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Amidst solid annual earnings last April, French game publisher Ubisoft waved a caution flag and warned its year over year sales results would likely slip for the quarter ended June 30th .   Maybe they should have grabbed a megaphone to broadcast the revenue warning too.

Today, the company reported first quarter sales 12.6% below guidance. (release (PDF))

For Q1 2009-10, Ubisoft’s sales came in at EUR 83m, down 50.6%.

The company blamed a combination of market conditions and surprise sales trends for the result. Casual games for the DS were among those singled out

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It was another rough quarter for Microsoft.  After seeing net income sink 32% in the third quarter, the company reported Thursday that its fourth quarter dropped off 29%. 

Fourth quarter net income was $3.05b, or 34 cents a share, down from $4.3b or 46 cents a share last year.  The results include onetime charges equal to 2 cents a share. 

Revenue for the quarter sank 17% to $13.1b.    Analysts expected a much stronger revenue performance with estimates forecasting a result of $14.37b (Thomson Reuters poll).

Looking at the full year, it was the first time in Microsoft’s history annual sales shrank, falling off 3.3%.

The good news CFO Chris Liddell suggested during the conference call was there are “signs we’ve seen the worst.”  The bad news, it will take some time to recover.

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The saying goes “there is more than one way to skin a cat.”  The same is true when it comes to managing corporate earnings.  Yahoo demonstrated that Tuesday.  Despite revenue plunging 13%,  the company managed to eke out positive  earnings growth near 8% thanks to aggressive cost cutting.

Overall, for the second quarter Yahoo reported net income of $141m, or 10 cents a share, up from $131m or 9 cents a share for the same period a year ago.  Revenue came in at $1.573b.  Revenue less traffic acquisition costs was $1.14b.

Analyst consensus expectations were for net income of 8 cents a share on revenue (less TAC) of $1.14b. Yahoo’s result was just good enough to beat it.

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The economy continues to be a drag on earnings for many consumer technology companies but Apple isn’t one of them. After the close of markets Tuesday, the company reported 3rd quarter earnings of $1.24b, or $1.35 a share, up from $1.07b, or $1.19 a share for the same period a year ago.

For the quarter ended June 27th, Apple’s revenue grew 12% to $8.34b  and gross margins jumped to 36.3%. 

Where competitors have seen revenue and earnings falter, Apple surged.

Neither Apple’s prior guidance for earnings of   95 cents to $1 per share on revenue of $7.7b to $7.9b nor Wall Street’s more realistic consensus forecast of $1.17 per share on $8.2b in revenue proved close to the reality.

In the third quarter, concerns about an otherwise contracting PC market impacting sales were a non-issue as Mac sales more than held up.

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Leading a busy week of entertainment industry earnings reports that also includes News Corp and CBS, both Marvel Entertainment and Disney reported today. The quick facts, by the numbers:

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Last week under the weight of the economy Google reported its first sequential drop in revenue since going public in 2004.  Thursday, Microsoft revealed similar wounds.

Hurt by weak PC sales, the company posted its first year over year revenue decline in twenty three years.

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Netflix earnings came in Thursday straddling expectations.  Analysts had called for 41 cents a share on revenues of $390m. The company delivered 37 cents on revenue of $394m.  Despite the differences, Netflix first quarter profit was up 68% compared to Q1 of 2008.  Revenue was up 21%.

Weak ad markets and growing consumer appetite for entertainment helped the company deliver impressive subscriber growth and reduced subscriber acquisition costs.   Netflix closed the quarter with 10.31m subscribers, a 25% year over year expansion.  Subscriber acquisition costs were $25.79 per subscriber compared to $29.48 last year and $26.67 in Q4 2008.

Gross margin for Q1 was 34.2% compared to 31.7% in Q1 2008, and 35.2% in Q4 2008.  Free cash flow for the first quarter came in at $15.1 compared to $4.8m for the same period a year ago.

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