Some tech earnings updates thus far Apple Citrix Facebook and ARM

Earnings season is well underway and following the hammering on several technology stocks earlier this month, it’s worth highlighting some that have featured on the relatively good side of the earnings stage.

Apple managed to beat expectations with its latest update.

The company beat expectations, having sold some 44 million iPhones in the quarter (versus expectations of around 37 million), representing a 17% increase over the same period last year.

Overall top-line growth of 5% isn’t exactly the fastest the company has grown, nonetheless it beat forecasts.

There’s been anticipation regarding forthcoming Apple products but details were scarce. Still, hiking up dividends by 8% and adding $30bn to its share repurchase kitty (bringing it up to $90bn) certainly helped keep investors sweet, for now.

Virtualisation and cloud services player Citrix also reported better-than-expected numbers.

The company reported a 12% increase in revenue at some $750m – compared to expectations of around $730m. Net income declined around 6% to $56m for its first quarter, predominantly due to a restructuring charge of some $10m.

It expects revenue for its second quarter, however, to come in the range of $765m and $775m – below market expectations.  The numbers aren’t terribly exciting (and headwinds certainly remain for the company) but they’re encouraging.

Citrix’s shares have been hammered of late and – despite climbing on the back of its update – it’s still a notable 20% below last year’s peak in September.

Facebook had a strong first quarter, reporting revenue of $2.5bn, around a 70% increase over the same period last year.

The company’s net income for the period came in at $642m, up from $219m reported in the previous year.  Facebook raked in advertising revenue of around $2.3bn (up 82%), of which, mobile advertising revenue represented 59% – versus 30% in the first quarter of 2013.

The strong numbers were helped by a 21% increase in daily active users (DAU), and the company’s efforts in the mobile space look to be bearing fruit, with mobile DAUs soaring 43%.

To be sure, competition for mobile advertising revenue is fierce, with a number of heavyweights all looking to grab a piece of that lucrative pie. But Facebook seems to be positioning nicely to capture a healthy piece.

This side of the pond

Chip designer, ARM, posted a 10% growth in revenue at around £188m (16% growth in dollar terms) for the quarter.

Pre-tax profit was at around £97m, representing a 9% growth over the same time last year.  While total licensing sales soared 33% to around £80m. However, total royalty sales came in at £87m, down from some £91m last year – though in dollar terms, total royalty sales actually grew 3%.

ARM anticipates an improvement in the second half of the year, which should help the company’s full-year results meet market expectations.

That wasn’t enough to excite the market and shares of the company have dipped since the update, despite the long-term growth story.