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Sony Ericsson posts $299 million Q2 2009 loss, PlayStation-integrated phone (probably Aino) coming Q4

by Ross Miller posted Jul 16th 2009 @ 1:09PM

The good news, if you want to call it that, is that Sony Ericsson's most recent quarter loss is not as bad as its epic $382 million tab prior, and at this point there's no talk of further en masse job cuts. That said, this new report isn't exactly sunshine, and the Q2 results show a 213 million Euro ($299 million) net loss. Product shipments were around 13.8 million, down 43 percent compared with last year. Some blame is attributed to the focus on mid-tier feature phones in lieu of a greater smartphone push -- SE says it's working to correct that direction, but its higher end devices won't hit until fourth quarter. One interesting note is that one of those late-year handhelds is said to "integrate with PlayStation," but before you get excited over the oft-rumored PSP phone, we'd venture to say it's more likely that description's referencing the Remote Play-supporting Aino. From what we can tell, there's no indication of what's in the cards to improve Q3, so we won''t exactly be surprised if the story repeats itself three months from now.

Huawei ignores downturn, grows profit in 2008

by Chris Ziegler posted Apr 26th 2009 @ 8:34AM

"Loss" is a buzzword in the last couple quarters' worth of earnings reports from virtually every major manufacturer, but Huawei has somehow managed to operate in some bizarro La-La Land seemingly immune from the economic disaster unfolding around it. In 2008, the private Shenzhen-based firm posted an annual net profit of $1.15 billion, up some 20 percent from the year prior; it lost $776 million in the process due to the yuan's gains against the dollar, but that's still extraordinarily impressive. Interestingly, a majority of Huawei's business comes from outside China, suggesting that carriers around the world are looking outside traditional infrastructure suppliers like Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent, and Nokia Siemens to save a few bucks -- notably including Cox for its upcoming 700MHz buildout. 2009 might be a bit weaker thanks to soft demand in Europe, but still, they're predicting a whopping 29 percent growth in contract wins. Good to see some serious success in a down market, isn't it?

[Via mocoNews]

Sony Ericsson posts epic quarterly loss, adds another round of job cuts

by Chris Ziegler posted Apr 18th 2009 @ 8:44AM

Some good news, please, Sony Ericsson? Anything? Perhaps a surprise Idou ship date? You desperately need something to counter this dismal quarterly report you just dropped on a bad news-saturated public, showing a net loss of €293 million (about $382 million) in the three-month period ending March 31 -- more than €100 million more than the amount you shed in the quarter prior. Despite reassurances to the contrary, we suspect that neither Sony nor Ericsson are prepared to tolerate red ink out of their joint venture forever, and it doesn't help that you've put Android on the back burner indefinitely. What's more, we thought your staff might be able to exhale now that the "cost saving program" to curtail spending by €300 million by cutting 2,000 jobs is complete, but you've coupled the bleak report with the announcement of an additional 2,000 cuts. Your shipped units are off a staggering 35 percent year over year, to boot; maybe the "good" news -- and we're really reaching here -- is that your European rivals are sharing in your pain right about now. Chins up, guys, and get some quality product out of the labs.

Softbank's operating profit climbs 8.1%, isn't good enough

by Darren Murph posted Aug 6th 2008 @ 11:12PM

Seen exclusively, an 8.1% rise in operating profit is pretty remarkable. But when you consider that rival NTT DoCoMo just posted a 41% boost in profits... well, you get the point. Unsurprisingly, Softbank was able to increase its profits by reducing the amount of subsidies it applied to phones -- which obviously led to fewer new handset sales overall -- but analysts were still perturbed by the amount of discounts it did hand over. Reportedly, the street was expecting operating profits to top ¥86.1 billion ($805.7 million), but the outfit wound up missing the mark by a cool billion yen ($9.36 million). As for the iPhone 3G influence? Gotta wait 'til next quarter, bub.

[Via mocoNews]

Mobile phone sales drop 20% in Japan on less bountiful carrier subsidies

by Darren Murph posted Aug 5th 2008 @ 7:42PM

It doesn't take a finance major to figure out these two things are correlated, but yes, the fact that NTT DoCoMo saw profits increase some 41% while handset sales across Japan plummeted 20% do in fact have a common link. You see, DoCoMo (among others) has decided to lower rates and reduce subsidies in order to better exploit market conditions; the end result is that consumers are buying new handsets less often, leading to decreased sales for firms like Sharp and Matsushita. Many analysts are suggesting that some of the smaller outfits are likely to band together in an attempt to take on the new market, with IDC analyst Michito Kimura proclaiming that Japan would have "fewer mobile phone makers, fewer handset sales agents and fewer cellphone models." Hard to say if that's a net positive or negative just yet, but it should be interesting to watch, regardless.

[Via mocoNews, image courtesy of Flickr]

Sony Ericsson drags hard on Sony's numbers

by Chris Ziegler posted Jul 31st 2008 @ 11:11PM

It's easy to think of Sony Ericsson as a little drop in parent Sony's gargantuan bucket, but yeah, that's not so much the case. News of the manufacturer's dismal fiscal performance did its fair part in sending Sony's earnings into a free fall, thanks to a cash payout just 3 percent of what it was a year ago -- ¥17.1 billion all the way down to a meager ¥0.6 billion. Talk of Sony's exit from the joint venture is terribly, terribly premature, but you've got to wonder: since the company isn't really a holistic part of the Sony ecosystem, how many consecutive quarters would a crappy balance sheet be tolerated? [Warning: PDF link]

[Via mocoNews]

NTT DoCoMo posts 41% profit increase on reduced handset subsidies

by Darren Murph posted Jul 30th 2008 @ 10:59PM

Go 'head with your bad self, NTT DoCoMo. Party on down 'til six in the morning, because you just posted a quarterly profit increase of 41%. What's to thank for such a remarkable boost? According to a Bloomberg report, the outfit's decision to "reduce handset subsidies to customers" enabled it to bring in more cash despite the fact that sales fell 1.1% in the same quarter. President Ryuji Yamada proclaimed that the "acceptance of the monthly handset payment plan by our users helped bolster profits in the quarter," and he also highlighted a "considerable decline in the cancellation ratio." Still, some analysts are uncertain if the telecom company can maintain the growth, with Deutsche Bank AG's Kenji Nishimura stating that the "increase in profit was merely caused by the change in the accounting." Snap DoCoMo, are you just going to take that?

[Via mocoNews, image courtesy of Flickr]

Verizon has its own data success story in Q2 earnings

by Chris Ziegler posted Jul 29th 2008 @ 2:04PM

AT&T isn't having all the fun when it comes to subscribers' newfound love for data. Verizon has published the nitty gritty details of its second quarter earnings this week, revealing that data ARPU is up some 31.3 percent year over year -- undoubtedly a reflection on devices like the Glyde and XV6900 that are making email and quick visits to Engadget Mobile during morning meetings not just possible, but usably so. What's more, net adds totaled 1.5 million in the quarter, besting AT&T's 1.3 million -- not to say it needs to, considering the Alltel acquisition will end up giving 'em more than enough ammo to propel back into the number one spot, assuming that it ends up getting approved.

[Via mocoNews]

Sony Ericsson sees net profits fall 97%, looks to cut 2,000 jobs

by Darren Murph posted Jul 18th 2008 @ 1:32PM

Sony Ericsson warned the world just over a fortnight ago that things wouldn't be too rosy when it came time to announce Q2 results, and rosy things are not. Even though the handset maker was hoping and praying to break even at the end of the quarter, net profits ended up falling through the floor to the tune of 97%. As predicted, weak sales of mid-to-high-end mobiles were blamed for the bulk of the bad news, and it did affirm that conditions would remain rough for the rest of the year. Granted, the looming launch of the Xperia X1 should help matters a bit, but without a new stable of low-end cellies to send to emerging markets, it'll be a long road back to the top. Unfortunately, SE's sagging position in the market has left it slashing 2,000 jobs across the globe, though it didn't say exactly where the cuts would be made. It's okay SE, there's only one place to go when you're laying on the bottom... or something like that.

[Image courtesy of Flickr]

Read - Sony Ericsson's Q2 earnings
Read - Sony Ericsson plans job cuts

Sony Ericsson issues second profit warning of the year, hopes to break even in Q2

by Darren Murph posted Jun 30th 2008 @ 11:23AM

Although Sony Ericsson just churned out a rather impressive array of new handsets this month, it seems the outfit is still having trouble securing record-setting profits. Truthfully, it's struggling to break even, as evidenced by the second profit warning of 2008 that was issued last week. SE is pinpointing "disappointing European sales of its mid- and high-end mobile phones" as the reason it will likely not see a profit in Q2, and some analysts are suggesting that shipment delays and a dearth of low-end handsets also carry a share of the blame. 'Course, the hotly-anticipated Xperia X1 could certainly make for a lovely Q3, but only time will tell if enough folks shell out for it to make a difference.

RIM posts blockbuster fourth quarter

by Chris Ziegler posted Apr 7th 2008 @ 3:01PM

Global economic meltdown be damned! RIM's humming right along, apparently, reporting a killer fourth quarter with $412.5 million in profit, beating its own estimates and netting more than double the amount from the same period a year prior. Jim Balsillie himself chimed in on the results, saying that the company "did not see any evidence of slowdown in our enterprise business" -- amazing, considering that a stagnating job market would seem to lead to smaller BlackBerry budgets. Perhaps even more impressive, though, is that RIM is predicting first quarter earnings that'll significantly outpace analyst estimates in the face of stiff competition that's getting ever stiffer in RIM's own enterprise turf and an economy that's showing no sign of turning around any time soon. Don't suppose they could divert some of those fat profits to shoring up shaky servers, hmm?

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

RIM doubles up profits, revenue

by Darren Murph posted Dec 21st 2007 @ 9:12AM

Just as forecasted, Research in Motion has delivered quite the Wall Street-pleasing results in the fiscal third-quarter. The BlackBerry maker's recently released numbers showed a staggering $370.5 million profit compared to "just" $175.2 million in the same quarter last year. Furthermore, the firm's Q3 revenue rose to $1.67 billion from $835.1 million last year. According to co-CEO Jim Balsillie, it's pretty "clear [that] BlackBerry smartphones have crossed over from being viewed as a primarily enterprise product to being marketed as a strong mainstream offering," and considering the results, it's hard to argue that point. Oh, and just in case you haven't seen enough digits in one post, it should be noted that RIM shipped out more than 3.9 million handsets and added around 1.65 million BlackBerry subscribers in Q3, also. Not too shabby, eh?

Moto stays flat in third quarter, but says the rebound's coming

by Chris Ziegler posted Oct 28th 2007 @ 6:48PM

It ain't a magic bullet, but it looks like the RAZR 2 could end up being a big part of Motorola's turnaround after all -- a turnaround ironically necessary thanks to the company's over-reliance on the first gen RAZR. Though Motorola still ended up posting third quarter losses totaling $138 million in its mobile device division (compared to earnings of $843 million just one year prior), fourth quarter projections beat analysts' estimates, sending stock prices skyward in the process. A couple interesting bits from the report: the company's enterprise mobility group (think Q and the like) saw sales rise some 47 percent from a year ago, and remember that RAZR 2 we mentioned? Yeah, turns out Moto's nearing the magic one million mark already, with over 900,000 units having been sold. 'Course, it certainly doesn't hurt that all four national US carriers and several regionals have picked it up.

Alltel posts healthy profits, customer growth numbers

by Darren Murph posted Oct 22nd 2007 @ 6:41PM

Although those Chad-based commercials may be unnerving, something is sure working for Alltel. Reportedly, the carrier added 205,000 subscriptions in the most recent quarter, which is "double the year-ago increase," and it also noted that the rate at which it lost customers fell to just 1.9-percent. Furthermore, the outfit raked in some $283 million in profits -- a fine sum compared to the $187 million garnered this time last year. As for the buyout, it suggested that it was expecting a "favorable FCC vote to come soon," meaning that the "takeover by TPG Capital and GS Capital Partners should be completed by the end of the year."

RIM rakes in profits, expects good fortune to continue

by Darren Murph posted Oct 6th 2007 @ 9:28AM

Research In Motion has little to kvetch about these days, especially when you consider that it essentially doubled its sales and profits from the same quarter a year ago. The BlackBerry maker recently announced that it had not only passed the ten-million subscriber mark, but "that its profit and revenue more than doubled in the period." Furthermore, the firm noted that "results should be better than expected for the rest of the year," and it suggested that the "outperformance was driven by the strong product cycle, as well as the diversification of its user base across multiple geographies and market segments."