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In the first of this week’s big earnings announcements, Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO) reported Q2 2007 Financial Results today.

Largely as expected, Yahoo met consensus analyst expectations but overall results were, from the first quarter to include revenue from their new Panama advertising platform, unimpressive. Guidance was lowered for the rest of 2007.

For the second quarter, Yahoo earned total revenue excluding Traffic Acquisition Costs (“TAC”) of $1,244m, up 11% over the same period last year but operating income was down 19% to $185m compared to $230m for the same period last year.  Total ad revenue was up 7% to $1.49 billion. Click to Read More

It’s reporting season for public companies. That means, over next few weeks we’ll see a large number of quarterly earnings reports and all kinds of volatility in the stock markets.

This week market watchers will be waiting for Internet news with Google and Yahoo reporting. Also this week: Microsoft, Dow Jones, newspaper publishers McClatchy and Gannet and chip maker, Intel.

Next week will have reports from Amazon, Sony, The New York Times, Netflix, Apple and possibly Nintendo (Nintendo’s announcement date is not yet confirmed).

In anticipation of the earnings season and to keep track of who reports when, Metue has assembled two printable calendars Click to Read More

Palm reported Q4 earnings after the close of market Thursday.  The numbers easily beat Wall Street analyst consensus expectations but overall were poor year over year; and especially dim in comparison to very positive results from competitor Research in Motion.

For the quarter ending June 1, Palm earned $15.4m (15c/share) on revenue of $401.3 compared to $27.2m (25c/share) for the same period last year.  Excluding one-time charges Palm said it would have earned $17.8m (17c/share) this quarter.   Analyst consensus estimates (Thompson) were for earnings of $14.43m (15c/share).

Click to Read More

Late this week,Tivo (Nasdaq:TIVO), one of the pioneers in digital video recording, announced earnings for the quarter ended April 30th.  The Company beat analyst expectations and reported its first ever profitable quarter but the overall news was mixed.

Net income was $835k (or $0.01/share) over a loss of $10.7m (-0.13/share) for the same period last year. Analyst’s consensus expectations were for a loss of $0.02/share. Sales were up 6% to $60.4m. Adjusted EBITDA was $6.7 million, compared to an Adjusted EBITDA loss of ($6.9) million for the same period last year. Service revenues were $54.2 million, compared to $47.0 million. Service and technology revenues were $58.1 million, (compared with $55.0 million).

With subscription numbers, an important metric of performance for a company like Tivo, Tivo added 57,000 new subscribers but total subscriber numbers dropped 1.7% to 4.34m. TiVo-Owned subscriptions increased slightly to 1.7 million from 1.5 million for the same period last year.

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Music download service Napster (NASDAQ: NAPS), yesterday reported a wider loss for Q4 but met or beat analyst consensus estimates.

Consensus estimates according to Thompson Financial were for a loss of 20c/share on revenue of $27.9m. For the period ended March 31, Napster reported a net loss of $8.5m (20c/share) as compared with a loss of $4.4m (10c/share) for the same period last year. Revenue for the period was up 9% to $29.1m ($26.8m for the same period last year). Worldwide paid subscribers were also up, reaching a total of 830,000, including 225,000 former AOL Music Now users. The number of paid subscribers was up 37% from the year-ago quarter.

In fiscal year reporting, Napster reported a net lost of $36.8m (85c/share), down from a loss of $54.9m for the prior year. Net revenue was up 17% to $111.1m. Cash reserves at year end were reported at $66.6m.

For the coming quarter, Napster set expectations for a first quarter loss of $6-$7m on projected revenue of $31m – below an average analyst expectation of $34.2 million.

With recent partnerships struck between Napster and AT&T, Circuit City and Motorola, the company is betting heavily that MP3 playing cell phones will increasingly replace standalone MP3 players. Napster is also hoping the partnerships will help reduce some of company’s marketing expenses.

More detailed press coverage on Napster’s finances can be found at:

Yahoo Finance
Google Finance
Marketwatch

Wednesday, Hewlett Packard and Sony both released quarterly earnings. HP narrowly beat analysts estimates but there was little surprise after an accidental leak of news last week. The news for both companies was mixed.

Sony:
Sony’s reported a Q4 loss of 67.6 billion yen ($563 million) down from a loss of 66.5 billion yen a year earlier. The loss was attributed to substantial development costs for the PS3 and the intense competition with Nintendo’s Wii. Sales for the quarter were up nearly 13% to 2.01 trillion yen ($16.8 billion). For the fiscal year, Sony reported net income of 126.3 billion yen ($1.04b), up 2.2% over the last year.

Sony was extremely optimistic and aggressive in guidance provided for the next fiscal year. CEO Howard Stringer has set a goal of generating $5 of profit for every $100 in sales. (The company’s 5% operating profit margin target can be compared against a 12.7 percent margin at Apple Inc.) To meet the goal, Sony is forecasting they will cut PS3 losses by near 80% through increased sales and decreased production costs. The game unit is projecting a loss of 50 billion yen ($414 million) for the year ending March 2008, well below Bloomberg’s analyst survey of 83 billion yen.

Sony also expects to increase sales of their Bravia television line. Overall guidance is for a near doubling of net income to 320 billion yen ($2.7b) for the next fiscal year. Consumer electronics will account for a substantial portion of that but there should also be a significant increase in film related revenue thanks to Spider-Man 3 and the expected fall release of the latest movie in Sony’s popular Resident Evil film franchise.

More detailed press coverage on Sony’s finances can be found at:

Yahoo Finance
Google Finance
Marketwatch

Hewlett Packard:
HP reported revenue for Q2 was up 13% to $25.5 billion. Net income was down 7% to $1.78 billion compared with $1.9 billion for the same period last year. Earnings per share came in at 65c, down 1c over the same period last year. Adjusted for a one–time charge, EPS would have been 15 cents/share.

CEO Mark Hurd noted in the conference call that this was “[HP's] strongest quarterly revenue growth since the year 2000.” The company raised its revenue guidance for the year to a range of $100.5 billion to $100.9 billion, up from its prior guidance of $99 billion.

More detailed press coverage on HP’s finances can be found at:

Yahoo Finance
Google Finance
Marketwatch

Entertainment conglomerate Viacom (NYSE: VIA), today reported Q1 numbers that beat analyst estimates but overall profit was reported down 36% due to restructuring costs ($56m at MTV) and increased expenses.

Wall Street consensus estimates were for profit of 31c a share, less the restructuring charges Viacom reported profits of 34c

First quarter revenue was up 16% over the same period last year to $2.75b. Consensus estimates were for revenue of $2.55b. Ad sales were up globally by 10%. Operating income was down 3%. Net income was reported at $202.9m, down from $317.2m.

For the Cable Networks (MTV, Nickelodeon, VH1, BET and Comedy Central, Spike, CMT etc), executives downplayed TV ratings and suggested their focus is on building Internet presence and online affiliate advertising. They noted Nickelodeon’s online project Nicktropolis had 3m registered users since January. For TV audiences, Comedy Central continued to do well but MTV visitors were watching the site less frequently. Overall, revenue for the TV properties was up 10% but operating income was down by 3%.

For the Paramount Studios component, sales were up 27%, but there was an operating loss. Filmed entertainment operating income showed a loss of $105.7 million, from net income of $51.1 million for the same period last year. That was attributed to increase in expenses related to higher print and advertising costs.

More detailed press coverage on Viacom’s finances can be found at:

Yahoo Finance
Google Finance
Marketwatch
Viacom Fact Sheet