Vendor results - 19/10/05

Sony Ericsson posts Q3 net profit rising to €104m (+16%), while sales gained 22% to €2.1bn. It sold 13.8m mobile phones in 3Q, up 29% boosted by camera phones and Walkman music phones. Its ASP (average selling price), however, continues to slide yoy. Sony Ericsson claims a 7% market share and increased its yearly market projection to over 760m units in 2005.

According to financial analysts, Nokia could report a strong rise in 3Q05 revenue(+19%) to € 8.5bn, of which multimedia phones sales are expected to be up 59% at €1.5bn, and Networks unit could report a rise of 6% to €1.6bn. Operating profit is forecast to rise 13% to € 1.1bn.

Fujitsu expects to report net profit of $63m, vs a loss of 72m, for the first half of its fiscal year, and revenues of $19.9bn, almost flat.

IBM exceeds analysts' forecasts. In 3Q05, IBM earned $1.5bn on revenue of $21.5bn. Profit was almost flat, while sales declined 8%. Proforma results, however, are worse: without PC operations and exceptional tax payment, earnings decreased 25%, but was still above analysts consensus, while sales increased 4%. IBM's gross profit margin is relatively flat at 40%. Services sales grew 3%, while software saw a 5% revenue gain.

Motorola should report solid 3Q on continued healthy sales of handsets.