Apple recently announced stellar results for fiscal 2012 first quarter with a record quarterly revenue of $46.33 billion and record quarterly net profit of $13.06 billion, or $13.87 per diluted share.

And that casts a large grey cloud over everyone else.

Mobile Losers

Verizon

To start off, Verizon pointed out that though they added 1.2 million post-paid subscribers and activated over 4.3 million iPhones in that period, their iPhone sales actually hurt them. They purchase iPhones at a high cost but sell them at a lower price because it comes with a 2-year plan that not everyone sticks to and pay for.

AT&T

Dallas-based telecommunications company AT&T reported a massive $6.7 billion loss in the fourth quarter due to employee pension benefits and the breakup fee they paid to T-Mobile because the merger fell over but their revenue rose 3.6% to $32.5 billion.  AT&T still leads in iPhone activations, as they reported 7.6 million iPhones in that period.  But like Verizon, they too are suffering the consequences of selling iPhones at a consumer-friendly price.  The more iPhones sold means less profit margin for the carriers.

AT&T’s wireless revenue rose 10% to $16.7 billion, average revenue per user increased 1.4% to $63.76, and total customer turnover rate slightly rose to 1.39% from 1.32% a year ago. Last Sunday, the company raised the prices–and caps–on their data plans for smartphones, which could boost revenue, but could also lead to customer defections.
AT&T will shift its focus on connected devices, as in connecting all your devices, in anticipation for the negative outcome of their slowing down postpaid business.

Nokia

Finnish multinational communications corporation, Nokia, reported a fourth quarter net loss of €1.07 billion ($1.38 billion), as sales slumped 21% even with the Lumia handsets’ estimated sale of 1.3 million units globally.

Overall, handset sales dropped by 29% compared to the same quarter of the previous year. Nokia sold 19.6 million smartphones and 93.9 million feature-phones, for a total of 113.5 million devices sold, down from 123.7 million total devices sold in the fourth quarter of 2010.  Price for Nokia devices significantly dropped from an average price of €69 in 2010 to €53 in 2011.

Nokia CEO Stephen Elop remains positive for Q1 2012.

“From this beachhead of more than 1 million Lumia devices, you will see us push forward with the sales, marketing and successive product introductions necessary to be successful,” Elop said in a statement. “We also plan to bring the Lumia series to additional markets including China and Latin America in the first half of 2012.”

Pareto Oehman analyst Helena Nordman-Knutson shares Elop’s positive outlook, stating that Nokia has other devices, aside from the Lumia, to count on in order to increase their revenue, like the N9.

“People forget it’s not all about Lumia, there’s the N9 as well and it’s part of this transition,” she said. “With these new devices the average selling price could lift because the proportion of lower-priced smartphones will decrease.”

If you recall, Sony Ericsson also reported a pretax loss of $316.57 million for Q4 in 2011, with sales down by 16% to only $1.7 billion and shipment down by 20%, due to the demand slowdown and tough competition prevailing in the smartphone market.  HTC also reported a very disappointing Q4 as net profit fell 26% to NT$11 billion ($364 million) from NT$14.8 billion a year earlier as a result of intensifying competition and a slowing global economy.

Mobile Winners

So far, aside from Apple, Google and Samsung were the only ones who reported positive Q4 results.  Samsung reported consolidated sales of approximately 47 trillion Korean won, or somewhere between 46 trillion and 48 trillion Korean won ($39.6 billion to $41.3 billion), and consolidated operating profit was estimated at 5.2 trillion Won or somewhere between 5.0 – 5.4 trillion Korean won.

As for Google, though ad earnings fell short, the company still earned $2.7 billion, or $8.22 a share, during the last three months of 2011, revenue rose 25% to nearly $10.6 billion, and surpassed $10 billion in a quarter in the company’s 13-year history.