Financial

HTC has released its unaudited October 2012 financial report, which displays a YoY (year-on-year) decrease in revenues of 60 percent. Last month the manufacturer revealed it brought in NT$17.2 billion ($588 million), down from NT$44.114 billion ($1.5 billion) during the same period in 2011. It's not looking rosy for the Taiwanese handset maker, but how can it look to improve?

Behind those smiles is concern

This was another important week for the mobile giant from Cupertino.  Apple continued to improve upon its iPhone product line by launching the iPhone 5. While I believe Apple delivered exactly what investors need, none of this really changes the story for the two major comeback players - Nokia and RIM.

So let’s focus on Nokia here.  We already know they did a poor job of unveiling the Lumia 920 but I didn’t think the stock market reaction made sense.  Sure, Nokia left a lot of information off the table but they still showed off a very nice phone running Windows Phone 8, proving their lineup is becoming interesting again.  And as much as I love Apple products (I really do), I recognize that people don’t just want to buy iClones.  Apple is an amazing company with amazing products.  But they aren’t for everybody.

In what has to be a slight sigh of relief for investors, Nokia stock (NOK) has passed the $2 mark today closing at $2.02 a share or a 9.78% jump since opening.

That’s up from its low just a week ago of $1.63 and could indicate renewed faith in the struggling smartphone company. From the look of it, most analysts and perhaps now investors think the worst is now behind Nokia. Having hit bottom, the company can only go up (or die trying).

That’s not to say all is healthy. Investors, analysts and even Nokia themselves are still predicting next quarters earnings to continue to be weak. A return to profitability is still at least a few months away, assuming the company has a hit with Windows Phone 8 and carrier deals for their devices.

In related news, the cuts at the company continue and friend of the site and class act Keith Nowak, who handled Nokia’s PR in the US, has unfortunately been let go today. Our best wishes to him in the future. You can read about Keith’s experience with Nokia on his personal blog—it’s a great read.

Although the Scalado news is inspiring, Nokia is still in the rough as it plans to layoff nearly 10,000 workers by the end of 2013 in a continued restructuring of the company.

In addition, the Finnish firm is planning to close its facilities in Ulm, Germany, Burnaby, Canada and its manufacturing facility in Salo, Finland (Research and Development efforts in Salo will remain) while focusing on their Lumia line of phones including "broadening the price range of Lumia and continuing to differentiate with the Windows Phone platform". Part of the cost savings move has also been the successful divestment of the Vertu luxury line of Nokia phones to EQT VI for a rumored 200 million euros ($260 million).

Finally there are leadership changes as well including the promotion of former Microsoft executive Chris Weber from President of Nokia Inc. (US), and head of Markets, North America to executive vice president of Sales and Marketing, where he will join the leadership team of Nokia. The other changes in Nokia's leadership team can be found here.

So what does all of this amount to? There is a lot going on at Nokia including a dramatic reshaping of the company under CEO Stephen Elop driven mostly by market demands and the recent realignment of the company around Windows Phone. Analysts and equity firms have been downgrading Nokia stock for weeks now and this is their response which equates to massive cutbacks both in terms of people and facilities, potentially saving the company a lot of money during these tight times.

Nokia has previously lost 24% of its market share losing out to Samsung for top manufacturer. With the continued stampede of iPhone and Android, Nokia will be relying on Windows Phone 8 and its increasingly popular Lumia line to save it from financial despair. 

Nokia stock is currently trading at $2.79 a share which is near it's 52 week low of $2.61. It will be curious to see how the market responds to these proposed cutbacks and restructuring.

Source: Nokia

Acculynk, creators of PaySecure, announced in a press release today that they will be developing a mobile version of their Internet PIN debit platform for Windows Phone 7, iPhone, Android and BlackBerry systems. 

Here's how it works: when a customer makes a debit card purchase at a website that uses PaySecure, they enter their debit card number at checkout.  Then, a encrypted graphical keypad, which is embedded into the vendors website, is used to enter the consumer's PIN.  It eliminates the need to sign up for accounts on vendor websites or get directed to third-party sites, like PayPal.

Acculynk's CEO, Ashish Bahl, said in the statement,

"In 2011, our goal is to expand the channels where PIN debit can be accepted, like a mobile phone and even kiosks." 

They also hope to move beyond eCommerce, by developing methods for online banking and P2P fund transfers.  You can check out a demo of how it works here.

Source: EarthTimes

Pageonce, who makes software to live monitor your accounts, announced support today for Windows Phone 7. The software looks a lot like what Quicken or Microsoft Money was for Windows Mobile years ago, but goes further with the ability to evidently access and live update your accounts: credit card, bills, banks, etc. It also sounds like it will get its own Hub too on the Start screen, allowing quick access to all of one's finances.

The software should be available in November for free and will feature the following services:

• Account Monitoring:  A quick and simple snapshot of available cash, credit card balances, upcoming bills, and investment values.
• Transaction Insights: Ability to dive deeper and look into daily financial transactions and spending behavior
• Bill Tracking:  A comprehensive look at bills, when they are due and how much is owed
• Spending History: A monthly spending history and trends across all accounts
• Real-Time Alerts:  Notifications and updates deliver important account events and help users avoid fees, penalties and suspicious activity

While simple "bill keepers" are one thing, the ability to live-sync to your accounts on the go sounds real good and stuff we should be able to easily do in 2010.

Check out the full YouTube demo after the break--it really looks pretty snazzy and we normally hate financial stuff.

Source: EarthTimes

Microsoft released its first-quarter earnings (yeah, they're on their own timetable) today. Here's the deal:

• Revenue of $12.92 billion, down 14 percent from the first quarter (the three months ending Sept. 30) of 2008.
• Operating income was down 25 percent over Q1 2008, to $4.48 billion.
• Net income was $3.57 billion, down 18 percent from Q1 2008.
• Diluted earnings per share were 40 cents, down 17 percent.
• Some $1.47 billion of revenue was deferred because of the Windows 7 upgrade Option program. If you add that back into the tally, revenue would have totaled $14.39 billion, a 4 percent drop from Q1 2008.

Peep the full presser after the break.

Samsung has released quarterly earnings for the first time, and HTC gives us its numbers for the second quarter. Let's do some math ...

Starting with Samsung, the a South Korean chip-maker and cell phone manufacturer said it expects consolidated sales of between $24.4 billion and $25.9 billion. That's up from about $22.9 a year earlier. No consolidated net profit numbers, though, but last year it pulled in about $4.5 billion. Sammy did say it looks to be on par with last year for the quarter.

On to HTC: The Taiwanese manufacturer had a second-quarter profit of about $197.2 million, down 2 percent from the same period in 2008. Revenue was up about 10.3 percent to $1.16 billion.

So there you go. No more math today. We promise.

Via Mobileburn and Cellular-News

In one of the bigger "Whoopsies!" since Verizon reportedly passed on the iPhone, Motorola co-chief Greg Brown says the company's own strategic decisions are the main reason for its fall from grace.

You can read it all at the Financial Times, but here are the bullet points Brown sites in his mea culpa:

• "Didn't see the trends coming in smartphone and 3G with the kind of foresight and customer attention that it should have."
• Failed attempt at a single OS based on Linux and Java.
• Selling sub-$50 phones was unprofitable.

Oops, indeed. In other negative news, Moto's market share has fallen from 23 percent in Q4 of 2006 to 6.5 percent at the end of 2008. Also, it had an operating loss of $2.2 billion for 2008 and last month suspended its dividend.

It really is a shame, given that the Moto Q is one of our favorite Windows Mobile Standard phones. But this does start to explain why we never really saw anything grossly new and instead have seen revision upon revision of the Q line.

As for the future? Expect cost-cutting and job cuts in the neighborhood of 5,000, as well as a delay of spinning off the handset unit. And, ya know, hopefully some new phones.(And while we're piling on, what ever came of that OTA firmware upgrade system?)

Via Slashgear