Apple reported better than expected results for their fiscal second quarter on Wednesday afternoon, for the period ending March 29. Traditionally their quietest quarter, they still grew both sales ($45.6 billion) and net profit ($10.2 billion) in what ceo Tim Cook called “our strongest non-holiday quarter ever.” In the areas we focus on, Apple sold 16.35 million iPads — for a total of 214 million iPads sold since launch in spring 2010. Cook reported on the conference call with investors, “we now have almost 800 million iTunes accounts, most of these with credit card; this is a staggering number.” Strong iPhone […]
Earnings Reports
Google Play Continues Growth
Google reported first quarter earnings Wednesday afternoon that were somewhat short of analysts’ expectations on both sales and earnings. Our narrow interest in their earnings reports remains the hints regarding their expanding Play store. The category that includes Play results — “other revenues” — was up 48 percent compared to a year ago, at $1.554 billion. The same revenue line comprised $1.65 for the previous holiday quarter, and just under $5 billion for all of 2013. As we noted earlier, this business category includes the Google Play store; their hardware line (Nexus devices and Chromecasts, but not Chromebooks); and their […]
Bezos’s Annual Letter Includes Celebration of Kindle, Amazon Publishing and Audible
This year’s annual letter to shareholders from Amazon ceo Jeff Bezos provides a tour of a “small subset of…initiatives” at the company. “Readers & Authors” is the second item, after a celebration of Prime: “We’re investing heavily on behalf of readers. The all-new, high-resolution, high-contrast Kindle Paperwhite launched to rave reviews. We integrated the very impressive Goodreads into Kindle, introduced FreeTime for Kindle, and launched Kindle in India, Mexico, and Australia…. Joining CreateSpace, Kindle Singles, and Kindle Direct Publishing, is the new service Kindle Worlds, the literary journal Day One, eight new Amazon Publishing imprints, and the launch of Amazon Publishing […]
Combined Penguin Random House Revenue Measures Up To Last Year’s Fifty Shades-Boosted Report
Berteslmann released its financial report for the fiscal year 2013, which included the first-ever annual revenues for the combined Penguin Random House entity. Including a half-year’s worth of revenue from Penguin, total sales of €2.655 billion for PRH (plus Random House Germany, which remains a separate company, but was reported with Bertelsmann’s book publishing interests) were 23.9 percent higher than the €2.142 billion reported for Random House’s record-setting 2012. But after adjusting for currency and excluding Penguin, revenues naturally decreased compared to last year’s “exceptional success” of the FIFTY SHADES trilogy. (The three books still sold another seven million units in […]
Weak Sales Continue at Books-A-Million, With Q4 Profits
Books-A-Million reported fourth quarter and full year results Thursday afternoon. Unlike last year’s 14-week quarter, a once-every-six-years occurrence, BAMM’s current Q4 reverted to the usual 13 week period. Sales continued to decline, down 3.7 percent to $157.9 million compared to $163.9 million a year ago. Same-store sales continued their pattern of quarterly declines, down 1.8 percent, but net income, at $11.2 million for the quarter was up from the $8.1 million reported during the same period last year. For the year, covering 52 weeks (compared to last year’s 53 weeks) net sales decreased 5.6 percent to $470.3 million (from $498.4 […]
Sales and Earnings Dip in Scholastic’s Third Quarter
Sales dipped at Scholastic in their fiscal third quarter, ending February 28, dropping $5 million to $373.5 million. Their seasonal net loss of $12.1 million was an improvement over the $20.1 million loss a year ago, though “solely the result of a favorable settlement of outstanding federal tax audits which resulted in a one-time tax benefit of $13.8 million.” The loss on continuing operations grew to $41 million (compared to $31.5 million a year ago.) The company said results were held back by lower educational technology sales as they combined their educational technology and classroom and supplemental materials sales forces. Special costs […]