Amazon announced the company’s fourth quarter results last week, which fell short of Wall Street’s estimates. The company reported $17.4 billion in revenue, with net sales up 35% from $12.95 billion in the same quarter of 2010. Despite falling short of analyst estimates of $18.26 billion, Amazon’s growth was more than twice the overall market’s growth according to data from comScore. At $49.6 million, U.S. retail spending was only up 14% in the fourth quarter of 2011. “The growth ...

Apple took the wraps off of the iPhone 4S today but its stock price dipped by as much as 5% as investors looked to the Cupertino-based company to release a more impressive next-generation smartphone. Fifteen months after last updating its iPhone, investors wanted to see an all new design but instead were met with an incremental update in a case identical to the iPhone 4. It offers a dual-core Apple A5 processor, an improved 8-megapixel camera capable of recording 1080p HD video and Apple’s new voice-ba...

Apple on Tuesday reported earnings for the third quarter of fiscal 2011. Shares of Apple Tuesday were trading at near-record levels as investors expected Apple to post its biggest June quarterly earnings ever, and the company didn’t disappoint. Wall Street was predicting revenue of $24.92b, a whopping 58% YoY increase, and Apple’s revenue for the June quarter came in at a mind-blowing $28.57b. Analysts predicted 16.5 million iPhones, 4.2 million Macs, and 7.8 million iPads with actual sales coming...

Ahead of Apple’s third-quarter earnings report on July 19th, Fortune has tapped 39 analysts and has created a roundup of their iPad sales estimates. We already know that the iPad 2 has been flying off of store shelves since Apple announced the tablet on March 2nd. However, demand was so great that it’s unclear just how many Apple was able to manufacture and sell during the third quarter. Brian Marshall from Gleacher, Daniel Ernst from Hudson Square, and Mark McKechnie from Think Equity all estima...

Former executive at Apple supplier Flextronics Walter Shimoon pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one count of security fraud in a Manhattan court on Tuesday. The charges stem from a crackdown on “expert networks,” which make money by connecting hedge funds and financial institutions with industry insiders such as Shimoon. The practice, which had gone widely unmonitored for years, is now said to be under the Securities and Exchange Commission’s microscope. S...

On Thursday, Groupon — the popular location-based coupon service — filed for an initial public offering with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The start-up, which alerts 83 million email subscribers in 43 different countries of local deals that range from restaurant discounts to sailing lessons, hopes to raise $750 million in its IPO. “Expect us to make ambitious bets on our future that distract us from our current business,” Andrew Mason, Groupon’s chief executive officer, said in...

Some analysts could soon find themselves in hot water as the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has opened an investigation into the legality of “channel checks.” Channel checks refer to the practice whereby analysts contact inside sources at manufacturing companies in order to glean inside information. This information often has a tendency to move the market, of course, but the SEC is now trying to determine whether or not the practice should be legal. “Insider trading basically comes down to wher...

The New York Times is reporting that streaming video site hulu.com is in talks with investment banks to go public as soon as this fall. The Times cites “people briefed on the matter,” and goes on to say that the IPO could “value the company at more than $2 billion.” Hulu is a joint venture of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, the Walt Disney Company, NBC Universal, and a private equity firm. A recent change in comScore’s reporting methodology caused Hulu’s monthly vi...

Analysts are contributing in tandem to the rumor mill today by proclaiming the inevitability of a Verizon Wireless-branded iPhone. First is Ben Reitzes of Barclays Capital, who says a Verizon Wireless iPhone could enter production in Q4 2010 and land in the first calendar quarter of 2011. Reitzes estimates that Verizon could sell as many as 9 million iPhones next year and anticipates a market in Asia for this CDMA variant of the iPhone 4. Not alone in the latest chapter of this seeming endless rumor, B...

That dude pictured above doesn’t look too happy, and who can blame him? He’s probably a tech geek, if not a Blackberry user who is sharing the worries and woes of the mobile telecommunications industry, which is heavily affected by the current economic downturn. With several banks and financial institutions being bailed out by the U.S. government, how can it not trickle down to the phone manufacturers and carriers? RIM is going to be a huge one since a big chunk of its market are the business type...