revenue

AOL saw its profits for the first quarter nosedive by 86 percent as the company struggled to swallow the costs of buying the Huffington Post.

For the quarter ended March 31, the online service watched its profits fall to $4.7 million from $34.7 million in the year-ago quarter. Revenue also fell, reaching $551.4 million, a 17 percent drop from $664.3 million a year ago.

AOL closed its $315 million purchase of the Huffington Post in March, integrating the media Web site with its AOL Media and AOL Local units. Buying the Huffington Post as well as … Read more

Pretax profits at the British chip architecture firm ARM Holdings have gone up by more than a third in the last year, the company reported today.

According to ARM's quarterly results, pretax profits stood at 50.8 million pounds ($83.7 million) in the first quarter of 2011, with revenues at 116 million pounds ($185.5 million)--a year ago, those figures were 37.6 million pounds and 92.3 million pounds, respectively. According to chief executive Warren East, the 35 percent profit rise coincided with a 33 percent increase in ARM-processor-based shipments "driven by growth in smartphones, … Read more

Apple now tops other handset makers in terms of revenue, according to new estimates.

With big iPhone sales during the quarter, Apple passed mobile giant Nokia in revenue, making it the world's largest handset vendor based on that metric, according to Boston-based Strategy Analytics.

"We estimate Apple's wholesale revenues for its iPhone handset division stood at $11.9 billion in the first quarter of 2011," said Strategy Analytics' Senior Analyst Alex Spektor in a statement, referring to U.S. dollars. "Apple overtook Nokia for the first time, which recorded a lower $9.4 billion of … Read more

Google's first-quarter revenues announced this afternoon were slightly better than what Wall Street was expecting, but earnings per share were lower than anticipated.

Analysts were expecting about 25 percent year-over-year revenue growth--about $6.32 billion. Google ultimately reported revenues of $6.54 billion once traffic acquisition costs were removed.

"We had a great quarter with 27 percent year-over-year revenue growth," Chief Financial Officer Patrick Pichette said in an investor release. "These results demonstrate the value of search and search ads to our users and customers, as well as the extraordinary potential of areas like display and … Read more

Apple's record sales and growth could continue for the next two years, pushing the company to becoming a $200 billion behemoth and eventually dwarfing the revenue of tech giants like IBM and Hewlett-Packard, according to one analyst.

That claim was made by Forrester Research's founder and CEO George Colony during an interview with Bloomberg earlier today. Colony suggested that the company's hardware successes with the iPad and iPhone had created a cycle where those same customers buy applications in the App Store, then continue to buy Apple's products to keep using the software.

But that ecosystem … Read more

A first-ever loss in customers for T-Mobile USA took its toll on sales and earnings during the fourth quarter.

For the quarter ended December 31, the mobile carrier suffered a total loss of 23,000 subscribers, compared with gains of 137,000 in the third quarter and 371,000 in 2009's final quarter. The churn rate measuring the overall customer exits rose to 3.6 percent in the quarter, up from 3.3 percent a year ago.

The exodus of subscribers pushed down fourth-quarter earnings to $268 million, down from $306 million in the prior year's quarter. Sales … Read more

With its acquisition of NBC Universal finally done, Comcast today reported a boost in both sales and earnings for its fourth quarter.

For the quarter ended December 31, the cable carrier earned $1.02 billion, a gain of 6.6 percent from the $955 million earned in the prior year's quarter. Sales grew by 7.2 percent to reach $9.72 billion compared with $9.07 billion a year ago. Both results managed to beat the expectations of analysts polled by Thomson Reuters, according to Reuters, and prompted the company to lift its annual dividend by 19 percent.

With … Read more

Everyone's favorite government agency, the Internal Revenue Service, has launched its own mobile application.

Released last week to iPhone and Android users, the free IRS2Go provides a few tidbits of information that could make April 15 a bit less stressful.

Those of us fortunate enough to qualify for a refund can find out exactly when Uncle Sam will be sending out that check. Entering your Social Security number (which the IRS says is masked and encrypted), filing status, and expected refund amount delivers the due date for your payment.

People who file their federal taxes electronically can check their … Read more

Twitter could more than triple its ad revenue this year but will still trail far behind Facebook, a new report claims.

Market research firm eMarketer predicted today that Twitter will generate about $150 million in advertising revenue this year, up from the $45 million it made last year. The vast majority of this year's revenue--$140 million--will come from inside the U.S., the firm said. eMarketer expects Twitter ad revenue to reach $250 million next year.

However, eMarketer also pointed out that its estimates aren't guarantees. And Twitter, which only joined the advertising game last year with &… Read more