Samsung reports huge profits while Motorola lost a lot

It is the time of the year where we sum up all activity from the previous year. Apple delivered its best results ever, Sony Ericsson did not do very well. The company lost 247 million mostly because of a terrible last quarter. And finally Nokia reported a loss of 1.076 million Euro after taxes.

Samsung today reported that the last quarter of 2011 gave a profit of 1.79 billion Euro for the Samsung Telecommunications business. The revenue in the same quarter was 12.08 billion Euro, up from 7.96 billion in 2010. The full year profit for the Telecom business was 8.27 trillion won (5.61 billion Euro / $7.38 billion USD). The telecom unit in Samsung generated almost one third of the Samsung's total revenue for the year. Revenue for the entire year increased with 40%.

Samsung does not report an absolute number of smartphones sold any longer. This has become a company secret. The company will only report growth (or decline) in percent since last quarter. In Q4 2011 shipment of Samsung smartphone rose more than 20 percent. These numbers are shipments and not sales to end user. The smartphone segment grow 40% the last quarter, and impressive 300 percentage since Q4 2010. Some research firms estimates that Samsung sold 36 million smartphones the last quarter and 95 million during the entire year 2010.

Motorola reported a revenue of $3.4 billion (2.57 billion Euro) for the fourth quarter 2011 and a $80 million (60.57 million Euro) loss. Not the worst result among those with red numbers, but its currently not the goldmine Google want it to be. In 2010, Motorola had a profit of $80 million. For the full year 2011, net revenue were $13.1 billion an 14% increase since 2010. Google has agreed to buy Motorola for $12.5 billion and the transaction will be finalized in early 2012.

During the last quarter of 2011, Motorola shipped a total of 10.5 million handsets where 5.3 million were smartphones. For the full year, Motorola shipped 18.7 million smartphones and 42.4 million mobile devices.

The Motorola tablets XYBOARD and Zoom has not sold very well. Only 200.000 during the last quarter of 2011 and 1 million full year. 

As usual, having a bad quarter can be blamed on increasingly competitive environment just like Motorola say it does. Both Motorola and Samsung highlights one mobile phone each in their financial reports. The Motorola RAZR "received very positive consumer responses" while Samsung can blame much of its success on the Galaxy S II to drive up revenue. 

source, source