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Tag: financial results

  • Apple’s Installed Base Reaches All-Time High

    Apple’s Installed Base Reaches All-Time High

    Apple posted its Q1 2020 financial results today, reporting a record revenue of $91.8 billion.

    There were a number of significant takeaways from the report, not the least of which is a return to profit growth. The company reported a 9% revenue increase from the year-ago quarter.

    Just as significant, however, is that Apple’s installed base has reached an all-time high, coming in at 1.5 million devices.

    “We are thrilled to report Apple’s highest quarterly revenue ever, fueled by strong demand for our iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro models, and all-time records for Services and Wearables,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “During the holiday quarter our active installed base of devices grew in each of our geographic segments and has now reached over 1.5 billion. We see this as a powerful testament to the satisfaction, engagement and loyalty of our customers — and a great driver of our growth across the board.”

    According to AppleInsider, quoting Tim Cook, this represents an increase of over 100 million devices in the last 12 months. With Apple known for benefiting from a ‘halo effect,’ where users who purchase one device end up buying others because of their good experience, 100 million new devices is sure to have an impact on business down the line.

  • RadioShack To Close 1,100 Stores This Year

    RadioShack To Close 1,100 Stores This Year

    So, how much did RadioShack spend on that Super Bowl ad? It’s an important question as RadioShack isn’t a company that can be throwing around millions of dollars right now. In fact, it could have saved those millions of dollars to make its Q4 financial results look less dire.

    RadioShack announced this morning that its total net sales for Q4 were $935.4 million, a decrease from the $1,171.4 million it made during last year’s Q4. Its gross profit was also down from last year’s $419.3 million to $278.4 million. RadioShack blames these downward turns on decreased foot traffic in its retail stores as well as “soft performance in the mobility business.”

    To make matters worse, RadioShack posted a $191.4 million operating loss for Q4 compared to last year’s operating income of $16 million.

    All of this has led RadioShack to the decision that it must close 1,100 of its retail locations. The stores selected for closure are based upon “location, area demographics, lease life and financial performance.”

    But hey, at least that Super Bowl ad was super sweet, right?

    “Our brand equity remains strong, reflected in the sales growth we’re seeing in our new Concept Stores which redefine the RadioShack store experience,” said Joseph C. Magnacca, CEO. “We have also been encouraged by the positive response to our new brand positioning around “Do It Together,” which we kicked off with our award winning Super Bowl commercial. Importantly, our key hires during the fourth quarter in merchandising, global sourcing, planning and allocation and, more recently, our new chief financial officer, round out our new leadership team as we continue to re-build the business.”

    Going forward, RadioShack will attempt to return to profitability through a five step plan: “repositioning the brand, revamping the product assortment, reinvigorating the stores, operation efficiency and financial flexibility.” That all sounds well and good, but maybe it should start focusing more of its cash reserves on actually improving its stores instead of licensing dozens of characters from 80s for a silly ad.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Barnes & Noble Announces Q3 Results, Nook Still Losing Money

    With every passing quarter, Barnes & Noble continues to deliver bad news from its Nook division. What started out as a promising digital alternative to the book store’s traditional business has ended up being a joke in the face of continued innovation from competitors like Amazon. With its latest earnings report, Barnes & Noble proves yet again that it should just jettison Nook already.

    Barnes & Noble announced today that it brought in consolidated revenue of $2 billion in Q3, or a 10.3 percent decrease compared to Q3 last year. Things look a lot better for consolidated earnings as it brought in $173 million compared compared to last year’s $59 million. Barnes & Noble notes that last year’s Q3 earnings were impacted by a $74 million charge it took on unsold Nook inventory. By focusing on selling what it already had instead of introducing new hardware, Barnes & Noble was able to post the small amount of profit seen above.

    “During the third quarter, the company significantly improved its balance sheet and bottom line, while making real progress on our strategic priorities,” said Michael P. Huseby, Chief Executive Officer of Barnes & Noble, Inc. “Retail’s core comparable store sales benefited from a strong title line-up, strong execution and an effective advertising campaign. College entered into the spring back-to-school rush and saw continued growth in its higher margin textbook rental business. This resulted in a slight EBITDA increase for College, even after funding and developing our digital educational applications. We expect the soft launch of our higher education digital product before the end of this fiscal year. NOOK losses narrowed significantly as we achieved our objective of selling through much of our pre-holiday device inventory, while managing promotions to optimize sales.”

    Like always, Barnes & Noble’s best performing segment is its retail business. It notes that its retail business brought in $1.4 billion in revenue, a decrease of 6.3 percent from last year. This decrease in revenue is attributed to declining sales both in stores and online as well as store closings.

    The College segment brought in revenues of $486 million, a six percent decrease from last year. Sales also saw a decrease thanks to a rise in textbook rentals and generally lower textbook sales. The company notes that it was able to offset the decline in textbook sales with higher sales of merchandise in its College stores.

    Finally, Nook brought in revenues of $157 million in Q3, a 50.4 percent decrease from last year. Breaking that down, Barnes & Noble says devices and accessories brought in $100 million while digital content sales brought in the other $57 million. Both are down from last year thanks to a combination of “lower unit selling volume and lower average selling prices.”

    Barnes & Noble notes that it focused last year’s holiday season on selling its existing stock of Nook devices instead of introducing new hardware. This helped the company avoid a massive charge on unsold stock which led to Barnes & Noble only taking a $62 million loss instead of last year’s $191 million loss as a result of the aforementioned inventory charge.

    Even if the losses aren’t as dramatic, Nook is still losing money. Barnes & Noble will surely one day listen to reason and just get rid of Nook, right? Right?

    “We have taken steps to reduce costs and device exposure, while focusing our efforts to reverse the content sales decline,” continued Michael P. Huseby. “We remain committed to delivering world-class reading experiences to our customers through our reading centric e-Ink and color reading devices. The Company is actively engaged in discussions with several world-class hardware partners related to device development as well as content packaging and distribution. As a result, we plan to launch a new NOOK color device in early fiscal 2015.”

    There you have it folks, Barnes & Noble will continue its quest to find an audience for Nook. With the right amount of innovation and content offerings, Nook could be competitive yet again. Allow me to remain skeptical though as Nook is beginning to look an awful lot like the BlackBerry of tablets.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Time Warner Cable Reports $5.4 Billion In Q4 Revenue

    Time Warner Cable is somewhat of anomaly among ISPs. It’s one of the few national Internet providers that doesn’t have a wireless business, like Verizon or AT&T. Despite not having that very lucrative revenue stream, it did pretty well for itself in its fourth quarter.

    Time Warner Cable announced that its revenue for Q4 2013 grew 1.7 percent to $5.6 billion. Most of its revenue from its mostly stagnant residential services division which only grew 0.1 percent and pulled in $4.6 billion. Its business services division saw more impressive growth of 19.6 percent to $616 million while its advertising revenue declined 11.2 percent to $278 million.

    “I’m really excited about the progress we made in Q4 and the significantly better trends we’re driving as we enter 2014,” said Time Warner Cable Chairman and CEO Rob Marcus. “We are geared up to manage this company for the long haul. We’ve got the right assets and a talented, passionate and motivated team aligned around a thoughtful plan. We are executing well and we’ve started the year with meaningful operating momentum.”

    As for its full fiscal year, Time Warner reports that it made $22.1 billion in revenue in 2013. It notes that this is an increase of 3.4 percent from last year thanks to an annual increase in business and residential services customers.

    Speaking of residential services, Time Warner Cable boasts to now have 910,000 high speed data subscribers. It defines high speed data subscribers as anybody who subscribes to its 30Mbps or higher plans, but its 100 Mbps plan is still only available in a select few cities.

    Here’s a full breakdown of Time Warner Cable’s Q4 and fiscal year results:

    Time Warner cable Made $5.6 Billion In Q4

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Nintendo Posts Third Quarter Results, Wii U Still Doing Poorly

    The Wii U isn’t doing so well. Nintendo warned investors that would be the case earlier this month when it released its sales forecast for the fiscal year. While Nintendo’s fiscal year isn’t over until March 31, its Q3 results give us a pretty good idea of where the Wii U and 3DS will be come then.

    Nintendo released its Q3 financial results this morning and there wasn’t many surprises. The Wii U continues to do poorly with only 2.41 million units sold in the past three quarters. As for 3DS, the handheld managed to do much better with 11.65 million units sold in the last three quarters. Despite the disappointing Wii U sales, Nintendo managed to pull ahead in Q3 with an operating profit of $21.7 billion yen ($210 million).

    As for software sales, Nintendo reports that it sold 57.25 million 3DS software units in the first nine months of the fiscal year. Some of the heavy hitters this year included Pokemon X/Y which sold 11.61 million units and The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds which sold 2.18 million units.

    Wii U software sales were not as impressive, but Nintendo managed to sell 15.96 million software units in the first nine months of this fiscal year. While it didn’t provide exact sales, it states that The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD, Wii Party U and Super Mario 3D World all managed to sell over a million units.

    For its legacy systems, Nintendo reports that the original Nintendo DS line saw 0.11 million hardware units and 8.63 software units sold in the first nine months of this year. The Wii had it a bit better with 1.07 million hardware and 23.27 million software units sold.

    While Nintendo may have squeaked by with a small profit in the third quarter, it’s fiscal year results aren’t looking quite as bright. The company expects to post an operating loss of $35 billion yen ($339 million) for the fiscal year ending March 31. This will be its third consecutive annual operating loss.

    So, what does Nintendo plan to do about all of this? Nobody knows quite yet, but Nintendo plans on holding a shareholders conference tonight at 8 p.m. to discuss its plans for the future. Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata has already taken a 50 percent pay cut to offset the Wii U losses, but is expected to announce a new direction for the company at tonight’s meeting. Rumors are stating that Nintendo will be releasing mini-games and demos on smartphones to bring people to its own hardware and games, but the company has since denied that report. As for what will actually be announced – who knows?

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Microsoft Reports Record $24.52 Billion In Revenue In Q2

    Over the holidays, Microsoft launched a number of new hardware products, including the Xbox One and Surface 2. As it turns out, those product launches combined with its new focus on devices and services led to a record quarter for the Redmond giant.

    Microsoft announced today that it has made $24.52 billion in revenue in its second quarter that ended on December 31. Its operating income during Q2 was $7.97 billion and net income was $6.56 billion. It also added $0.78 per share.

    “Our Commercial segment continues to outpace the overall market, and our Devices and Consumer segment had a great holiday quarter,” said Steve Ballmer, chief executive officer at Microsoft. “The investments we are making in devices and services that deliver high-value experiences to our customers, and the work we are doing with our partners, are driving strong results and positioning us well for long-term growth.”

    The devices and Consumer business was the real winner this holiday season as Microsoft saw growth of 13 percent to the tune of $11.91 billion. While Windows 8 sales were down, Microsoft notes that Windows 8 Pro sales were up 12 percent. The launch of the Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2 helped double the Surface division’s revenue to $893 million. As for the Xbox division, the company sold 3.9 million Xbox One consoles and 3.5 Xbox 360 consoles during Q2.

    “We delivered record revenue as demand for our business offerings remains high and we made strong progress in our Devices and Consumer segment,” said Amy Hood, chief financial officer at Microsoft. “These results reflect our focus on execution, cost discipline, and long-term shareholder value as we continue to drive the strategic transformation of the company.”

    Its enterprise revenue also saw a lot of growth with the division growing 10 percent and earning $12.67 billion in revenue. SQL server, System Center, commercial cloud services and Office 365 all showed explosive growth with revenue and customers growing by more than two times.

    “We significantly outpaced enterprise IT spend as we continue to take share from our competitors by delivering the devices and services our customers need as they transition to the cloud,” said Kevin Turner, chief operating officer at Microsoft. “Our commercial cloud services revenue grew more than 100% year-over-year, as customers are embracing Office 365, Azure, and Dynamics CRM Online, and making long-term commitments to the Microsoft platform.”

    This will probably be the last quarterly report with a statement from Steve Ballmer. Enjoy it while it lasts.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • BlackBerry Announces $4.4 Billion Third-Quarter Loss

    BlackBerry today released its third quarter financial report and the results are about as dire as everyone expected.

    BlackBerry is reporting a $4.4 billion loss today, illustrating just how dire the situation is for the Canadian tech company. Over half of that loss ($2.4 billion) comes as part of a long-lived asset adjustment charge and over $1.3 billion related to an inventory charge. This translated over the quarter into an $8.37 loss per share.

    As the inventory charge suggests, BlackBerry posted dismal revenue numbers for the third quarter. The company’s revenue for the past quarter was just shy of $1.2 billion – a 56% drop in revenue from the third quarter of 2012.

    That BlackBerry’s higher third quarter 2012 revenue was posted before the company ever released its BlackBerry 10 smartphones demonstrates how large a failure BlackBerry 10 truly is. The company estimates that it sold 1.9 million BlackBerry devices during the previous quarter – with “most” of them being older BlackBerry 7 devices. That’s nearly half the 3.7 million devices the company sold during this year’s second quarter.

    The BlackBerry 10 failure became apparent to investors after its $965 million second-quarter loss, and BlackBerry soon after announced its intention to be acquired for $4.7 billion by an investment consortium led by FaiFax Financial Holdings. That buyout fell through and the BlackBerry board quickly booted CEO Thorsten Heins, announcing plans for a reorganization. Throughout all of this BlackBerry has continued to downsize its workforce with layoffs that have been taking place for over one year now.

    BlackBerry’s interim CEO John Chen has made it clear that he will be making sweeping changes to the way BlackBerry does business. Instead of the high-end smartphone market, the company will focus on its core business of mobile enterprise services.

    “With the operational and organizational changes we have announced, BlackBerry has established a clear roadmap that will allow it to target a return to improved financial performance in the coming year,” said Chen. “While our Enterprise Services, Messaging, and QNX Embedded businesses are already well-positioned to compete in their markets, the most immediate challenge for the company is how to transition the devices operations to a more profitable business model.

    “We have accomplished a lot in the past 45 days, but still have significant work ahead of us as we target improved financial performance next year. However, the company is financially strong, has a broad and trusted product portfolio to work with, a talented employee base and a new leadership team dedicated to implementing our new roadmap.”

  • Barnes & Noble Releases Q2 2014 Financial Results, Nook Still Losing Money

    Barnes & Noble has not had the best year as it attempts to reinvent its physical book store business while losing money on its ailing Nook brand. For its second quarter results, it looks like that trend is continuing with little good news to be had.

    Barnes & Noble reported this morning that its second quarter consolidated revenues came in at $1.7 billion, or an 8 percent decrease from last year. The good news is that its consolidated earnings increased to $76 million, or a 13.7 percent increase from the previous year.

    “During the second quarter, Barnes & Noble grew earnings through improved margins and reduced expenses, while also completing another successful College rush season,” said Michael P. Huseby, President of Barnes & Noble, Inc. and Chief Executive Officer of Nook Media. “The company is focused on executing its plans for the holiday season and our booksellers are prepared to welcome holiday shoppers and recommend thoughtful gift ideas for everyone on their list. We have a terrific book title line-up this holiday season, a leading assortment of educational Toys & Games and a full selection of Nook devices, including our recently released new Nook GlowLight.”

    Let’s just get the bad news out of the way first. Despite Barnes & Noble commitment to the Nook brand, it appears to be dying. In its second quarter, the Nook business, which includes hardware, digital content and accessories, only brought in $109 million, or a 32.3 percent decrease from a year ago. Going deeper, we see that both digital content and hardware sales are both down with device sales taking the biggest hit.

    Barnes & Noble’s retail segment did much better this past quarter with $921 million in revenue. This is only a 7.5 percent decrease from the previous year, and the bookseller chalks that up to the lack of a major release this year, like last year’s Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy, and a number of store closures.

    While revenues may have been down, the bookseller’s retail operation generated $37 million in earnings, or a 21.2 percent increase over the last year. The company says its increase in earnings despite a sales decline was due to “strong expense management, including higher store productivity.”

    The third pillar of Barnes & Noble’s operations – college textbook sales – pulled in $738 million in revenue, or a 4.6 percent decrease from last year. Earnings also declined to $84 million. The bookseller attributes this decline to the increase in textbook rentals, but it was able to offset a potentially larger loss through the “higher margins associated with textbook rentals” as well as “a greater sales mix of general merchandise.”

    For its next quarter, Barnes & Noble expects it retail business to decline in the single digits. There’s no word on what it expects from its Nook business, but it’s probably not good. The company might want to seriously start considering its founder’s offer of taking the retail operation private and selling off its Nook business to a third party.

    [Image: Wikimedia Commons]

  • Nintendo Sold 460,000 Wii U Units In The Last Six Months

    The Wii U hasn’t been doing so hot this last year as the new console struggled to find an audience thanks to its high price and lack of first party games. Nintendo started to address both of those problems in September, but it seemingly wasn’t enough to have any positive impact on its latest quarterly results.

    Nintendo announced today that it had managed to sell 460,000 Wii U units over the last six months. It’s an improvement from earlier this year when the system only managed to sell 360,000 units in the first six months of 2013, but it’s still not great.

    The company notes that it’s two big Wii U software releases in the last six months were Pikmin 3 and The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD. Both titles have undoubtedly contributed to an uptick in Wii U sales, but it’s still slow going for the console. Overall, Nintendo has sold 6.30 million Wii U software units over the last six months.

    So, what about Nintendo’s others systems? For the 3DS, Nintendo reports that it sold 3.89 million hardware units globally in the last six months. It’s been even better for software as the company has sold 27.38 million 3DS software units over the last six months. Among those sales, the heavy hitters were Animal Crossing: New Leaf and Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon.

    As for the Nintendo DS family and the Wii, Nintendo sold 100,000 and 470,000 hardware units respectively. Let that sink in for a moment there. The 7-year-old Wii sold more than the Wii U in the last six months.

    Despite having another gloomy quarter, Nintendo says things are on the upswing. It expects to sell through more Wii U units in the holidays thanks upcoming titles like Wii Party U and Super Mario 3D World. It also expects the price drop and value-added bundles will help contribute to its success around the world.

    As for the Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo expects an excellent holiday season thanks to the release of Pokemon X/Y and the Nintendo 2DS.

    The 3DS will continue to do well into the holiday season, but the Wii U, which has already faced considerable competition from the years-old Xbox 360 and PS3, will have to face more challengers when the PS4 and Xbox One launch next month. Analysts are already predicting that both consoles will do gangbusters, and the Wii U may very well get lost in the next-gen excitement.

    As the old adage goes, however, never count Nintendo out.

    [Image: Nintendo/YouTube]

  • Amazon Announces Q3 2013 Results, Sales Up 24%

    Back in June, Amazon announced that its quarterly sales were up 22 percent. That growth has now been confirmed to have continued into its third quarter this year.

    Amazon announced this afternoon that its net sales for Q3 2013 increased 24 percent to $17.09 billion. The retailer notes that net sales would have increased by 26 percent if it excluded the $332 million it in Q3 thanks to “unfavorable impact from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates.”

    Amazon also announced that operating cash flow increased 48 percent to $4.98 billion. On the other hand, its free cash flow decreased 63 percent to $388 million. It notes that its free cash flow was impacted by the $1.4 billion purchase of corporate office space and property in Q4 2012.

    As for operating loss, Amazon announced that it was down to $25 million in Q3 2013, compared to $28 million in Q3 2012. Net loss was also down to $41 million in Q3 2013, compared to $274 million in Q3 2012.

    “It’s been a busy few months—we launched a new Paperwhite and new Kindle Fires to positive reviews and surprised people with the revolutionary Mayday button—average Mayday response times are just 11 seconds!” said Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com. “And that’s not all. In the last 90 days, our AWS team got back to work on a big government contract, we brought 8 million square feet of fulfillment center capacity online, deployed 1,382 Kiva robots in three FCs, provided a new venue for artists to reach customers, signed up millions of new Prime members, announced Kindle MatchBook, Login & Pay, and nine new original TV pilots, joined the Code.org coalition, acquired TenMarks—a company that helps kids with math, scored a win for customers who want to use Kindles on airplanes even during takeoff and landing (also, a big hat tip to Nick Bilton on that one), began hiring and training 70,000 new U.S. FC employees to help serve customers this holiday season, and saw the Kindle Million Club grow to include 14 KDP authors.”

    In its Q4 2013 guidance, Amazon says to expect net sales between $23.5 billion and 26.5 billion, and an operating income of $500 million.

    In after hours trading, Amazon’s share price is up 27 points to 359.60.

    [Image: Amazon]

  • Verizon Posts Strong Third Quarter Results

    T-Mobile decided to rewrite the wireless carrier business model earlier this year with its Un-Carrier plan. At the time, Verizon customers asked the nation’s largest carrier to follow suit. It didn’t, and its latest financial results show that it doesn’t have to either.

    Verizon announced today that it had a strong third quarter this year with total operating revenue coming in at $30.3 billion, a 4.4 percent increase compared to Q3 2012. It also posted an operating income of $7.1 billion, a 30 percent increase over Q3 2012. It also added 1.1 million subscribers this past quarter, with 927,000 of those subscribers being postpaid. Overall, Verizon now has 101.2 million subscribers, a 5 percent increase year-over-year.

    “These strong third-quarter results reflect Verizon’s long-term investment in reliable, high-quality networks to deliver value to customers,” said Lowell McAdam, Verizon chairman and CEO.” Our unwavering focus on wireless, FiOS and strategic enterprise services has produced consistent performance, and we’ve delivered double-digit earnings growth in six of the past seven quarters. Verizon’s strategic networks form a powerful distribution platform for future growth and innovation.”

    Verizon notes that smartphones accounted for 67 percent of all devices on its network last quarter. This is up from 64 percent in Q3 2012. Furthermore, it has managed to migrate 42 percent of its postpaid customers to its Share Everything plan.

    As for Verizon’s 4G LTE rollout, the company says that 4G LTE services are now available to 99 percent of its 3G footprint. In other words, its 4G LTE coverage now covers 97 percent of the U.S. population and is available in more than 500 markets.

    Aside from its successful wireless service, Verizon also posted growth in its wireless FiOS service. It gained 173,000 FiOS Net and 135,000 FiOS Video subscribers in the last quarter leading to a total of 5.9 million FiOS Net subscribers and 5.2 million FiOS Video subscribers. It also added 56,000 regular broadband customers in the last quarter as well. This led to revenues of $3.7 billion, or a 4.3 percent year-over-year increase.

    On the news, Verizon’s share price has risen by a little over 3 percent. It’s now trading at $48.78 per share.

    [Image: Verizon Wireless/YouTube]

  • Microsoft Reports Fourth Quarter Revenue Of $19.90 Billion

    There’s a lot of doom and gloom talk surrounding the PC market these days. Can Microsoft survive in such an antagonist climate? It certainly thinks it can, and its latest financial results show that it’s making money in the areas defined by its recent push into the devices and services business.

    Microsoft reports today that it pulled in $19.90 billion in revenue in its fourth fiscal quarter ending on June 30. Microsoft says its revenue was impacted by three major things – a decline in the PC market, a $900 million charge related to Surface RT inventory adjustments, and $782 million of deferred revenue related to its Office Upgrade offer.

    “We are working hard to deliver compelling new devices and high value experiences from Microsoft and our partners in the coming months, including new Windows 8.1 tablets and PCs,” said Steve Ballmer, chief executive officer at Microsoft. “Our new products and the strategic realignment we announced last week position us well for long-term success, as we focus our energy and resources on creating a family of devices and services for individuals and businesses that empower people around the globe at home, at work and on the go, for the activities they value the most.”

    Going into specifics, Microsoft CFO Amy Wood says that their revenue was bolstered this quarter by strong demand for its enterprise services alongside other services like Xbox Live:

    “While our fourth quarter results were impacted by the decline in the PC market, we continue to see strong demand for our enterprise and cloud offerings, resulting in a record unearned revenue balance this quarter. We also saw increasing consumer demand for services like Office 365, Outlook.com, Skype, and Xbox LIVE. While we have work ahead of us, we are making the focused investments needed to deliver on long-term growth opportunities like cloud services.”

    For its fiscal year 2013, Microsoft says that it earned $77.85 billion in revenue and $26.76 billion in operating income. These results were further impacted by $540 million of deferred revenue related to Microsoft’s Windows upgrade offer and a $733 million fine it paid out to the European Commission.

    As for the individual divisions, they all see revenue increases across the board. Microsoft reports that its Business Division revenue grew 14 percent for the fourth quarter and 3 percent for the full year. The Server & Tools division grew 9 percent for the quarter and 9 percent for the full year. The Windows Division saw its revenue grow by 6 percent for the fourth quarter and 5 percent for the full year. The Online Services Division grew 9 percent for the fourth quarter and 12 percent for the full year. Finally, the Entertainment and Devices Division grew 8 percent for the fourth quarter and 6 percent for the full year.

    Microsoft announced its massive restructuring after its fourth quarter ended so we won’t be able to see what came of that until its first quarter results three months from now. Will Ballmer’s plan of condensing the Microsoft business into a single entity focused on Windows pan out? We’ll probably not see much evidence either way with its next quarter results, but we might see something by the end of the year.

  • eBay Has A Strong Second Quarter, Pulls In $3.9 Billion In Revenue

    eBay Has A Strong Second Quarter, Pulls In $3.9 Billion In Revenue

    eBay has been doing pretty well for itself over the last few years. It’s latest financial results report doesn’t disappoint as the online auction house has reported another quarter of increased revenue.

    On Wednesday, eBay reported revenue for the second quarter increased by 14 percent to $3.9 billion. It’s net income during the last quarter was $640 million, or $0.49 per share. It also reported that total company Enabled Commerce Volume grew 21 percent last quarter to $51 billion. Its mobile commerce presence is also continuing to grow with eBay saying that downloads of its mobile apps have exceeded 179 million since their introduction in 2008.

    “We had a strong second quarter, with $51 billion of enabled commerce volume across Marketplaces, PayPal and eBay Enterprise driving double-digit revenue and earnings growth,” said eBay Inc. President and CEO John Donahoe. “Macroeconomic headwinds in Europe and Korea will continue to be a challenge in the second half of the year. But our core businesses are strong and we continue to attract millions of new customers each quarter through mobile innovation. We remain confident in our ability to meet our goals and drive global commerce innovation and leadership.”

    PayPal is continuing to do well with eBay reporting that its revenue has increased by 20 percent to $1.6 billion. The financial service also gained 4.7 million more subscribers during the quarter for a total of 132 million subscribers.

    eBay Marketplace reportedly had a strong quarter as well with revenue of $2 billion, or an increase of 10 percent. It also gained 3.5 million subscribers during the quarter for a total of 120 million subscribers.

    eBay Enterprise, formerly GSI Commerce, also saw continued growth with $246 million in revenue, or an 11 percent increase. It also boasts that its enterprise clients have seen a 19 percent same stores sales growth.

    Even with the strong showing, eBay share price has declined by almost 4 points. It’s currently trading at $53.41.

    If you prefer your financial information in a more visual format, eBay has condensed its earnings report into a convenient infographic:

    eBay Has A Strong Second Quarter

  • LinkedIn Nails its Fourth Quarter, Yearly Earnings

    LinkedIn Nails its Fourth Quarter, Yearly Earnings

    If there’s one thing LinkedIn is, it’s consistent. The company has slowly built its brand and membership numbers in the crowded social media space where other companies are getting bloodied.

    LinkedIn today announced its fourth quarter 2012 and year-end 2012 financial results, and, once again, the social network for professional networking hit its marks.

    The company pulled in revenue of $303.6 million in the fourth quarter of 2012, an 81% increase over the fourth quarter of 2011. Non-GAAP net income was also up at $40.2 million and its non-GAAP diluted earnings per share rose to $0.35.

    For the whole of 2012, LinkedIn took in $972.3 million, an increase of 86% year-over-year.

    “2012 was a transformative year for LinkedIn,” said Jeff Weiner, CEO of LinkedIn. “We exited 2011 having successfully revamped our underlying development infrastructure. Based on that investment, we said that 2012 would be a year of accelerated product innovation, and it was. The products we delivered throughout the year drove member engagement and financial results to record levels in the fourth quarter.”

    For their fourth quarter earnings, the company cited strong revenues of $161 million from its “Talent Solutions” recruiting products and $83.2 million from its Marketing Solutions products. Subscription revenue from premium memberships to its social network rose 79% to $59.4 million.

    LinkedIn set ambitious goals for itself in 2013, and expects to bring in between $1.41 billion and $1.44 billion.

    “Continued investment in our talent and technology infrastructure drove momentum in both product and monetization, resulting in record revenue, profitability, and cash flow,” said Steve Sordello, CFO of LinkedIn. “As we look forward to 2013, we remain excited about the value LinkedIn will create for members and customers in the coming year.”

  • Netflix Added 2 Million Streaming Subscribers Over the Holidays

    Though the competition to provide robust streaming services is heating up with the growth of Hulu Plus, Amazon Prime Instant Video, and the new Redbox Instant, Netflix is still holding its own. The company this week announced its fourth quarter financial results, and the news is overwhelmingly positive.

    Netflix managed to add just over 2 million new subscribers to its Instant Watch streaming service, over 9 times the number it added in the fourth quarter of 2011. Internationally it added 1.8 million new streaming subscribers, bringing the total for 2012 to 10 million new streaming subscribers.

    In a sign of the times, the number of new subscriptions for Netflix’s original DVD-by-mail service have been dropping steadily for the past year, and the company only added around 380,000 of those subscribers in the fourth quarter of 2012.

    Given the huge deals Netflix has had to work out with content providers in recent years, it might seem nearly impossible for the company to turn a profit. It has managed though, to make a slim profit of $8 million on $945 million in total revenue.

    Netflix wasn’t afraid to address its competition in its report. The company pointed to other streaming subscriptions as “a different service” due to the differing unique content between services. Netflix’s main concern with other streaming services is the content they share, as that could lead to other services being seen as a replacement for Netflix. To ease investors’ minds, Netflix pointed out that of its top 100 movies and top 100 TV shows, Amazon’s streaming service only has 73 of them, and Hulu has only 27.

  • Barnes & Noble’s Fiscal 2012 Year-End Financial Results

    Barnes & Noble, Inc. just released their fourth quarter financial results for the full fiscal year of 2012 ending on April 28th. They also announced that the NOOK operating segment will now feature a separate earnings report and the formerly segmented BN.com results will be integrated into the retail reports.

    Consolidated revenues for the company grew 0.4% to $1.4 billion year-over-year. Consolidated fourth quarter earnings before taxes and interest, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) loss of $11.1 million. Sounds bad, but it’s an over 50% improvement over last year at the same time. Net loses are ip 3% from last year and came in at just under $58 million or $1.08 per share.

    Fiscal 2012 consolidated revenues increased to $7.1 billion form last year, which is a 2% increase. Consolidated EBITDA also increased. They are up 5% over last year and came in at $171 million. Net loses improved 7% and are down to just under $70 million or $1.41 per share.

    Fiscal 2012 includes pre-tax legal and settlement-related expenses of $20.7 million, and $14 million from litigation with Microsoft, which has been settled.

    Effective tax rate for the company is 27% for the quarter and 29% for the full year. The tax rate was effected by a $5.9 million compensation-related permanent tax difference charge related to past earning periods, which ended up being charged to the current period. It had an overall $0.10 per share impact.

    Here’s the individual segments breakdown from their earnings report:

    Retail:

    As a result of the change in segment reporting, the Retail segment now includes results from the Barnes & Noble bookstores and BN.com. Retail sales were $1.1 billion for the quarter and $4.9 billion for the full year, increasing 0.5% for the quarter while decreasing 1.5% for the fiscal year. Comparable bookstore sales increased 4.5% for the quarter and 1.4% for the full year, as compared to the prior year periods. Comparable bookstore sales benefited from the liquidation of Borders’ bookstores during fiscal 2012, increased sales of NOOK products, and a strong title lineup including The Hunger Games and Fifty Shades of Grey trilogies. Core comparable bookstore sales, which exclude sales of NOOK products, increased 6.9% for the quarter and 0.7% for the full year. BN.com sales continued to decline for the quarter as well as the fiscal year.

    College:

    The College segment, which includes results from the Barnes & Noble College bookstores, had revenues of $228 million for the quarter and $1.7 billion for the full year, increasing 5.7% for the quarter and decreasing 1.9% for the year, as compared to the prior year. As compared to the year ago period, fourth quarter sales were positively impacted by the recognition of textbook rental sales deferred from the third quarter. However, full year sales were lower as compared to a year ago, due to a shift from selling new and used textbooks to lower priced textbook rentals. Comparable College store sales decreased 2.2% for the quarter and 0.3% for the full year, as compared to the prior year periods. College comparable store sales reflect the retail selling price of a new or used textbook when rented, rather than solely the rental fee received and amortized over the rental period.

    NOOK:

    The NOOK segment, which consists of the company’s digital business (including Readers, digital content and accessories), had revenues of $164 million for the quarter and $933 million for the full year. NOOK segment comparable sales increased 1% for the fourth quarter while increasing 45% for the full year, as compared to the prior year periods. Device sales declined during the fourth quarter due to higher third-party channel partner returns, lower selling volume and lower average selling prices. In order to optimize the supply chain for new products, the company took back NOOK Simple Touch inventory following the previously announced holiday sales shortfall. Digital content sales increased 65% for the fourth quarter and 119% for the full year on a comparable basis, growing comparable digital content sales to $483 million for the full year. Digital content sales are defined to include digital books, digital newsstand, and the apps business.
    Comparable NOOK sales reflect the actual selling price for digital books sold under the agency model rather than solely the commission received. Additionally, such sales include all deferred NOOK device revenues, and device sales to third-party channel partners on a “sell-in” basis net of estimated returns.

    Newco Separation:

    On April 30th, the company announced that it has formed a strategic partnership with Microsoft to form a new subsidiary, Newco, which is comprised of the company’s NOOK digital and College businesses. The company continues to be actively engaged in the formation of Newco and is in the process of implementing the work necessary to complete the separation and close the Microsoft transaction.

    William Lynch, Chief Executive Officer of Barnes & Noble, comments on the final results of the quarter:

    “We grew our business in 2012 while continuing to make the necessary investments for the future of the business,”

    “In digital, our NOOK content sales continued to explode with 119% year-on year growth. In the quarter we also announced a historic new partnership with Microsoft that will include a significant investment in Newco, and that will capitalize the company to fuel continued growth in digital and international expansion.”

    “Lastly, we announced NOOK Simple Touch with GlowLight, that we started shipping in the first quarter of fiscal 2013, which has quickly become the highest rated eReader in the market.”

    “At retail, we had a terrific year growing comparable bookstore sales 4.5% for the quarter and 1.4% for the year, a result of our effective new merchandising efforts and continued industry consolidation. As we look out to fiscal 2013, we feel the company is strategically well positioned to grow value for shareholders.”

  • LinkedIn Q1 2012 Financial Results Shred Analyst Expectations [UPDATED]

    LinkedIn released its financial results its Q1 2012 results this afternoon and things are looking good for the premier network for professionals. The company’s financial weather vane looks to be pointing north, which was encouraging to LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner.

    “LinkedIn’s solid performance in the first quarter built on the company’s momentum in 2011,” Weiner said. “We saw strength across all key metrics from member signups and engagement to significant revenue growth across our three product lines.”

    Some key points:

  • Revenue for the first quarter was $188.5 million, an increase of 101% compared to $93.9 million in the first quarter of 2011.
  • Net income for the first quarter was $5.0 million, compared to net income of $2.1 million for the first quarter 2011. Non-GAAP net income for the first quarter was $16.9 million, compared to $5.8 million for the first quarter of 2011. Non-GAAP measures exclude tax-affected stock-based compensation expense and tax-affected amortization of acquired intangible assets.
  • Adjusted EBITDA for the first quarter was $38.1 million, or 20% of revenue, compared to $13.3 million for the first quarter of 2011, or 14% of revenue.

    • Analysts had expected that LinkIn’s showing for the first quarter would be a strong one, but LinkedIn hurdled over those expectations with impressive ease. Analysts anticipated that LinkedIn’s shares would post at $0.09 but LinkedIn nearly doubled that with the Non-GAAP ES valued at $0.15.

    This is the seventh consecutive quarter that LinkedIn has posted a year-over-year growth of more than 100%. Getting down to the details of LinkedIn’s outstanding performance, Revenue from Hiring Solutions products totaled $102.6 million, an increase of 121% compared to the first quarter of 2011. Hiring Solutions revenue represented 54% of total revenue in the first quarter of 2012, compared to 49% in the first quarter of 2011. On the marketing side, revenue from Marketing Solutions products totaled $48.0 million, an increase of 73% compared to the first quarter of 2011. Marketing Solutions revenue represented 26% of total revenue in the first quarter of 2012, compared to 30% in the first quarter of 2011. Finally, revenue from Premium Subscriptions products totaled $37.9 million, an increase of 91% compared to the first quarter of 2011. Premium Subscriptions represented 20% of total revenue in the first quarter of 2012, compared to 21% of revenue in the first quarter of 2011.

    Revenue from the U.S. totaled $120.8 million, and represented 64% of total revenue in the first quarter of 2012. Revenue from international markets totaled $67.6 million, and represented 36% of total revenue in the first quarter of 2012.

    Revenue from the field sales channel totaled $101.5 million, and represented 54% of total revenue in the first quarter of 2012. Revenue from the online, direct sales channel totaled $87.0 million, and represented 46% of total revenue in the first quarter of 2012.

    It’s not even been a year since LinkedIn became the first U.S.-based social network to file an initial public offering and given the company’s steady ascent, it appears that the road ahead is nothing but clear lanes and green lights. It will be interesting to see if LinkedIn’s continued success will affect Facebook’s IPO later this month since it’s been demonstrated that investing in social network companies can be a lucrative investment. Earlier today, Facebook set the price range for its IPO at $28 to $35 a share, putting the company’s value somewhere between $77 billion and $96 billion.

    In the investors conference call following the release of the results, LinkedIn CFO Steve Sordello and LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner shared some more details about the first quarter. Sordello said that one of the next goals with mobile user engagement is to focus more on global expansion.

    Speaking of mobile users on LinkedIn, they tend to be some of the more highly engaged members on the site. Weiner cited the mobile applications for LinkedIn, including the recently released iPad app, as being instrumental in the uptick of user engagement. So far, he said, the reception to the iPad app has been encouraging. “We like what we’re seeing,” Weiner said.

    Other new features that contributed to increase in LinkedIn users is the second generation of the People You Might Know feature, which Weiner said has made it easier to link people together through faster and more complex calculations happening behind the scenes.