quarterly earnings

With the dawn of Windows 8 coming in this next quarter, it's time for Microsoft to brace itself for a big change - or what they hope will be a big change after a rather modest financial report here in their Q1 report for 2012.  This report has them coming in at $16.01 billion in revenue, which is good, with $5.31 billion in profit, which is certainly OK, but not spectacular for the beast of a company.  This update has them coming up over their Q4 report just one quarter ago, but compared to last year at this time, the big M isn't doing nearly so well. 

In what very well may be the worst move Google's printing company PR Donnelley has ever made, they've filed the company's draft 8K earnings statement without authorization - because of this situation, Google's stock fell several points and they were forced to end trading for the day to avoid catastrophe.  Releasing an earnings report, even a favorable one, is never something a company wants to do during the middle of a day in which stocks are able to be traded.  Google's PR company here doing such a thing means that they're in for a world of hurt, to put it lightly. 

With Windows 8 on the horizon and the school season just beginning, it would appear that Intel's profits this most recent quarter are not doing as well as they had the quarter before it.  Today's Q3 earnings report showed Intel to have a third-quarter profit fall of 14% while they noted operating expenses as being on the climb and personal computer sales declining.  The quarter reported today showed Intel with revenue of $13.6 billion, this number having a range of error plus or minus $500 million. 

Compared to the earnings report in the quarter directly before this one, RIM is looking pretty good considering they've had a nat GAAP loss of $235 million USD on revenues of $2.9 billion.  The quarter before this one we saw RIM with a net loss of $518 million on $2.8 billion in revenue - this is also the first time in the last three quarters that they've pushed their quarterly revenue upward instead of downward.  This report comes after a particularly positive BlackBerry Jam session earlier this week which saw a boost in stock prices for the Canadian company. 

With Apple finally announcing that next Wednesday, September 12th, will be the day we all see the brand new iPhone 5 all those market watchers and predictions are ramping up.  After Apple made their announcement this morning researchers have already started predicting Apple's sales this quarter could go way beyond previous predictions with the arrival of the iPhone 5. 

Quarterly Earnings for HP were reported today with Meg Whitman, the company's chief executive, noting that they're "still in the early stages of a multiyear turnaround."  This comment in addition to assurances that HP was "making decent progress despite the headwinds" came amid news that Hewlett-Packard had a net quarterly losss of $8.9 billion dollars - aka $4.49 a share.  The company has been in a rather tumultuous bit of a mix up over the past few years as major events in the mobile industry and computing have taken their toll across the whole of the manufacturer's hardware and software collection. 

Dell announced today that its profits in the second quarter of its fiscal year fell 18% from the year before, landing at $732 million and prompting an after hours stock price dip.  At the time of this writing, Dell's stock is down by 4.28% to $11.81 after hours, with the stock finishing the regular trading day at $12.34, only a 1.75% decrease.  The Wall Street Journal reports that Dell's sinking profits come from the computer manufacturer's struggles with a consumer base that is increasingly opting for mobile devices while they decide to wait on PC purchases. 

Today the folks at Groupon have let it be known that compared to last year, they're doing fabulously, with this financial second quarter for them bringing a net income of $28.4 million USD.  Compared to last year at this time, that number is fabulous, with last year's result for this quarter being a net loss of $107.4 million.  Revenue also went up 45 percent up $568.3 million, this falling slightly short of a survey by Thomson Reuters which had analysts aiming for $573 million. 

Activision's financial results for its second quarter have landed, and things are looking pretty good for the massive publisher.  Net revenue came in at $1.075 billion for the year, which is actually better than the $950 million the company was expecting.  Earnings per share landed at a pretty healthy $0.16, which was again ahead of the company's $0.13 EPS projection for the quarter. 

With company after company issuing excellent quarterly financial reports lately, it was only a matter of time before one of them reported less-than-stellar results.  That company is Take-Two, which today reported GAAP losses of $110.8 million, ballooning from the reported loss of $8.6 million in the same quarter last year.  Net revenue took a dive too, falling from Q1 2012's $334.4 million to $226.1 million for the period ended June 30. 

Capcom is looking pretty good at the end of its first quarter for the year, thanks in no small part to the success of Dragon's Dogma.  We've known for a while that Dragon's Dogma has passed 1 million units shipped, but today Capcom reiterated that figure - along with the intention of turning Dragon's Dogma into a series - in its quarterly report.  Total Dragon's Dogma shipments currently sit at 1.05 million, with the game doing particularly well in Japan. 

Facebook may have delivered a decent quarterly financial report yesterday, but that apparently did little to quell investor concerns about the company, which only went public earlier this year.  Facebook's stock took another tumble today, falling $3.03 to $23.81.  That 11.3% decrease in stock price led to Facebook's stock hitting a new all-time low, and it doesn't seem like the stock is going to recover anytime soon.