Swisscom sold 79,000 of the Apple iPhone 3GS model between its 19 June launch and the end of September 2009, according to industry media reports
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Swisscom, Switzerland’s dominant telecommunications company, posted revenues of CHF8.92 billion Wednesday 11 November, a figure 1.8 percent below that for the same period a year earlier. Net income rose, however, by 16.6 percent to CHF1.31b, “on a par with the previous year”, says the company. The results were published just days after the company was fined CHF219 million, accused by Switzerland’s competition watchdog of earlier (2007) having a broadband pricing policy that hampered competition. The company, which once had a monopoly of the Swiss industry, has denied the charges. In today’s press release on the company’s results for the first nine months of the year it says that the weak Swiss market was responsible for the lower revenues.
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Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Edipresse, whose Swiss operations are scheduled to be sold to Tamedia in Zurich in 2010 if the deal is approved by the federal government, has posted a loss of CHF8.9 million for the first half of 2009, citing the continuing overall weak economy and lower advertising revenue. The company notes that the fall in turnover, CHF36 million, was not as great in percentage terms as the decline in profits, showing the positive impact of cost-cutting measures. The figures are in any event difficult to compare to previous financial results because the company has adopted new accounting methods as part of the spinoff, and the Swiss business is now handled separately as “discontinued business.”
The Swiss arm of Edipresse had January-June 2009 revenues of CHF173.6 million, down CHF 38m (-18%) compared to the same period in 2008, “mainly due to the fall in advertising receipts.” The profit on these operations nevertheless remained positive, before depreciation, at CHF22.5 million, a fall of CHF-13.7m.
Photo ©2009 PHOTOPRESS/Gaetan Bally)
Update 15 August 08:10 Bienne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Swatch group, the world’s largest maker of watches, posted profits of CHF301 million for the first half of 2009, 28 percent down compared to the same period last year, which was a record year. By late Friday 14 August when the market closed in Zurich the company’s shares had risen 13 percent, the most in 10 months according to Bloomberg, which says the company led a surge in luxury goods share prices.
The watchmaker’s results confirm that the Swiss watch industry is suffering the effects of the global downturn, but the company says it sees signs of recovery and that sales in the second half of the year are expected to beat last year’s sales for the same period.
(correction: price of gold) Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Swiss National Bank has posted a positive half-year result of CHF5 billion before provisions, compared to a loss of CHF3.4b a year earlier. The SNB ended 2008 with a loss of CHF4.3b. The central bank’s legal obligations require it to set aside provisions that allow it to maintain currency reserves at a level necessary for monetary policy. For the first six months, CHF701.8 million will be allocated to provisions. The stabilization fund set up to bail out bank UBS had no impact on the results, the SNB points out.
Rupert Murdoch, head of News Corp, one of the UK’s main media businesses, says that with advertising revenues nosediving the company will begin to charge readers for online news and other services starting in the summer of 2010. The news was woven into the Times’s own story on the company’s financial results: News Corp posted a £2 billion loss for the year ended 30 June, in part the result of the recession but with writedowns for acquisitions that included Dow Jones (which owns the Wall Street Journal) and Fox Interactive Media. The Guardian and the Financial Times made the web-news-for-fee the headline. A flurry of comments in the Guardian disputed Murdoch’s comment, picked up by the Guardian, that “quality news” costs money and readers must pay for it. BBC
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – UBS is reporting in a webcast 6 May that its loss for the first quarter of 2009 is CHF2 billion.
Net outflows of new money for its Global Asset Management business have slowed, the bank reports, to CHF7.7 billion.
The loss is attributed mainly to risk business that the bank has left or is in the process of leaving. UBS live webcast, 09:00
Related, Le Temps (Fre)
Romanel-sur-Morges, Switzerland (TSR, Fre) – Computer peripherals manufacturer Logitech, long proud of double-digit quarterly increases in profits, posted one of its worst results in years Thursday 23 April, showing a fourth quarter fiscal year 2009 loss of $35 million. A year earlier the company’s net income was $60.3. The company’s fiscal year ends 31 March. Poor sales, down 32 percent for the year, were blamed.
Dupont, the third largest chemical company in the US, announced 21 April that net income fell 59 percent, from April 2008, to $489 million. The company will cut 2,500 jobs worldwide as part of belt-tightening measures. Sales plummeted as client industries, notably the automotive industry, weakened, but the company says Q2 sales should be stronger, as client stocks run down. Profits remained in line with analysts expectations in the first quarter. Dupont lowered profit forecasts for 2009 to $1.70-2.10 a share, from an earlier projected $2.00-2.50. Bloomberg
