Many of the world’s tech heavy-weights released their financials this week, and it can be hard to keep track of what’s going on. CBR rounds up the big winners and losers.
Apple
With the biggest quarterly profits ever reported, it’s safe to say that Apple is the clear winner this week. The inexorable rise of the California technology giant seems on course to continue, as a net income of $18 billion (that’s $6 billion a month) in Q4 drove Apple’s share price up more than 6 percent. The successful quarter came from a 29.5 percent rise in sales to $75.6 billion, considerably ahead of Wall Street estimates of $67.7 billion.
VERDICT: Win
VMWare
VMWare also hit a record, with a 15 percent rise in profits during Q4, hitting $1.07 billion. Sales of products such as AirWatch, Cloud Management, NSX, Hybrid Cloud and Virtual SAN helped to drive the rise. Beating out Wall Street estimates, VMWare saw its stock up by around 2 percent in extended trading.
VERDICT: Win
Ericsson
Ericsson’s flat sales meant a lacklustre set of results, with strong sales in EMEA just about taking the edge off a decline in the US. Net profit was down to SEK11.1 billion from SEK12.2 billion the previous year, while Q4 profits declined 35 percent year-on-year. However, some higher software sales and efficiency gains pushed up the company’s gross margin.
VERDICT: Lose
Nokia
Nokia’s results beat out analyst predictions, delivering 35 percent profit growth year-on-year. The growth was driven largely by the company’s North American LTE business, a market which is to some extent flattening out. Nokia did well this quarter, but it will need to show it can divest to growth markets if it is going to keep up a good performance.
VERDICT: Win
While Facebook probably isn’t as cool or hip as it used to be, now that so much of its membership consists of over-40s who want to share pictures of their kids, the company still managed to grow its user base and increase its profits year-on-year. Profits were up 34 percent year-on-year, which to a large extent reflects the success of the company’s focus on mobile.
VERDICT: Win
Samsung
The South Korean telecoms manufacturer saw a 27% year-on-year decline in net profit due to a decline in profit from its mobile division. Samsung reported $1.8billion in profit from mobile, a huge plummet from the $4.9 billion it raked in during the equivalent period in 2013. Improved performance in memory chips and display panels helped the company beat out analyst predictions.
VERDICT: Lose
Microsoft
Rising sales of tablets, smartphones, and software boosted revenues for the 40-year-old IT company, but a fall in Windows sales sent profits plummeting from $6.6bn to $5.9bn in the last quarter of 2014. However, the damage to its share price was fairly minor, dropping a fairly minor 0.36 percent.
VERDICT: Lose
The technology giant saw its revenue up 15 percent in Q4, with net income up to $4.76 billion from $3.38 billion in Q4 2013. However, this fell short of Wall Street expectations, partly due to a 3 percent year-on-year fall in online ad prices in the fourth quarter.
VERDICT: Win
Alibaba
On most assessments, this would appear to be a winner – revenue up, profit up…so why the dramatic 10 percent drop in share price? While part of the problem is the levelling off of revenue growth, a major culprit would appear to be recent accusations of Alibaba allowing fake products to be sold and shipped from its site. Stock price hiccough aside, the Chinese eCommerce giant seems to be broadly on the up.
VERDICT: Win
EMC
EMC‘s Q4 revenue showed a 5 percent year-on-year rise, hitting $7 billion, while full year revenues were up at $24 billion. Profits in the quarter totalled $1.15 billion for Q4, which represents an increase of 12 percent compared with Q3 2013. The biggest revenue growth came from North America at 7 percent.
VERDICT: Win
