Intel, Yahoo, Apple earnings strong; shares dip
By Michelle Kessler, USA TODAY
Tech giants Intel (INTC), Yahoo (YHOO) and Apple Computer (AAPL) reported strong quarterly earnings Wednesday — yet their stocks tumbled in after-hours trading on the news and fell modestly Thursday.
One factor, Wall Street analysts say: Investors have been driving shares up anticipating a tech industry rebound. "Things got a little bit overheated," says equity analyst Quinn Bolton at Oppenheimer & Co.
Consequently, some investors may have sold on strong reports to lock in gains, says A.C. Moore, a strategist at Dunvegan Associates.
The sell-off may be temporary. IBM is expected to report Thursday. Also, broad trends suggest better days ahead. Companies expect to increase tech spending 25% in the next six to nine months, says the soon-to-be released Wendover-Global Insight IT Spending Index. If so, that would be a tremendous turnaround from the anemic state of corporate tech spending for several years.
"We are now on a recovery," says analyst Michael McConnell of Pacific Crest Securities.
Intel, the No. 1 chipmaker and thus an indicator of market conditions for many tech products, also reiterated that it has seen strengthening in corporate tech spending. For its fourth quarter, it reported its highest quarterly revenue ever: $8.7 billion, a 22% jump from the period a year earlier. The number beat Intel's best quarter during the tech boom of 2000.
"2003 began with a question mark and ended with an exclamation point," Intel CFO Andy Bryant said. Chips for computer servers were a strong point, he said.
Net income of $2.2 billion, or 33 cents a share, included some tax benefits. It was up from $1.1 billion, or 16 cents a share, the previous year.
Its shares dropped 3% to $32.45 after its earnings were released.
• Apple's investment in digital music helped it earn $63 million, or 17 cents a share, for its fiscal first quarter, meeting the highest Wall Street estimates. A year ago, Apple reported a loss of $8 million.
Apple sold 733,000 iPod digital music players in the quarter, up 235% vs. a year earlier, it says. It says it could have sold more if not for product shortages. Revenue of $2 billion, up 36% from a year earlier, topped expectations.
Sales of Macintosh computers totaled 829,000, up 12% from the year-ago quarter. Research firm IDC says worldwide PC shipments grew 15.2% in the same period.
Last week, Apple made a landmark deal with Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) to have iTunes for Windows software pre-loaded on H-P PCs. H-P is also going to market an H-P-branded version of the iPod, a change in strategy for Apple.
Apple CFO Fred Anderson said in the earnings call that the H-P deal will help Apple sell more Macs as more people "want the opportunity to enjoy our other digital lifestyle software."
In after-hours trading, Apple shares fell 6% to $22.85.
• Yahoo rode a wave of online advertising to a 62% jump in fourth-quarter net income.
Yahoo said it earned $75 million, or 11 cents a share, compared with $46.2 million, or 8 cents, a year earlier — exceeding analysts' predictions by a penny.
Revenue more than doubled to $664 million, including some revenue sharing with partners. Helping it: online ad sales from its acquisition of Web advertising-driven search engine Overture Services and fee-based subscriptions. Yahoo has 5 million paying customers, compared with less than 500,000 two years ago. Yahoo and Sina, China's largest Internet portal, also announced an agreement Wednesday to create an auction service.
Yahoo expects revenue of $2.12 billion to $2.25 billion this year — in line with analyst forecasts, according to Thomson First Call. Shares of Yahoo dipped 4% to $46.55 in after-hours trading.
Contributing: Jefferson Graham, Matt Krantz and Jon Swartz |
