over-year drops in revenue from some of its core divisions. The PC Client Group, which makes the brunt of Intel’s processors, saw its revenue decline 7.5 percent; the Other Intel Architecture Group, which primarily handles mobile chips, faced a 15 percent drop. Intel hasn’t explained the dip, although there are a pair of major factors at work. In addition to facing a very rough PC market, the company only launched its Haswell architecture late in the quarter — there hasn’t been much time for customers to buy the new chips. Intel says there’s “strong acceptance” from early Haswell customers, however, and its outlook for the current quarter is slightly rosier as a result — it expects to make the same $13.5 billion in revenue that we saw a year ago.

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops, Intel

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Source: Intel

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