Hasta La Gadget!

Samsung has announced it first-quarter earnings (the full data won’t be in until April 26), and things are looking mighty fine for the Korean company. According to its estimates, it experienced a 53-percent rise in profit from January to March, raking in $7.7 billion. This is Samsung’s fifth record quarter in a row, and expectations are only going up as the GALAXY S 4, revealed last month, is destined to hit shelves in the coming weeks.

Samsung is worth about $220 billion, and is putting increasing pressure on Apple, its biggest competitor. Total sales for the quarter came in at 52 trillion won, with estimating putting smartphones sales between 68 million and 70 million, an increase from the 63 million sold last quarter. Out of its vast line of handsets, the Note and Galaxy S series’ are the most popular.

Smartphones are fueling Samsung’s profits, with the GALAXY S 3 having been a wild bestseller and lower-end Galaxy handsets selling well in locations like China and India. Not surprisingly, the mobile division is bringing in the most profits. According to Bloomberg, it’s Q1 mobile division profits were likely about 6.25 trillion won.

Although the mobile division is its powerhouse, Samsung’s display business also brings in quite a bit of its own profit. Bloomberg reports that the division likely saw a profit increase during the first quarter over last year, although estimates vary based on who you ask. The final numbers will be announced in a couple weeks, and we’ll be ready when they do, so stay tuned!

[via Reuters]

Samsung announces estimated Q1 financial data, hits another record is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

BlackBerry released its quarterly earnings for its Q4 2013 fiscal quarter, and the company brought in $2.7 billion in revenue, with $94 million of that being cold-hard profit. This is up from $14 million during the last quarter. Furthermore, BlackBerry founder Mike Lazaridis — who was the company’s co-CEO until January 2012 — has announced that he’s leaving the company.

BlackBerry’s profit this quarter is quite surprising, but the company ended up losing three million subscribers over a three month period, which is now down to 76 million subscribers globally, compared to 79 million subscribers during the previous quarter and 80 million users the quarter before that.

BlackBerry ended up selling six million devices during its Q4 2013 quarter, with one million of those being BlackBerry 10 devices (a.k.a. the BlackBerry Z10). BlackBerry’s Q4 2013 ended on March 2 of this year, so the BlackBerry Z10 sales don’t account for the US and Canada launches of the new phone, so we should be seeing a healthy dose of Z10 sales during the company’s next earnings report in three months.

During the company’s earnings call, CEO Thorsten Heins says that BlackBerry’s newest QWERTY device, the Q10, will be releasing sometime next month. As for Lazaridis, he will be stepping down from his current position of Vice Chair of the Board on May 1, and will be leaving the company entirely to focus on his new Quantum Valley Investments venture.

BlackBerry posts $94 million profit in Q4 2013, founder leaving company is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Adobe has reported its quarterly earnings for Q1 2013 that ended on March 1. The company has made $1.008 billion during the past three months, exceeding its own expectations of $750 million to $1 billion for the quarter. The company also announced that it has passed 500,000 Creative Cloud paid subscribers, while free users are past the two-million mark.

Compared to last year, the company’s revenue dropped slightly this quarter compared to Q1 2012, which showed a $1.045 billion revenue during the three months. However, the company’s paid subscriptions to Creative Cloud could boost the company’s financial results in the long term, but it may take a few quarters for that boost to occur.

The company’s user base for Creative Cloud is quickly gaining steam, since the service passed the 1 million user mark back in December, and already that number is over double. It was quite the year for Adobe, with the launch of Creative Cloud and a new version of Creative Suite, dubbed CS6, which includes a ton of software for designers and developers.

As for Adobe’s income for the quarter, operating income chimed in at $98.2 million, and net income was $65.1 million on a GAAP basis. On a non-GAAP basis, operating income was $240.7 million while net income was $177.9 million. Not a bad quarter for the company, even considering its revenue is down just slightly from last year.

Adobe rakes in $1.008b of revenue in Q1 2013 is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Barnes & Noble hasn’t been looking good lately, and the company’s Q3 2013 earnings that were announced today prove that something is going to have to change. Barnes & Noble reported a $6.1 million loss last quarter, which is a far cry from the $52 million the company netted during the same time last year.

As for revenue, Barnes & Noble made $2.2 billion during the quarter, which is down 8.8% year-over-year. As for NOOK sales, that division probably got hit the hardest, where revenue was down 26% compared to the same time last year, but as for digital content sales, the company saw a slight jump by 6.8%.

Of course, Barnes & Noble was expecting to take a big hit, so they’re about as surprised as we were (read: not surprised at all). NOOK made $316 million this past quarter, while the same time last year, it made $426.6 million. Overall, the company saw losses across the board, including their retail business, which saw a 10.3% decrease from last year.

However, it seems that the company may actually be changing things up a bit. Barnes & Noble founder Leonard Riggio is pondering the idea of buying the company back from shareholders, and shaking things up with the NOOK business — mostly throwing out the entire playbook and starting from scratch, but we’ll have to see what direction the company takes this year. It could be an interesting ride for B&N execs.

Barnes & Noble reports $6.1m loss in Q3 2013 earnings is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

HP has announced its first-quarter earnings for this year, and although things are lower overall than they were last year, the numbers come in higher than was expected, showing good things. The company brought in $1.2 billion in profit, with a total revenue of $28.4 billion. All in all, the shares came in over $0.10 higher than the most optimistic estimate.

The first quarter results for 2012 had been a tad higher at $1.5 billion, showing an expected drop. The price per share then is about 11-percent lower than it was last year, although as noted, it is still better than was expected. The company had a couple bad quarters in 2012, and things were looking down, especially in light of the botched Autonomy acquisition, which caused the company grief all around.

In addition to the nice numbers, HP also managed to reduce its debt by $1 billion, something it has been steadily doing for a few quarters now. This translated into a 115-percent jump in cash flow over the same quarter last year, and as a result, shares are up in after-hours trading, coming in at $18.50 over the $17.xx they were staggering at.

HP’s CEO Meg Whitman offered this statement: “While there’s still a lot of work to do to generate the kind of growth we want to see, our turnaround is starting to gain traction as a result of the actions we took in 2012 to lay the foundation for HP’s future.” She noted that the company exceeded its non-GAAP diluted EPS outlook, citing reasons of improvement in its market, channel, and execution efforts, as well the restructuring it made public in early 2012.

[via Venture Beat]

HP announces 2013 Q1 financial results, shows over $1bn in profits is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.