Hasta La Gadget!

Score one for Samsung in its eternal struggle against South Korean nemesis LG. Whereas the Life’s Good crew were licking their Q4 2010 wounds yesterday, Samsung’s had the pleasure of announcing that the final quarter of last year helped it bust through all its previous fiscal records: total revenue ($139b), net income ($14b), and operating profit ($15.5b) all reached all-time highs. The fourth quarter’s contribution was $2.7b in operating profit, 80.7 million mobile devices sold, 12.72 million flat panel TVs shipped, and two million Galaxy Tabs distributed to Android lovers yearning for some Froyo. That last number’s pretty important as it shows the Tab’s sales have almost doubled over the last month of the quarter — it reached one million sales in early December — indicating that there is indeed a hunger for slate-based computing. Oh, and if you’re wondering what Samsung’s planning for the future, there’s a reminder that a device with a Super AMOLED Plus screen and a dual-core processor is coming to replace the Galaxy S in the first half of 2011. Good to know.

[Thanks, Tascien]

Continue reading Samsung Tabulates 2 million slates, 80 million phones sold in Q4 2010, breaks revenue records

Samsung Tabulates 2 million slates, 80 million phones sold in Q4 2010, breaks revenue records originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 28 Jan 2011 06:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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AT&T’s numbers are up, and they’re good: $31.4 billion in the fourth quarter of 2010, $653 million more than Q4 the previous year. 4.1 million iPhones and 442,000 tablets were put online by the company that quarter, helping to drive 2.8 million new wireless subscribers, 95.5 million total, and a boost in revenue per subscriber of 2.2 percent. That’s $62.88 average per month per subscriber — maybe ditching unlimited data is paying off. Additionally, the company posted its best ever Q4 wireless churn (subscribers switching carriers) of just 1.32 percent (1.15 percent postpaid), but we’re thinking the launch of a certain smartphone on a certain competitor could possibly have that number increasing ever so slightly this quarter. We’ll circle back in three months and see where things stand.

AT&T posts Q4 financials, 2.8 million subscribers added, revenue up 2.1 percent year-over-year originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 27 Jan 2011 08:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Stephen Elop’s first quarterly results as Nokia CEO have just come out, and while the company’s still growing, others seem to be speeding ahead of it. Nokia’s reporting its converged mobile devices (smartphones, to you and us) reached volumes of 28.3 million during Q4 2010, which is a neat bump from 20.8 million at the same time last year and 26.5 million in the previous quarter. However, in the context of the broader smartphone marketplace, that figure now amounts to only a 31 percent share, according to Nokia’s own estimates, which is a major dip relative to its 40 percent slice in Q4 2009 and 38 percent in Q3 2010. Elop’s perspective on the matter is as follows:

“In Q4 we delivered solid performance across all three of our businesses, and generated outstanding cash flow. Additionally, growth trends in the mobile devices market continue to be encouraging. Yet, Nokia faces some significant challenges in our competitiveness and our execution. In short, the industry changed, and now it’s time for Nokia to change faster.”

When your operating profit goes from €1.47b (€950m net) a year ago to €1.09b (€745m net) this year, the response should indeed be to change and to change fast. Nokia’s still not disclosing sales figures of the N8, but given that this was the first full reporting period where the company’s Symbian flagship has been on sale, it doesn’t seem to have had quite the impact Espoo will have hoped for. Wanna try again with the N9?

Update: Nokia’s investor relations call has borne a few more interesting tidbits from the new man in charge. Elop is quoted as saying Nokia must “build or join a competitive ecosystem,” with the latter verb in that sentence sure to renew discussions of why the Finnish company should / shouldn’t switch to an OS such as Android or Windows Phone 7. We still think that’ll be the very last resort over in Espoo, but Elop apparently thinks Nokia has the brand recognition and operator relationships to make such a move if it wanted to. Which of course it doesn’t. Or does it? Let’s wait for Nokia’s Strategy and Financial Briefing in London on February 11th — Mr. Elop’s expected to be a lot more specific about his company’s roadmap going forward on that day.

Nokia smartphone market share shrinks to 31 percent, operating profit takes a beating too originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 27 Jan 2011 06:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Yes, we are deep in Q4 2010 financial reporting season, and Motorola’s freshly independent Mobility arm is latest to step up and deliver its figures. Total revenue over the past three months reached $3.4 billion, marking a 21 percent increase year-on-year, net revenue from mobile devices was $2.4 billion, up by 33 percent year-on-year, and handset shipments were a seemingly healthy 4.9 million. That figure’s disappointed Wall Street estimates, however — the collective expectation, according to MarketWatch, was 5.2 million — and the net profit of $80 million is barely (for a company of this size) in the black. More doom and gloom is cast by Motorola itself, which is predicting a difficult first quarter of 2011 that will end with the company losing between 9 and 21 cents per share in net terms. Ah well, let’s try to enjoy the sunshine of Moto making money today and forget the rainclouds of tomorrow.

Continue reading Motorola Mobility reports robust growth in last quarter, but predicts difficult times ahead

Motorola Mobility reports robust growth in last quarter, but predicts difficult times ahead originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 26 Jan 2011 17:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hey, this interim CEO thing doesn’t seem to be too hard at all. Thomas Seifert, the temporary solution to the problem created by Dirk Meyer’s departure from AMD’s top spot, has had a pretty comfy ride reporting the company’s latest quarterly results. The pecuniary numbers themselves ($1.65b revenue, $375m net income) were tame and unexciting, but Seifert got to make a pair of juicy milestone announcements. Firstly, on the mobile and ever-so-efficient front, he noted that 1.3 million Fusion APUs (Accelerated Processing Units) have been shipped to partners since AMD started deliveries in November, and secondly, in terms of discrete graphics chips, he disclosed that the Radeon HD 5000 and HD 6000 series DirectX 11 GPUs have surpassed the 35 million units shipped mark. To give you some perspective on what that means, sales of Nintendo’s bestselling Wii console are hovering somewhere around the same figure. So yes, AMD, your wagon has momentum, but shouldn’t it have a driver too?

Continue reading AMD ships 1.3 million Fusion APUs, 35 million DirectX 11 GPUs, says it has ‘momentum’

AMD ships 1.3 million Fusion APUs, 35 million DirectX 11 GPUs, says it has ‘momentum’ originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 22 Jan 2011 07:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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