revenue

Microsoft's Azure gets competitive with $1B in revenue

While Amazon is still king in the cloud computing world, it appears that Microsoft's Azure software is on the up and up. Not only have Azure subscriptions risen 48 percent over the past six months, but Azure and related Microsoft cloud service software earned $1 billion in revenue over the past year for the first time ever, according to Bloomberg.

Making the "billion-dollar club" is pretty significant -- considering the slumping PC market. Microsoft revealed these new performance details to Bloomberg in an interview on Monday.

Twenty percent of companies use Azure, while 71 percent go to … Read more

App market soars with 13.4 billion downloads in Q1 2013

As people around the world become increasingly more reliant on their mobile devices, the app market continues to grow. New research from market analyst firm Canalys shows that the top four app stores hit 13.4 billion downloads worldwide in the first quarter of 2013. This is an 11 percent increase over all of 2012 combined.

"Apps have had a huge impact on the way consumers use mobile devices, what they value, and what they expect from smart phones and tablets," Canalys chief analyst for analytics Adam Daum said in a statement. "They are now central to … Read more

HTC profits smacked by delayed launch of HTC One

The late launch of the HTC One smartphone put a damper on HTC's first-quarter profits.

For the quarter ending in March, net profit plummeted to 85 million Taiwanese dollars ($2.85 million), a fall from 10.9 billion Taiwanese dollars ($363 million) a year ago and the company's lowest quarterly profit since 2004. Results also disappointed analysts polled by Thomson Reuters, who on average were expecting a net profit of 467.5 million Taiwanese dollars ($15.5 million).

Shipments for the new HTC One phone have been delayed due to a limited supply of cameras. Last month, HTC … Read more

Facebook's mobile ad revenue forecasted to skyrocket in 2013

Facebook's focus on upping its mobile ad presence over the last year seems to have paid off. Literally.

The social network is expected to make nearly $1 billion from mobile ad revenue in 2013, according to a report released today by market research firm eMarketer.

"Facebook, the No. 2 mobile ad publisher in the country, accounted for 9.5 percent of mobile ad revenues in 2012 and is expected to take 13.2 percent this year," eMarketer wrote in a blog post today. "In the mobile display market, however, Facebook is on top, projected to grab … Read more

Apple to reveal Q2 2013 earnings on April 23

Apple said today it will discuss its financial performance for its fiscal second quarter 2013 in a conference call on April 23.

The call, which as usual will be streamed, is expected to cover the company's revenue and sales figures. CEO Tim Cook and CFO Peter Oppenheimer will likely be on hand to provide a financial forecast for the next quarter.

The iPhone maker recorded a monster first quarter of 2013, posting revenue of $54.5 billion and earnings of $13.1 billion on sales of 47.8 million iPhones and 22.9 million iPads. That was just below … Read more

eBay sets ambitious goal for 2015: $300B in transactions

E-commerce site eBay looks to be moving into high gear.

CEO John Donahoe announced today that by 2015, he expects the company to be handling $300 billion in transactions per year, according to The Wall Street Journal, nearly twice what it did in 2012. That means, for 2015, between $21.5 billion and $23.5 billion in revenue from both eBay and its payments processing unit PayPal. In 2012, the company earned $14 billion in revenue.

According to the Journal, the company also plans to double the number of active users on its site over the next two years -- … Read more

Twitter ad revenue should near $1B next year, researcher says

Twitter's ad revenue is soaring, and a big reason for that is mobile, a market research firm said today.

eMarketer estimates Twitter will earn $582.8 million in global ad revenue this year, $950 million next year, and $1.33 billion in 2015. According to its boosted forecast, more than half of Twitter's ad revenue -- about 53 percent -- will come from mobile advertising this year, up from virtually no ad revenue from mobile in 2011.

And mobile is where Twitter will see the most growth over the next two years, eMarketer said. By 2015, more than … Read more

HTC sales plunge even further in February

Things continue to look grim for HTC.

The handset maker reported that its sales in February fell 44 percent to 11.3 billion New Taiwan dollars (US$380.4 million) from a year ago, the lowest level in three years. On a month-over-month basis, sales had fallen 27 percent.

HTC is hoping the company has hit bottom. The new One flagship smartphone is poised to hit markets toward the end of this month, which should revive some of its results. In addition, the first quarter is typically a tough one for handset vendors, many of which come off a strong … Read more

Facebook served new lawsuit over bungled IPO

Just when it seemed like the Facebook shareholder lawsuits were easing up, the social network has been hit with a new IPO suit.

Investor Gaye Jones filed a new case against Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg and the company's underwriters today, according to Reuters. Like several other investors that have sued Facebook, Jones claims that the social network knew about its weak revenue trends before its IPO but failed to disclose this information.

"The defendants were unjustly enriched because they realized enormous profits and financial benefits from the IPO, despite knowing that reduced revenue and earnings forecasts for … Read more

Dell beats Wall Street estimates

Dell's fourth-quarter results were carried by enterprise gear such as servers and networking, but the consumer business tanked.

The company, which recently announced plans to go private in a leveraged buyout, reported earnings of $530 million, or 30 cents a share, on revenue of $14.31 billion, down 11 percent from a year ago. Non-GAAP earnings in the fourth quarter were 40 cents a share.

Wall Street was expecting fourth-quarter earnings of 39 cents a share on revenue of $14.12 billion.

For fiscal 2013, Dell reported earnings of $2.37 billion, or $1.35 a share, on revenue … Read more