earnings

HP foresees $8B write-down for third quarter

Hewlett-Packard said today that it is swapping executives in its enterprise services unit and taking an $8 billion charge to write down goodwill associated with the division. HP also noted that more employees are taking early retirement packages than previously expected.

In a statement with a bevy of moving parts, HP said that its non-GAAP earnings in the third quarter would be better than expected. However, HP's reshuffle of the services unit as well as the goodwill charge indicate that the company hasn't quite figured out how to compete with IBM. HP Enterprise Services revenue, which accounts for … Read more

Facebook's stock: The bleeding just won't stop

Ouch!

Shares of Facebook dropped another four percent today, leaving the company's stock price just above $20 a share -- almost half where its shares debuted in a mid-May IPO. And let's not even talk about the $45 a share Facebook hit on its first day of trading. That seems like a distant memory.

The news hasn't changed since Facebook's latest wave of selling, which began when Zynga spooked investors with its lousy earnings report last Wednesday and continued with Facebook's own unspectacular earnings. Fear of mobile. Fear of a slowdown in user growth. And, … Read more

Apple's iPhone margins hit 58 percent, nearly double iPad's

Although Apple's iPad stole the show in the company's latest earnings report, its iPhone is the breadwinner.

Between April 2010 and March 2012, Apple was able to secure gross margins of 49 percent to 58 percent on U.S. iPhone sales, according to Reuters, which obtained the data from court documents unsealed yesterday and filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. Apple's iPad, on the other hand, generated gross margins of 23 percent to 32 percent between October 2010 and March 2012.

Apple does not provide gross margin figures on individual … Read more

Facebook shares down 13% as earnings disappoint

Facebook investors are bracing for yet another disappointing day on the Nasdaq.

The social network's shares are trading down 12.8 percent to $23.40 in premarket trading today. If this keeps up and the stock closes the day around that level, it would mark the stock's lowest per-share closing price since Facebook went public in May. Facebook's lowest closing price so far is $25.52.

Facebook's drop is due to a disappointing showing in the second quarter that saw the world's largest social network post a loss of $157 million on $1.2 billion … Read more

Smartphone sales drive record Samsung quarterly profits

Samsung Electronics, the world's largest consumer electronics maker, reported a record second-quarter net profit Friday on the continued strong sales of its smartphones.

The South Korea-based company said net profits for the three months ending June 30 rose to $4.5 billion, an increase of 48 percent over the year-ago period, in line with guidance the company gave earlier this month. Earnings rose 3 percent from the previous quarter but was lower than a market consensus of $4.8 billion.

"Despite a difficult business environment, we achieved stable profits in the second quarter through our differentiated products and … Read more

Zuckerberg to Wall Street: No need to unfriend us yet

On Facebook's conference call with analysts today, CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his top lieutenants repeatedly stressed that they plan to take their time rolling out more ads on mobile devices to avoid angering users.

And in doing so, they are angering Wall Street.

After Facebook posted unspectacular results for its second quarter -- its first report as a public company -- management offered few details about what to expect in coming months.

The absence of specificity came as a disappointment to Facebook watchers. Citigroup's Mark Mahaney said that while the results shouldn't be viewed either "as … Read more

Zuck says Facebook phone 'won't make much sense'

Looks like a Facebook phone -- at least one built by the social network -- won't be in the works, according to comments made by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg today.

"Building our own phone won't make much sense for us," he said during the company's first earnings call in response to a question about whether or not it's important for Facebook to make money off mobile through both apps and hardware.

Zuckerberg pointed to the popularity of the Facebook mobile app, and said FB wants to support a system where other apps can be … Read more

Amazon posts mixed Q2 results, disappointing Q3 outlook

Amazon's second quarter results were mixed and the third quarter outlook disappointed.

The e-commerce giant reported second quarter earnings of $7 million, or a penny a share, on revenue of $12.83 billion, up 29 percent from a year ago.

Wall Street was looking for earnings of 2 cents a share on revenue of $12.88 billion. Amazon's revenue clearly fell short of expectations, but the earnings results for the second quarter were more debatable. Amazon said that the second quarter earnings included a loss of $65 million related to the integration of Kiva Systems, which was recently … Read more

Facebook earnings match estimates; 955 million users

Last updated: 3:05 PM PT

Facebook posted second-quarter earnings in line with Wall Street's expectations -- and so far that's not good enough.

In its first earnings report since going public in late May, Facebook posted a net loss of $157 million, or 8 cents a share, compared with net income of $240 million, or 11 cents a share, in the year-earlier period. Revenue came in at $1.2 billion, up from 32 percent a year ago.

On an adjusted basis, Facebook made 12 cents a share. While that was in line with what Wall Street had … Read more

Ignore the hype surrounding Facebook's first earnings report

commentary Facebook will report its first quarterly earnings as a public company today when the markets close. The hype is unbelievable. It's almost like the company's IPO all over again.

Here are 10 headlines to give you an idea of the type of scrutiny the social-networking giant is enduring:

Facebook Efforts on Advertising Face a Day of Judgment Facebook stock: First earnings report will be crucial Zuckerberg, Facebook have much to prove in first earnings report Facebook earnings have a lot to live up to Facebook Q2 Earnings: Everyone In The World Is Watching Three Reasons the Facebook Earnings Report Will Disappoint … Read more