Amidst heavy spending on new initiatives Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), reported Q4 numbers.
EPS were down to 23 cents versus 47 cents a year earlier for the same period.
Revenue was up to 34% to $3.99b from $2.98b. Spending on technology and content was up 34% to $177.
Despite revenue growth analysts were generally concerned with trends in profitability.
More detailed press coverage on Amazon’s finances can be found at:
Game publisher Electronic Arts (EA) (NASDAQ: ERTS), reported Q3 earnings of $160m, down 38% do to a lack of holiday hits. Excluding costs of stock options and other items, the adjusted amoung was $201 (63 cents a share) beating analyst consensus estimates of 57 cents.
Revenue for the quarter was slightly up at $1.28b. The company was partly hurt by production shortages and there impact on sales of Sony’s PS3 Platform on which EA had invested heavily. EA was also not well positioned for the launch of Nintendo’s rival Wii platform.
During the quarter, EA did acquire Headgate Studios, a company that had focused on the Nintendo Wii. That may improve performance toward the tail end of this fiscal year.
More detailed press coverage of EA’s finances can be found at:
Time Warner (NYSE: TWX), released earnings for the 4th quarter showing growth in its cable business lines, improved ad sales with AOL but declines in print businesses including marquee Time magazine.
4th quarter net income was up 34% to $1.75b. The results showed gains from the sale of Internet access business in Europe and tax benefits. The company also reported a one time $615m charge for potential legal liabilities associated with securities litigation.
Net margins were up 2.7% to 14.1% for the quarter. In the cable business operating profit was up 26% and revenue up 58%. In the film division sales were down 15% and profit down 39% based in part on lower the hoped 4th quarter home video sales.
S&P Credit Analysts rate Time Warners debt at BBB+. The debt load is up to $33.4b from $17.4 because of the acquisition of Adelphia.
More detailed press coverage on TWX finances can be found at:
New York Times (NYSE: NYT), reported Q4 earnings.
The company took an impairment charge of $814m to for the declining value of the Boston Globe property. Inclusive of that charge, for Q4 the times reported a loss of $648m equal to EPS per share of ($4.50) versus $0.43 for the prior year.
Revenue came in at $931m, up from $893. By division, advertising accounted for $626m and circulation $235. Other divisions provided $70m. All three categories were up over Q4 of the prior year.
More detailed press coverage on New York Times’ finances can be found at:
EBay and other companies ambitiously targeted China and drooled over the potential goldmine of revenue to be reaped from its gigantic population base. Each aspiring effort has proved a costly struggle to realize. (EBay recently restructured its offerings there.)
Casino Royal was recently released to widescreen audiences in China. With over a billion potential viewers, Sony aggressively pursued the release which was scheduled for around 1000 screens. Censors were given early access to review the film for objectionable content (Previous Bond movie Die Another Day (2002) was rejected outright). Even Danielle Craig, the star, was in Beijing for the premier.
The James Bond franchise finally making it to Beijing underscores yet again the promise and pitfalls of breaking into new international markets, especially China, where government controls make it among the most extreme environments for any would-be marketer to navigate and profit from.
Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), reported Q4 and Year–End earnings beating expectations and setting a new record for the company with quarterly earnings exceeding $1b.
Q4 revenue was up 67% to $3.2b. Google earned $3.29 a share or $1.03b for the quarter. Some analysts adjusted these numbers downward to a 24% (instead of 26%) tax rate for the quarter. With that adjustment, Google still earned $2.99 a share, beating average analyst expectations by 7 cents. On the negative side, commissions on revenue generated from advertising partnerships with websites (which are in the thousands) took 81% of the $1.2b in revenue from the partnerships.
Having beaten expectations for 9 out of the 10 quarters the company has been public, a lot is expected from Google in the market. There is also some commentary and grumbling that that kind of track record indicates guidance from the company is too conservative and beating estimates alone doesn’t mean much.
For the year, Google earned $3.08b ($9.94 a share) on revenue of $10.6b compared with net income of $1.47b ($5.02 a share) on revenue of $6.1 for the prior year. Google closed the year with huge cash reserves ($11.2b) but Google also doubled their capital expenditures and almost doubled it’s payroll by increasing staffing to more than 10,500 employees.
More detailed press coverage on Google’s finances can be found at:
Getty Images (NYSE: GYI), owner of istockphoto.com and its own library of stock video and film footage, released earnings for the 4th quarter.
4th quarter revenues were up 9.5% to $203.5m. For the fiscal year, revenue reported was up 10% to $807.3m. Royalty free licensing revenue was up 15% in Q4 and 13% on the year. Rights managed growth was down 1% for the quarter but up 3% on the year.
Film footage, as opposed to still images accounted for 5% of total revenue.
Internationally, 46% of Q4 sales were from the Americas. 46% originated in Europe, Middle East or Africa (EMEA). Only 8% of sales came from the Asia Pacific region.
More detailed press coverage on Getty Images’ finances can be found at:
