After revealing a net loss of $390 million for the the second quarter of 2009 (an even bigger negative than the loss of $310 million in Q2 2008) EA has announced cost-cutting measures.

Those measures include cutting its workforce by 17% - seeing a loss of 1500 positions - a move expected to save around $100 million per year.

This move is likely to be controversial among staff losing their livelihoods considering EA has only just announced a $300-$400 million buy-out of Playfish.

Playfish makes casual games for social networking and other digital platforms, a rapidly growing market in which EA it seems is looking to for the future in a changing games landscape.

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Tags: Gaming EA Biz Results

EA announces loss, 1500 jobs to go originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Wed, 11 Nov 2009 11:55:04 +0000

The world might be struggling following on from the fall out of the economic downturn that then became the worldwide recession, but that hasn't stopped Apple boasting its most "profitable quarter ever" suggesting they are charging customers too much for the latest must have gadgets.

According to the company's latest results it the company posted revenue of $9.87 billion and a net quarterly profit of $1.67 billion. Gross margin was 36.6 percent, up from 34.7 percent in the year-ago quarter.

In the three months running up to the end of the quarter Apple sold 3.05 million Macs, no doubt spurred on by the launch of Snow Leopard, which experienced more than double the sales the company was expecting and therefore representing a 17% unit increase over the year-ago quarter. As for the iPhone, Apple says that it sold over 7.4 million iPhones - a 7% unit growth over the year-ago quarter bringing the total of iPhones sold to over 21 million handsets.

"We are thrilled to have sold more Macs and iPhones than in any previous quarter," said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO before promising "some really great new products in the pipeline for 2010."

However it's not all good news. Although Apple sold 10.2 million iPods during the quarter it was an 8% decline in sales on the previous year. The results follow a a similar decline in Q3 where iPod sales were down 7% on the year previously.

Apple also used the results call to confirm that it would be launching the iPhone in China at the end of October (30th).

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Tags: Biz Results Apple iPhone Hardware Audio

Apple: Most profitable quarter ever originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Mon, 19 Oct 2009 22:28:11 +0100

Nokia has reported a loss in its third quarter results, revealing an operating loss of 426 million euros with sales dropping 20%.

This compares dramatically to the same period in 2008, when the Finnish phone manufacturer saw a profit of 1.5 billion euros.

The reasonably good news comes in with Nokia's mobile device market share for the third quarter this year at 38%, not a percentage less than it was a year ago, and stable compared to the second quarter of this year. Device sales were up 5% from the previous quarter.

As far as phones go, Nokia shipped 4.5 million Nseries and 4.4 million Eseries devices during the third quarter - sounds a fair whack - but this is down from the combined 9.3 million Nseries and Eseries devices shipped in Q2.

"The demand for mobile devices improved in many markets during Q3. With the average selling price of our devices holding firm quarter-on-quarter, our higher device volumes translated into increased net sales in our Devices & Services business", said Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo.

"Our volumes and net sales were, however, somewhat constrained by component shortages we encountered across the portfolio".

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Tags: Phones Nokia Results Biz

Nokia reports loss for third quarter originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Thu, 15 Oct 2009 14:38:39 +0100