Randomly Noted

There is clearly a lot of positioning going on by AT&T to convince the public and U.S. regulators that its proposed acquisition of rival T Mobile from Deutsche Telecom shouldn’t be viewed as anti-competitive. One certainly might think that when two of  the top leaders in any industry join forces.

If you check out the AT&T website, already there is a video of CEO Randall Stephensen discussing, among other things, his respect for regulators. There is a brief presentation of the deal that shows how consolidation has not hurt pricing. to the contrary, prices have come down since consolidation has been underway.

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Hewlett-Packard reported earnings today and while the numbers for the quarter ended January 31 were generally good, investors focused on the tepid outlook. Initial analysis of the results zeroed in on soft PC sales for the recent quarter and the question raised by the company of whether consumers were really opening their wallets. The stock fell 12% in after-hours trading.

There’s another longer-term trend investors should consider when looking at companies that have a lot of exposure to the printer business – will the introduction of tablets like the iPad make printing documents less necessary? Combine that with the green movement and it could spell troubles for companies that make printers.

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“We still have a few surprises left for the remainder of the calendar year.”

That’s Steve Jobs commenting on Apple’s strong quarter which saw big increases in computer sales, iPhone sales and the most recent product added to its must-have arsenal: the iPad. The company said it has sold 4.188 iPads in the most recent quarter. That pushes the number sold since launch to nearly 7.5 million units.

Jobs took aim at Smartphone competitor Research In Motion, saying Apple sold more iPhones this quarter than RIM sold Blackberrys in the most recently reported quarter.

One cna only image what Jobs has up his sleeve.

Meet Winfred.

The odds are you already have if you’ve recently shopped at the Farm Fresh supermarket on Great Neck Road in Virginia Beach.

I did. Several times, in fact, as Winfred was wheeling up and down the aisles, asking customers if they needed help finding anything, while restocking shelves with products discarded at the last minute at the cash registers.

He told me he has been with the company for about 10 years and likes working there. “They don’t discriminate,” he said, referring to his being tied to his wheelchair. And what makes that even perhaps even more impressive, he hinted, was that Farm Fresh is part of a big company called SuperValu. “They are publicly traded,” he said with pride. And they are.

The point here is a good one. You often don’t expect large companies to allow such smart and correct decisions to made at ground level. But clearly that’s the case here. Practically speaking, there is no reason why every supermarket or similar business doesn’t have a Winfred tooling around, asking customers if they need help. It is a job that a person bound to a wheelchair can do if he or she would like. It is super customer service. And if you get someone like Winfred, it puts a smile on many customers’ faces.

We already heard from Amazon earlier this week the stunning statistic that it is now selling 180 ebooks for each 100 hardcover books in its inventory. Today, as the company reported disappointing earnings, we learned that over the past year, it has sold $1 billion of product via mobile devices, a testament once again to the role that phones, and smartphones in particular, will continue to play in our lives and those of corporate America.

Another interesting stat from the company – the cash equivalent line on its balance sheet declined $215 million in the quarter. That number would have been $33 million better if it didn’t get hit by the effect of foreign currencies. In other words, it looks like forex reduced its cash position by nearly 13%. Bad hedging?

(Amazon’s earnings were lower than expected because operating expenses increased to meet demands for increased capacity. The stock fell 15% in after-hours trading.)

Apple just reported its earnings and clearly a big contributor to the company’s top and bottom lines was its new iPad, which was unveiled this quarter and has sold 3.27 million units. Some other interesting unit numbers show up in the earnings report. iPhone sales were slightly lower and have remained around the same level for three quarters now (most recent quarter was 8.4 million units sold). iPod sales continue to trend lower, clearly a result of the iPhones. And bread and butter Mac computer sales inched higher to 3.47 million units from 2.94 million. That last stat is an interesting one because it says that even with the iPad (or tablets in general), which some people suggest may replace laptops, Apple grew its computer business. Some of this could be companies starting to make computer purchases after having not done so during the recession – but Apple is not big in corporate section of the market. In all liklihood, it’s the buzz effect. Some people who buy Apple products love them and that first purchase has them looking at other Apple products.

By the way, record revenues for Apple in the latest quarter – $15.7 billion.

Three major financial institutions reported earnings today (GE Capital, the finance unit of GE, along with Citigroup and Bank of America) and while all were profitable, one sore spot stuck out when you dug through the mounds of data each company reported: Commercial real estate remains a big drag.

GE Capital had net income of $830 million – and that was after it lost $524 million in its real estate portfolio. The unit said it wrote off $186 million of bad commercial real estate debt and had $1.6 billion of non-performing assets. It placed at $6.3 billion its unrealized real estate loss.

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Intel late today reported its best quarterly earnings and sales in its 42-year history as corporations and small businesses significantly increased orders for PCs and servers powered by Intel chips. Clearly, companies that cut back capital exchpenditure budgets during the recent recession began to feel more comfortable starting to make those purchases again. The two open questions are whether this increase in demand will have a carryover effect into other quarters for Intel? And, which PC makers were the beneficiary of corporate buying?

Stay tuned.

The line snakes around the inside of the Apple Store today on 5th Ave. What are they waiting in line for? To see if their iPads have arrived.

A colleague joined me for a field trip to the 5th Avenue Apple Store in Manhattan today. Both of us were looking to buy some accessories for our iPads. We walked down the circular steps in the middle of the store and before us, was a mass of people the envy of every retailer – in a line that almost circled the interior of the store. I walked over to a salesman to see if I had to wait in that line to make my purchase (no, if using a credit card. Yes, if cash). I asked who all of these people were. He told us that almost everyone in line was there to see if their iPad’s had arrived. He said there have been production problems in Taiwan, so stores are experiencing serious shortages.

But then he mentioned another interesting point – he said he sells maybe two a day to people who live here in New York. “From other countries,” he said in response to my question of where did all of these people come from. He said he’s heard stories of how people would buy a couple iPads and take them back to their home country to sell them for $2,400. He even talked about”resellers,” people who bought iPads in the store and then sold them outside the buildinging to people who didn’t want to wait days or weeks to get their iPad.  Entrepreneurs everywhere.

The international sales element is interesting as likely many of the buyers are getting them here to take them home to play with.  Earlier this month, Apple delayed launcing the iPad internationally until sometime in May. If the New York store experience is like what other large cities are experiencing, you wonder what impact this will have on international sales when the product actually launches.

It’s been a bad couple of months for Toyota. First there were the massive recalls with certain models to fix gas pedals that were malfunctioning. Now we learn that a well-regarded consumer magazine is telling readers not to buy one of the company’s high-end SUVs – the first time in nearly ten years Consumer Reports has issued such a warning.

Here’s what Consumer Reports had to say: “Consumer Reports has judged the 2010 Lexus GX 460 SUV a Don’t Buy: Safety Risk because of a problem we experienced during our standard emergency-handling tests. When pushed to its limits on our track’s handling course, the rear of the GX we bought slid out until the vehicle was almost sideways before the electronic stability control system was able to regain control.”

Read the full review here.

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