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Tag: results

  • EMC Q2 Results Better Than Expected, Completes Data Domain Acquisition


    EMC has reported a slight increase in revenue last quarter and provided an optimistic forecast for the second half of the year.

    The announcement came as it completed the USD $2.1 billion acquisition of data deduplication specialist Data Domain.

    The company said that IT budgets have stabilized and customers are more confident about their visibility.

    It reported net income of USD $205.2 million on revenue of USD $3.26 billion, down 11 per cent from a year ago.

    On the revenue front, EMC now projects 2009 sales of USD $13.8 billion compared with previous estimates of $13.5 billion.

    Data Domain, whose acquisition closed today, will contribute USD $200 million in revenue for 2009 and will be neutral to non-GAAP earnings.

    Meanwhile, third quarter revenue is expected to rise 2 to 3 per cent sequentially excluding Data Domain results. Data Domain’s inclusion results in sequential growth of four to five per cent.

    EMC CEO, Joe Tucci, said that EMC expects the company to generate double-digit revenue growth rates.

    "when IT markets resume to a more normal spending rate," he added.

    Meanwhile, the fate of EMC’s current data deduplication partner, Quantum Corp., remains unclear after EMC executives avoided mentioning the firm during the earnings call.

    To most industry watchers, the writing seems to be on the wall for Quantum.

  • Skype Users Rise by 37m, Revenues up 25% in Q2


    Skype’s subscriber base just keeps on climbing, with another 37 million people added in the second quarter – taking the total year-to-date increase to 75 million.

    Growing subscribers also means growing revenues and the VoIP company saw Q2 revenue jump 25 per cent year-over-year to USD $170 million.

    The Skype figures were contained within parent company eBay’s financial results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2009.

    Its news was not quite so good. The ecommerce company posted second quarter revenue of USD $2.10 billion, a $97.7 million year-over-year decrease.

    The year-over-year revenue growth of PayPal and Skype was offset by the effects of the stronger dollar and a modest decline in the Marketplaces business.

    Another healthy quarter of growth under its belt will do no harms to Skype’s Initial Public Offering (IPO) price as eBay prepares to take the VoIP company public in early 2010.

    Provided the P2P technology lawsuit gets settled first.

  • Palm Targeting Smartphone Growth – Not Apple


    Palm’s new CEO Jon Rubinstein believes there is sufficient growth in the smartphone market to profitably sustain "three to five players".

    He was speaking after announcing "strong and growing" sales of the company’s new Pre handset – with download applications now numbering more than 1 million three weeks after it launched.

    What Rubinstein didn’t reveal in unveiling Palm’s fourth quarter results – its last full quarter before releasing the phone – is how many Pre smartphones have actually been sold.

    Analysts estimate Palm has shipped about 150,000 units so far.

    Palm posted a narrower-than-expected fiscal fourth quarter net loss applicable to common shareholders of USD $105 million, compared with a loss of USD $43.4 million in the year-ago period.

    Palm said it could turn cash-flow positive in the second half of fiscal 2010 and reassured analysts that its capital position was sufficient.

    Revenue fell 71 per cent to USD $86.8 million.

    However, despite increased losses and falling revenues, Rubenstein said he was happy with the way the Pre launch had gone.

    While there have been problems with meeting demand at Sprint stores in the US, he said this is being addressed.

    "We’re successfully ramping supply to meet demand that is strong and growing," he said.

    The Pre, featuring Palm’s new WebOS, is entering a smartphone market full of competitors, from Nokia and RIM to HTC.

    A new iPhone 3GS launched last Friday and sold more than a million units in the first three days.

    However, Rubenstein said the "significant growth" forecast for the smartphone industry meant there is room for up to five smartphone manufacturers.

    "We don’t have to beat each other to prosper," he added

  • Vyke: VoIP market "Doing Well"


    VoIP provider Vyke expects to see a strong performance over the rest of 2009 as demand for the technology remains strong despite the global recession.

    While the company has announced a wider full-year 2008, which it said is due to acquisitions, it remains confident that the VoIP market is doing well.

    Vyke chairman Tommy Jensen said they expects to deliver results in line with original expectations over the course of 2009.

    He said that despite the difficult global economic situation and the work involved in the internal migration of operations from US to UK, the first five months of 2009 had progressed well.

    "We are optimistic about the organic and acquisitive growth opportunities currently available in the market," he said.

    VoIP has become an increasingly mainstream tool for businesses and individuals alike as access to high-speed broadband services becomes more widespread.

    Vyke highlights – Preliminary results for the year ended 31 December 2008:

    • Gross billing on all operations increased by 46% to GBP £39.0 million from £26.8 million in the previous year
    • Gross billing on continuing operations increased by 65% to GBP £30.0 million from £18.2 million in the previous year
    • Loss before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) on continuing operations: GBP £3.3 million (2007: loss £2.6m)
    • Loss for the year on continuing operations: GBP £4.4 million (2007: £3.0 million)
    • Loss for the year including discontinued operations: GBP £6.6 million (2007: £3.6 million)
    • Callserve Communications Limited and Iios Limited acquired in first quarter 2008
    • Disposal of loss making legacy businesses in second half of the year

  • Oracle Readies Take-Over As Sun's Loss Grows


    As Oracle prepares its USD $7.4bn acquistion of Sun Microsystem, figures have emerged about the server and software maker’s latest quarter losses.

    Sun announced on Tuesday that it lost USD $201 million in the three months ended March 29. A year ago, Sun lost USD $34 million.

    The surprise deal, announced last week, takes Oracle into a whole new area – hardware, writes Samantha Sai for storage.biz-news.

    In a letter to partners and customers Oracle president, Charles Phillips, wrote: "Our customers have been asking us to step up to a broader role to reduce complexity, risk and cost by delivering a highly-optimized standards-based product stack.

    "Oracle plans to deliver these benefits by offering a broad range of products, including servers and storage, with all the integrated pieces: hardware operating system, database, middleware and applications."

    The general opinion in the market, however, is that IBM was a better fit for Sun than Oracle. IBM was already in the storage business.

    Wedbush Morgan’s analyst, Kaushik Roy, said Oracle is getting into totally new markets in which they have no expertise or history.

    "I am skeptical. Oracle is more likely to hold on to the entire storage business," he said.

    "Sun bought StorageTek and destroyed the company because of poor execution. But Oracle has been much better in execution, and it is very likely that the current storage group within Sun will have a better opportunity to grow."

    Oracle president, Charles Phillips

    The impact on other storage players and their relationship with Oracle will be determined in time.

    EMC–Oracle had a good relationship. Now they will be competitors.

    Kaushik Roy said: "But now with Oracle and Sun selling HDS at the high end, it would compete with EMC.

    "We will wait to see how those relationships pan out."

    As a result of this merger, Oracle is likely to wind up Sun’s storage hardware business in the long term.

    However, for the present the operation may continue.

    Illuminata analyst John Webster said that he is going on the assumption that Oracle runs Sun as Sun for a while before it starts restructuring.

    Also unknown as yet, is the positon of Sun-NetApp and the patent dispute over the ZFS file system.

    Stifel Nicolaus analyst Aaron Rakers said that Sun’s Open storage may also hit a question mark.

    "We have often been intrigued by some of Sun’s storage technologies," he wrote in a research note.

    "However, we have continued to see limited traction from an execution standpoint."

    It is expected that the presence of Oracle in the storage market will enliven the scenario. NetApp, EMC or 3PAR must be feeling the heat.

  • Skype Revenues Continue Growing in Q1


    Its future with parent eBay may be uncertain but that hasn’t prevented Skype from continuing to generate revenue.

    eBay’s Q1 financial statements published this week show the VoIP company is still increasing revenue, minutes and users.

    In the first quarter of 2009, Skype had revenues of USD $153.2 million, up from USD $145 million in Q4 of 2008.

    If trading continues in this vein the company is on target for USD $600 million in revenues for the year.

    Skype added 37.9 million registered users in Q1 – up from 35 million new users in Q4 2008.

    This takes its total tally to 443.2 million.

    In addition, it rang up 2.9 billion Skype Out minutes in the quarter – panning out to just over 6.5 minutes per user.

    Certainly a healthy position for a company that could be spun off from its parent.

  • Apple Sold 3.8m iPhones in Q1 2009


    iPhone sales have boosted Apple’s quarterly profit by 15 per cent – despite economic woes and a new handset expected later this year.

    The company also said co-founder Steve Jobs intends to return from his medical leave as scheduled at the end of June.

    For the three months ended 28 March, Apple’s second-quarter net profits rose to USD $1.21 billion. In the same period last year Apple earned USD $1.05 billion.

    Apple said it sold 3.8 million iPhones worldwide in the quarter, more than twice as many as a year ago.

    iPhone revenues reached USD $2.2 billion for the quarter – a success that Apple’s Chief Operating Officer, Tim Cook, attributed to strong consumer interest in downloading applications. Apple expects to announce its one billionth app down load tomorrow.

    An estimated combined total of 37 million iPhone and iPod touch’s have created an enormous platform for developers, which he said "unleashes a whole new level of innovation that keeps Apple years ahead of everyone else".

    The popularity of the touchscreen smartphone has also helped the earnings of its exclusive US carrier, AT&T.

    Elsewhere, Apple sold 11 million iPods, up 3 per cent. However, its Macintosh computer line performed less well, with a 3 per cent fall in Mac sales and a 16 per cent drop in revenue.

    Overall, Apple’s average revenue per retail store sank 17 per cent in the quarter.

    Attention will now be focused on how the continuing economic situation – and the launch of Palm’s Pre and various other smartphones – impacts on the iPhone.

  • Nokia's Q1 Profit Drops 90% – But 5800 Smartphone Shines


    Nokia’s first-quarter profit plunged 90 per cent as the Finnish handset maker showed its vulnerabilty to the current economic difficulties.

    The world’s leading mobile manufacturer posted a net profit of just EURO €122 million (USD $161m), compared with EURO €1.22 billion (USD $1.58bn) in the year-ago period.

    One bright note was sales of Nokia’s first touchscreen S60 smartphone.

    The company revealed today that it has sold 2.6 million 5800 XpressMusic devices in just one quarter of availability.

    Overall, however, the company’s sales fell 27 per cent to EURO €9.28bn (USD $12.2bn) for the quarter, down from EURO €12.7bn (USD $16.77bn) in the first quarter of 2008.

    Handset sales were down 33 per cent to EURO €6.19 (USD $8.17bn), although the company did sell more phones than some analysts had predicted.

    Nokia shipped 93.2 million devices, down sequentially from the 113.1 million units it shipped in the fourth quarter of 2008 and down 19 per cent from the 115 million it sold in the year-ago quarter.

    Nokia’s market share remained steady at 37 per cent.

    While the Finnish giant’s result are hardly impressive, it isn’t alone in suffering from the downturm.

    Equally, the results were better than widely expected, which led to shares in the company rising by 8 per cent.

    Nokia sold 13.7 million converged (S60) devices, down from 14.6 million in Q1 2008 and 15.1 million in Q4 2008, of these 5 million were Nseries and 3 million were Eseries.

    Nokia’s industry outlook sees similar device volumes and market share for Q2, but expect overall conditions to improve in the second half of the year

    Olli-Pekka Kallasuvo, Nokia CEO, said:

    "In what has been an exceptionally tough environment, we continue to invest in a focused manner in consumer Internet services delivered across our broad portfolio of mobile devices. Combined, these solutions will drive our future growth. As an example in Q1, I am especially pleased with the performance of our first mass market touch product, the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic. Together with Comes With Music, it is a great example of Nokia providing solutions that consumers value.

    Regarding the health of the overall mobile device market, the inventory already in the sales channels decreased substantially during Q1 due to extensive destocking by operators and distributors. This adversely impacted our sales volumes in the quarter. However, it has also resulted in the demand picture becoming more predictable as we enter the second quarter."

  • Strong Q1 Expected from Nokia's 5800 Smartphone


    Nokia’s Q1 sales are expected to be down when accounced tomorrow – despite the success of its 5800 XpressMusic smartphone launched last year.

    Analysts estimate 2.5 million 5800s may have been sold in the first three months of the year – helped by repeated sell-outs in the UK and roll-outs into new markets.

    Key to the Nokia smartphone’s success is its cost – often undercutting the iPhone while offering comprehensive features.

    Despite the device’s strong sales, however, the Finnish mobile giant is expected to report a drop in overall shipments of 20 per cent, with revenues around USD $12.6 billion.

    The company had sales of USD $16.4 billion in the fourth quarter of 2008.

    While Nokia remains the leading global mobile maker, its position has been under fire recently – not least in the smartphone category where the iPhone and BlackBerry have nibbled at its market share.

    However, there may be positive news for Nokia. Some analysts expect the company to announce that it has reduced inventory levels from the fourth quarter of 2008, raising the prospect of an upswing in the second quarter.

    Recent measures have seen Nokia streamline its operations, cutting 1,700 jobs worldwide and temporarily suspending outsourcing for handset manufacturing.

    Nokia is also expected to provide more details tomorrow on reports that its joint venture with Siemens is bidding for parts of Nortel Networks’ CDMA carrier networks business.

  • Vyke Names New CEO, Confident of Continued Growth


    Vyke has appointed Kim Berknov as chief executive, effective from April 1.

    The announcement came as the VoIP service provider forecast it will meet market expectations for 2009.

    However, Vyke, which had expected to have a positive earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) figure by the end of 2008, said it now expected a loss of GBP 3.5 million for 2008, before exceptional costs of GBP 1.75 million.

    It expects a 46 per cent rise in gross billings to GBP 39 million for 2008.

    Despite this, Tommy Jensen, executive chairman of Vyke, said prospects for 2009 were encouraging with the company benefitting from acquisitions and a new product.

    Tommy Jensen, executive chairman Vyke

    "Trading in the current year has started strongly with the full effect of the cost synergies related to the acquisition of Callserve and Iios being realised during the first half of 2009," he said.

    The company expects to release its multi-channel Vyke Air platform, a new mobile service, next month.

    Earlier this month Vyke announced it had formed a partnership with mobile social networking company Nimbuzz.
    The move is intended to build upon the strengths of both Vyke and Nimbuzz by combining the former’s paid mVoIP service with the latter’s mobile peer to peer mobile social messaging and VoIP services.

    Vyke, which provides VoIP mobile services, expects gross billings for 2009 to be no less than GBP 70 million pounds (USD $97.49 million), with an EBITDA of at least GBP 3 million pounds.

    The company said this will include an expected continued growth rate of around 3,000 paid users per day.

    Berknov is currently managing director of Structured Investment Products plc and Evergreen Capital Partners Limited and holds a number of non-executive board positions in private companies.

    He has previously held positions as executive vice president of Aldata Solution Oyj and managing director of Digital Mountain AG, TransConnect Corporate Finance GmbH and GE Capital IT Solutions.

    Before joining those companies, Berknov was a management consultant with McKinsey & Company and previously held international sales and marketing positions at both AT&T and NCR Corporation.