Nokia posts $834 million quarterly loss, smartphone share down to 35%

Read -- First loss in a decade
Read -- Nokia Q3 statement
quarter posts

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.
Verizon managed to pull off an impressive 15 percent growth in revenue in the fourth quarter of the year thanks in large part to its wireless unit, but its closest rival -- AT&T -- didn't manage to come across the same good fortune. Contrasting to its strong Q3, reported earnings per share fell 10 cents in Q4 versus the year prior, making for a nearly 20 percent drop; on the upside, full-year EPS still rose from $1.97 to $2.16 on the strength of 2008's first three quarters. The last three months of the year saw some 1.9 million iPhone 3G activations, 40 percent of which were new to the carrier -- not bad -- and data revenues consider to shoot through the roof, rising another 51.2 percent. Might as well invest the revenue you do have into beefing up that data network now that you've got everyone hooked on it, eh, guys?
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.
It has been a solid tick since Motorola had a quarterly earnings report that it didn't just send over via the paper airplane method and run for the hills, but the most recent one was actually worth cracking a smile over. After moving more mobiles in North America than it expected too, shares shot up 13% and bullish analysts began to think that the worst was over. Chief Executive Greg Brown noted that Moto will be "adding substantially to its product portfolio" here in the near future, which will hopefully enable it to get a stronger grasp on the number 3 handset maker ranking. During the most recent quarter, the outfit shipped 28.1 million phones to just barely maintain its market share lead over LG, though it remains to be seen if it can keep this up. No pressure Moto, no pressure at all.
Just last April, we heard that China Mobile had acquired more subscribers than the entire population of the United States of America. 15 months later, it has doubled up on that figure. Yep, China Mobile has just broken the 600 million subscriber mark as the country as a whole added 53.5 million new wireless users from January to June. Consequently, fixed-line customers fell by 9.3 million to 356 million during the same window of time. So, what's the over / under on months before the carrier breaks the big 1 billion?
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.
So Palm, what exactly have you been up to lately? Besides pumping out that tired, ho hum 800w, of course. The snoopers over at monoNews went and dug through your latest 10-K filing, and it seems as if that noteworthy Elevation Partners deal wasn't the only agreement you were wrapped up in during the past little while. As a matter of fact, we're seeing that during February of 2007, you "acquired the assets of two sole proprietorships [at a cost of $19.2 million] focused on mobile computing and media devices, one a developer of user interface environments and the other a developer of email software applications." Oh, and in October of last year, you "acquired substantially all of the assets [for $500,000] of a corporation focused on developing solutions to enhance the performance of web applications." Curiously, you nonchalantly failed to mention any names, but it's pretty clear that those new pick-ups weren't utilized in the last 16 months or so. 
RIM, -- previously known as NTP's patent punching bag -- seems to have clawed its way out of the misery that was last year and is showing some signs of a pleasant recovery. The Canadian messaging monster is reporting preliminary earnings in the 4rth quarter of $930.4 million, up 66% from the same quarter last year -- though we suspect that the $612.5 million payout to NTP is reflected here. Year totals are equally impressive with sales of $3 billion, which is up a booming 47 percent. Aside from the financial mumbo jumbo, what really caught our eyes is the addition of 1.02 million new subscribers (in this quarter alone) giving RIM a fat total of 8 million happy messaging enthusiasts. In the spirit of keeping things moving on the Blackberry front, what we really need to see now is some WiFi goodness in a handset, mmmkay RIM?







