earnings

AMD quitting handheld, TV chips amid more losses

AMD continues to stumble through another down year.

The company announced along with the release of its second-quarter earnings results Thursday that it is getting out of the handheld and digital television businesses. As has been the case for the last several quarters, AMD is continuing to lose bucketloads of money: $1.2 billion this time around.

The $1.2 billion isn't as bad as it looks at first glance, but it's still pretty bad. In order to get out of the business of making graphics chips for handhelds and digital TV processors, AMD has to take a … Read more

Live blog: Google rose loses bloom again

Most investors would be delighted with a 35 percent increase in net income, but not when it's Google in a soft advertising market and the results fell short of expectations. Here are highlights of what Chief Executive Eric Schmidt and others had to say during Google's conference call about its second-quarter financial results.

• To recap, Google reported net income of 1.25 billion, a 35 percent increase over the earlier year. But earnings per share, excluding various items, were $4.63 per share, short of the $4.74 expected by analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters. Revenue increased … Read more

Microsoft earnings don't wow

Sales of Windows were strong last quarter, but weaker than expected results from online advertising and the Office units led Microsoft earnings to come in a penny per share below analysts estimates. Microsoft also issued an outlook for the current quarter that fell short of what some analysts were projecting.

For the three months ended June 30, Microsoft said it earned $4.3 billion, or 36 cents per share, on revenue of $15.84 billion for the fiscal fourth quarter ended June 30. That was within the range Microsoft forecast in April, although revenue was slightly higher than the $15.… Read more

Google misses profit expectation, stock plunges

Faith in Google's financial strength, restored somewhat last quarter, turned out to be fragile as the company reported earnings Thursday that fell short of analyst expectations.

Google's net income rose 35 percent to $1.25 billion for its second quarter, the search giant said. Excluding various items, it reported earnings of $4.63 per share, short of the $4.74 expected on average by analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters.

In after-hours trading, the stock had dropped as much as $60, or more than 11 percent, according to CNBC. However, the stock recovered somewhat, down $46.31, or 9 … Read more

Microsoft earnings: What to watch

While much attention these days has centered around whether Microsoft will buy a big name to boost its online business, expect a lot of attention on Thursday to focus on the areas where Microsoft actually earns money.

The Windows business in particular will get attention after showing less than stellar results last quarter. Microsoft has forecast its Windows client unit will show between 7 percent and 11 percent growth for the quarter.

Overall, Microsoft said in April to expect earnings of 45 cents to 48 cents per share on revenue of $15.5 billion to $15.8 billion. (First Call … Read more

eBay profits up 22 percent on listing gains

It's not a bad week for eBay.

First the company defended itself successfully against a trademark lawsuit filed by jeweler Tiffany, and now the company has said that profits jumped 22 percent from last year. None of this impressed Wall Street much.

The Web's largest online auctioneer said after the close of trading Wednesday that second-quarter net earnings grew to $460.3 million, or 35 cents a share, up from $375.8 million a year ago. The boost came from an increase in item listings and sales growth at the company's PayPal division.

The company's share … Read more

Intel CEO on Atom chip shortage, flash problems

Intel CEO Paul Otellini had mostly upbeat news on Tuesday when the world's largest chipmaker reported solid earnings, but Atom processor issues and weakness in the flash memory business were recurring themes in the earnings conference call.

One of the most interesting comments made during the conference call on Tuesday by Otellini was about the Atom processor. "(Atom) is less than a third the performance of our Centrino (processor). You're dealing with something that most of us wouldn't use," he said.

Though he qualified this by repeating the mantra that Atom is "principally designed … Read more

Yahoo-Google deal could raise ad costs by double digits

Yahoo's search advertising agreement with Google could result in more than a 20 percent jump in keyword prices for advertisers, according to an independent report released Tuesday by SearchIgnite.

The report, culled from 12 million paid search clicks from January through June via 15,000 active keywords managed via SearchIgnite's technology, examined the cost difference between Yahoo and Google for tail terms, head terms, and brand terms.

A Yahoo-Google deal could drive up Yahoo keyword prices by an average of 22 percent if the Internet search pioneer seeks to gain as much profits as possible from that deal, … Read more

Red Hat had a good quarter, in case you didn't notice

The VAR Guy points to an interesting post by Red Hat's vice president of Investor Relations, Tom McCallum. The post isn't particularly newsworthy for the data it reveals, all of which was noted during Red Hat's earnings call.

No, it's interesting, as The VAR Guy suggests, because Red Hat felt the need to post it at all.

The VAR Guy wonders... is McCallum trying to tactfully rally investors around Red Hat?...Ahem. Is McCallum saying Red Hat deserves more credit (i.e., a higher share price?) for its most recent quarterly results, based on solid bookings? … Read more