Seagate Hikes Profit, Sales Outlook
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Seagate Technology STX.N on Tuesday  raised its quarterly revenue and profit forecasts for the  December quarter on strong seasonal demand for newer products,  surpassing analysts' forecasts and sending its shares up more  than 12 percent.
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Home products retailer Williams-Sonoma Inc. reported Wednesday that second-quarter profits rose 55 percent on strong sales growth to beat Wall Street expectations.
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EMC Corp , the No. 1 maker of  corporate data storage equipment, reported higher quarterly  profit on Thursday on an increase in sales of both hardware and  software.
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Media conglomerate Time Warner Inc.  said on Wednesday that fourth-quarter profit rose more than 30  percent, boosted by asset sales, more digital cable and phone  customers, and a rise in AOL advertising sales.
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Stocks were set to open higher on  Tuesday after a long holiday weekend, with U.S. oil prices  falling more than a dollar and Seagate Technology STX.N, a  computer hard-drive maker, raising its first-quarter profit  forecast.
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International Business Machines Corp.  on Tuesday posted a quarterly net profit that beat Wall Street's recently raised profit target as solid year-end product sales were buoyed by a weaker U.S. dollar.
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Electronic Data Systems Corp. reported a  higher quarterly profit on Wednesday, boosted by a surge in new  orders for its technology services.
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The Lenovo Group, the personal computer maker, said its profit rose more than 600 percent in its latest fiscal year as it increased sales and restructured after its acquisition of I.B.M.âs PC unit. Profits were $161 million for the year, up from $22 million in the prior year. The Americas operations returned to profitability in the fourth quarter, meaning that all the global regions were profitable for the first time, the chief executive, William J. Amelio, said. Sales for the year, which ended March 31, rose 9.9 percent, to $14.6 billion, helped by strong sales of laptop and desktop computers in its home China market, Lenovo said. The company said its worldwide market share rose 0.2 percentage points, to 7.4 percent.
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Solid flash-memory sales plus a good outlook for power systems are driving higher profits than Toshiba expected.
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Symantec Corp  reported an increase in quarterly profit on Wednesday, boosted by strong overseas sales, and forecast current-quarter results above Wall Street estimates, sending its shares up 9 percent.
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Hard drive maker Seagate Technology said Thursday its fiscal second-quarter earnings jumped by 188 percent as shipments rose 20 percent year over year.
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Hewlett-Packard reported solid financial results for its fiscal first quarter, driven by growth in PCs and enterprise hardware. The results prompted HP to raise its forecast for the year ahead.Revenue for the quarter, which ended Jan. 31, was $28.5 billion, up 13 percent from a year earlier, HP announced Tuesday. Pro forma net income was $2.3 billion, or $0.86 per share, up from $1.8 billion, or $0.65 per share, a year earlier.The figures beat the expectations of financial analysts, who had forecast revenue of $27.6 billion and pro forma earnings per share of $0.81, according to Thomson First Call. The pro forma figure excludes one-time items that slightly inflated the results. Using generally accepted accounting principles, HP&#39;s profit was $2.1 billion, or $0.80 per share.HP&#39;s Personal Systems Group, which produces its laptop and desktop PCs, grew its revenue 24 percent from the same period a year earlier, to $10.8 billion, with unit shipments up 27 percent. Notebook sales climbed fastest, up 37 percent, while desktop sales climbed 15 percent.The division had already been doing well. HP extended its lead over Dell in PC sales last year, according to figures from Gartner. HP ended the year with 18.2 percent of the market, compared with 14.3 percent for Dell. The PC market overall grew 13.4 percent.HP may find it hard to sustain that growth rate, in part because it has to make comparisons with increasingly successful quarters in the year before, CEO Mark Hurd said on a conference call. Still, Hurd said, &quot;when you look at 24 percent growth, I think that&#39;s pretty darned strong.&quot;HP&#39;s imaging and printing group performed slightly less well, with revenue climbing 4 percent to $7.3 billion. Printer unit sales declined by 1 percent from a year earlier, thanks to weakness in the consumer market. Revenue from supplies, which includes HP&#39;s profitable ink business, climbed 6 percent, however.Revenue from the servers and storage group climbed 9 percent to $4.8 billion. Sales of blades and industry-standard servers were strong, while HP&#39;s PA-RISC and Alpha chip businesses continued to shrink. Services revenue climbed 11 percent year-over-year to $4.4 billion, while software sales climbed 11 percent to $666 million, HP said.Hurd said he was pleased with the results overall. He attributed them to successful cost-cutting efforts, the addition of 2,000 new HP sales staff in the past year, and a diverse product portfolio.HP generates an increasing amount of its business overseas, he said. Its biggest market continued to be Europe, the Middle East and Africa, where revenue grew 15 percent to $12.3 billion. Asia-Pacific revenue climbed 22 percent to $4.9 billion. Growth in the Americas was a sluggish 8 percent, generating $11.2 billion.&quot;We generated 69 percent of our revenue outside the U.S., with emerging markets driving significant growth,&quot; Hurd said.The company now expects second-quarter revenue of $27.7 billion to $27.9 billion, and pro forma earnings per share of $0.83 or $0.84. That&#39;s above what analysts polled by Thomson had been estimating: pro forma profit of $0.82 and revenue of $27.4 billion.
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Japanese electronics group Toshiba Corp  (6502.T) posted a 38.4 percent rise in quarterly operating  profit on Monday, thanks to strong sales of its flash memory  chips, and it raised its full-year outlook closer to market  estimates.
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Sony Corp  swung to a quarterly operating profit as robust sales of digital cameras and camcorders helped offset videogame losses, and it raised its annual outlook that exceeds market expectations.
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Hewlett-Packard Co , the  world's largest personal-computer maker, on Tuesday reported a  higher quarterly profit as it sold more PCs and server  computers.
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Seagate Technology offers a better than expected revenue and earnings forecast; the stock should still be avoided.
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Microsoft Corp. (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) , the world&#39;s largest software maker, on Thursday said its quarterly profit climbed as sales rose, but the company&#39;s revenue forecast