Seagate said in its recent fiscal second-quarter earnings report that it expects the flooding in Thailand to result in a continued hard drive shortage throughout 2012. The company originally reported issues after flooding affected its factories in October, 2011. In addition, analysts have suggested that the floods could increase laptop and desktop PC prices, and hurt overall sales for major computer vendors. Seagate said that it shipped 47 million hard drives during the second fiscal quarter of 2012, which wa...

Microsoft reported its earnings for the quarter ended December 31st, 2011 Thursday and noted record revenue for its second fiscal quarter. Revenue of $20.89 billion was up 5% from the same period last year. “We delivered solid financial results, even as we prepare for a launch year that will accelerate many of our key products and services,” said Steve Ballmer, chief executive officer at Microsoft. “Coming out of the Consumer Electronics Show, we’re seeing very positive reviews for our new phones and...

Samsung issued pre-earnings guidance on Friday indicating it will beat profit estimates set by the Street for the third quarter thanks to strong demand for its smartphones. The South Korea-based company said its operating profit for the three month period ending this September will total roughly 4.2 trillion won ($3.6 billion), which bested estimates from a group of 28 analysts who collectively thought Samsung’s profit slide in at 3.7 trillion won. The company still took a big hit compared to the s...

Acer reported its second-quarter results on Wednesday and revealed its first ever quarterly loss. The company recorded a net loss of NT$6.79 billion, versus Wall Street estimates that the firm would report a NT$3.3 billion loss. The poor performance was blamed on Acer’s focus to clear up “excessive inventory” and on severance payments that were provided to executives who left the firm, Reuters said. In late March, Acer’s CEO Gianfranco Lanci resigned and recent rumors have suggested h...

Gartner on Thursday issued its global mobile phone sales data for the second quarter, which shows that the industry grew 16.5% from the same quarter last year, to 428.7 million units. Smartphone sales jumped 74% year-on-year, with 107.7 million smartphones having been sold to end users around the world. “Smartphone sales continued to rise at the expense of feature phones,” said Roberta Cozza, principal research analyst at Gartner, in a statement. “Consumers in mature markets are choosing ent...

Apple was once again reaffirmed as the world’s No. 1 smartphone vendor on Thursday as market research firm IDC released its data for the June quarter. Smartphone shipments in the second quarter of this year totaled 106.6 million according to IDC, up from 64.4 million in the same quarter last year. Of that total, Apple owned 19.1% with 20.34 million smartphones shipped, making it the top vendor by volume and by profit in the quarter. “Apple’s success can be directly attributed to its distribution...

T-Mobile USA reported its second quarter results on Thursday and noted that it lost 50,000 subscribers during the quarter. That’s a drop, but it’s not as bad as the 93,000 customers the carrier lost during the year ago quarter or the 99,000 customers who left during the first quarter. T-Mobile also recorded $5.1 billion in revenue for the second quarter, down from the $5.2 billion it reported during the first quarter and the $5.4 billion in revenue it pulled in during the same quarter last year. B...

HTC posted impressive second-quarter results on Friday noting that its revenues of NT$12.4 billion ($4.3 billion) were up 104% year-over-year and up 19% over the first quarter. The Taiwanese phone maker’s shipment total of 12.1 million devices during the quarter was up 24% year-over-year and 25% quarter-over-quarter. The company also noted that it shipped a total of 21.8 million devices during the first half of the year, a big jump from the 8.7 million it shipped during the first half of 2010. HTC noted...

Motorola Mobility on Thursday released its second quarter 2011 earnings and despite recent analyst downgrades, the company recorded a strong quarter. Motorola posted net revenues of $3.3 billion, up 28% from the same time period last year. In addition, mobile device revenues were $2.4 billion, up 41% from the second quarter of 2010. Motorola Mobility shipped a total of 11 million devices, including 4.4 million smartphones and 440,000 units of its XOOM Android tablet. That’s a large improvement over the ...

LG on Wednesday reported second-quarter earnings that showed notable growth, though the consumer electronics giant still hasn’t found a way to return its mobile business to profitability. The company’s revenue for the quarter reached KRW 14.4 trillion (U.S. $13.3 billion), up 9.3% sequentially. Following two straight quarters of losses, LG reported a net profit of KRW 108 billion (U.S. $99.6 million) in the second quarter thanks to solid TV sales and cost-cutting efforts. The company’s ope...

Verizon Communications on Friday reported second-quarter earnings that topped the Street’s estimates, though it failed to match AT&T’s impressive wireless growth during the quarter. Revenue climbed to $27.5 billion in the June quarter, up 2.8% from the same quarter last year. EPS was up 6 cents sequentially to $0.57, a huge swing from the second quarter in 2010 when Verizon reported a loss of $0.42 per share. In wireless, the carrier netted 2.2 million subscribers — or “total connectio...

Continued strong sales of Apple’s blockbuster smartphone have propelled the Cupertino-based company into the No. 1 spot globally. As noted by the Financial Times, Apple shipped 20.34 million iPhone handsets last quarter, up from 18.7 million units in the first quarter of 2011. Meanwhile Nokia’s smartphone shipments dropped from 24.2 million units in the first quarter to just 16.7 million smartphones in the June quarter — 3.64 million fewer smartphones than Apple. With just two smartphone models ...

Microsoft has yet to launch its tablet-optimized operating system and yet slates running various versions of the Windows operating system still managed to outsell Research In Motion’s BlackBerry PlayBook last quarter. According to market research firm Strategy Analytics’ latest report, Windows-powered media tablets owned 4.6% of the global market in the second quarter of 2011. In the same period, RIM’s PlayBook made up just 3.3% of the market. The firm also shows that competition may finally...

AT&T reported its second quarter results on Thursday. The company’s consolidated revenues were $31.5 billion, up 2.2% ($680 million) from the same quarter last year. AT&T’s wireless, wireline data and managed services were responsible for 76% of those revenues, and that figure is growing at a rate of 8.3% year-over-year. AT&T Mobility added a total of 1.1 million subscribers during the quarter, including 331,000 net postpaid adds, and it now serves a total of 98.6 million subscribers. ...