“In the third quarter, Verizon continued to deliver double-digit earnings growth and strong cash generation, and we remain solidly on track to meet our financial objectives for the year,” said Lowell McAdam, chairman and CEO of Verizon. “With our 4G LTE network advantage, well-received Share Everything Plans and unmatched product portfolio, Verizon Wireless continues to do an outstanding job of balancing growth and profitability. Wireless achieved record profitability in a quarter in which we reported the highest number of retail postpaid gross and net adds in four years.”

Verizon earlier this year rolled out its Share Everything Plans, which allow families to pool data, but require a monthly fee for each device that can access the data. The plans could conceivably save money for large families who don’t use much data, but are more expensive for individual users.

The new plans and its FiOS service have propelled Verizon to a third consecutive quarter of double-digit earnings growth. The company’s wireless service revenues totaled $16.2 billion, up 7.5 percent from the third quarter of 2011. Overall, the company saw 56 cents in diluted earnings per share (eps) – a 14.3% increase over the third quarter of 2011.

“Based on the strength of our FiOS fiber-optic network, we reported the highest growth in U.S. consumer wireline revenues in 10 years,” saidMcAdam. “Additionally, strategic services growth in our Enterprise business helped offset weaker revenues caused by global economic challenges. We are confident that we have the right plans in place to meet these challenges while improving the long-term profitability in both Consumer and Enterprise.”

Part of Samsung’s growing success is undoubtedly its success in the growing smartphone market. Its flagship Android smartphone, the Galaxy S III, has sold over 20 million units since its debut this spring. A mini version of the Galaxy S III is rumored to be in the works for a launch this holiday season. Samsung expects its new extra-large Android smartphone, the Galaxy Note II, to sell upwards of 20 million as well.

ComScore, a leading digital metric company, this year has consistently estimated that over a quarter of Americans who have smartphones use a Samsung device.

Though Samsung was ordered to pay $1 billion to Apple after a jury back in August determined Samsung violated Apple design patents, the Korean company has continued to fight Apple on the legal front. Just this week, Samsung added Apple’s new iPhone 5 smartphone to a patent case set for a 2014 trial. Samsung claims the iPhone 5 and other iPhone models violate wireless technology patents it holds.

When the trading began on May 18, however, the problems started to surface. The company’s stock rose to $45 per share for a short time and then dropped back down to close at $38. 27, just a few cents above its opening price. Investors were disappointed and confused by the day’s events, but they quickly became angry as new details began to emerge.

Based on numerous reports, Facebook’s underwriters lowered their earnings estimates during the company’s public road show. As the story goes, Facebook apparently tipped them off that its second quarter revenues were not going to be as high as it had originally expected. These underwriters, namely Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, and Goldman Sachs, then only told a limited number of investors that they were cutting their estimates for Facebook’s Q2 and the full year.

Former Wall Street analyst Henry Blodget, who is now the Editor-in-Chief of Business Insider, calls this practice of verbally conveying estimates to selected investors “grossly unfair.” In a post on his site, he points out that the SEC rules should change to ensure that all investors have access to the underwriters’ estimates.

“This is an absurd and unfair practice. The estimates themselves are material information–the consensus of smart, well-trained analysts who have worked with the company’s management to develop realistic forecasts. Most investors don’t even know that these estimates exist, let alone that they’re whispered verbally to only a handful of big investors. All potential investors should have easy access to these estimates, as well as to any logic underlying them. The SEC needs to change the rules here.”

Facebook’s stock price dropped after this information was brought to light, and it continues to fall as more details come out. The blame has been pointed in several different directions including toward Morgan Stanley, Nasdaq, Facebook, and even toward David Ebersman, Facebook’s CFO.

Francis Gaskins, the President of IPODesktop, however, pins the blame on someone else. In a recent interview with us, he told us that Mark Zuckerberg is responsible for the company’s IPO disaster, calling the young CEO an “egomaniac.”

“If you want to play the blame game… Mark Zuckerberg himself bears the brunt of it,” he said.

Gaskins has been skeptical of Facebook’s IPO from the beginning. When Facebook filed its S-1 with the SEC earlier this year, he spoke with us and said that the company’s valuation was way too high based on the fact that its past earnings were flat.

“He [Mark Zuckerberg] was talking a year ago about a $100 billion market valuation, and his financial numbers were a lot lower than he thought,” said Gaskins. “[But] he was gonna have that evaluation come hell or high water.”

According to Gaskins, Zuckerberg allowed the company to put out projections that were too high in order to justify the $100 billion valuation. He believes this not only puts him at blame, but that it also raises questions about his leadership.

“Zuckerberg to me, instead of being a hero, he’s a control freak that doesn’t have any self-confidence,” said Gaskins. “If he had self-confidence, he wouldn’t have really made an effort to have 55 percent voting control… that means he’s never ever accountable.”

“After the disaster of an IPO, he left on a honeymoon – catch me if you can.”

“[If] they didn’t know what was happening in the second quarter,” he continued,” how can they possibly know what’s happening in the third quarter, or even the fourth quarter?”

While it is possible that Zuckerberg bears responsibility, there are other issues that could hold some of the fault as well. Analysts have credited various events, including Facebook issuing more shares of stock shortly before it went public and GM pulling its paid advertising from the platform, to the chaos that is continuing to surround the IPO. Another factor that’s been labeled as a red flag for Facebook is its mobile initiative.

Although trends show mobile usage is only going to increase, the company has not clearly defined how it will succeed in the area. The company openly admitted in its S-1 filing that its monetization efforts for mobile were yet to be proven:

“Growth in use of Facebook through our mobile products, where our ability to monetize is unproven, as a substitute for use on personal computers may negatively affect our revenue and financial results.”

While these issues and others were seemingly overlooked before May 18, it appears that they are now becoming realized. Now, Facebook is finding itself facing an angry Wall Street, a string of legal trouble, and a damaged reputation, some of which is illustrated in this video:

Unlike Blodget, Gaskins doesn’t believe that any rules need to change going forward. He calls what the underwriters did “normal business“ pointing out that they’re allowed to talk about the estimates. To the fact that the new research wasn’t published, he said, “There may be some harm but no foul.”

Incidentally, Congress has said that it plans to investigate the proceedings, but there has been no official word on what specific measures it may take.

Gaskins did say that he thinks underwriters will look more carefully at estimates in regards to future IPOs. He believes underwriters will be much more analytical to avoid a repeat of the Facebook fiasco.

There are reports predicting that Facebook will switch from Nasdaq to the NYSE, given its rocky start at its public debut. While it is understandable that Facebook would want a clean slate, Gaskins told us that the company “can’t wipe out history.”

These rumors and even those of Facebook building its own smartphone and planning to acquire Opera do not seem to be having a positive impact on the company’s stock price. At the close of business Tuesday, the stock price was $28.84, after dropping steadily all day.

“You can’t trust them anymore based on them missing estimates this close,” said Gaskins. “I think they’ll have a second quarter that won’t please investors, I think they’ll have a third quarter that won’t please investors, [and] I think the price will go down quite a bit.”

The slides highlight where Android was in 2010, and it doesn’t seem that far off from where they are now. Back then, 20 million Android devices had already been sold, and 160,000 Android devices were being activated every day. All major service providers around the world were committed to Android and manufacturers were jumping on board as well. However, this explosive growth in Android sales hadn’t slowed Apple much, if at all. Looking back, these sales were indicative of the growth of the smartphone market as a whole, and companies such as Nokia and RIM were the ones that lost out in the sea change.

Though there were already 70,000 apps in Google’s Android app market, purchases of apps were very low. This is a situation that has persisted, and many apps that sell on Apple’s App Store are free on Google Play and use in-app ads. Even with all of those in-app ads, though, Android in 2010 still came in a distant second as a contributor to Google’s total mobile revenues. Apple provided more than double the revenue from Android phones, with $281 million. The free-app culture is one that Google helped to encourage with free, high-quality apps of their own and an open-source platform.

Google was already worried about competing app stores showing up on Android devices. This is another consequence of Google’s open-platform philosophy. Also, without the strict controls that Apple uses for its devices, manufacturers and carriers were free to create “walled gardens,” as Google calls them, forcing customers to use their own modified Android versions. This is a trend that continues today, and has actually gotten worse. One thing Google didn’t anticipate in 2010 is that those “walled gardens” would create a problem when updates to Android are released. Carriers and manufacturers must update their “walled gardens” along with Android, and many of them are slow to do so. This has created a system where even some high-end Android phones don’t yet have the newest version of Android, Ice Cream Sandwich, running on them.

Google’s anticipated future revenue opportunities included better display, search, and local ad formats. The mobile ads seen on Android devices have improved since 2010, though it’s unknown whether or not ad revenue has improved as a result. Another revenue opportunity Google anticipated was the tablet market. The presentation makes it clear that Honeycomb, the version of Android designed specifically for tablet devices, was a major goal for the Android team at the time. They expected the high content consumption inherent on tablets to increase mobile ad revenue. However, as we know now, the tablet market still seems to be all but locked-up by Apple.

Google does seem to be right on track according to the Android Strategy shown in the presentation. In 2010 Android was already transitioning into phase two. The platform had clearly already achieved the goals set out in phase one, which were becoming a leading mobile software platform, gaining a significant amount of apps, being on multiple manufacturer’s devices, and obtaining millions of users. Phase two, which ran from 2010 until sometime in 2011, focused on improving mobile search, ads, and apps. Phase three, which Android is in currently, involves expanding monetizable services on the platform, including digital content such as movies, books and music. This strategy can clearly be seen in the launch of Google’s new marketplace, Google Play, where a vast array of content is now available. Manufacturers seem to have already beaten Google to a key part of phase 4, which is to scale the volume of Android devices by going down-market to feature phones. The lower-priced Android devices coming out recently aren’t exactly feature phones, but they are certainly leaving a dent in feature phone sales.

Google’s estimations for a potential music download service are particularly interesting. The plan was for a music download service similar to iTunes, which would allow users to download DRM-free music and share %70 of its revenue to music labels. In addition, users would be able to rent cloud storage for their music library for $3 per month, with 50% of that money going to music labels. A feature that Apple recently rolled out with its iTunes Match service was also put forward: uploading songs to the cloud storage service and having them “refreshed” to a higher bit rate. Google predicted that it might bring in as much as $738 million in revenue from music sales in 2011, which certainly hasn’t panned out. Though Google Music has some of the features touted in the presentation for a future Google music service, Google is far from a leader in music sales.

Some of Google’s predictions have been exceeded by the success of the Android platform. Both unit sales for Android devices and Google’s mobile revenue greatly exceed even the optimistic predictions seen in the 2010 slide presentation. Other predictions, though, have not come to pass. The tablet sales and revenue expected, in particular, are far below what Google had predicted. Still, Google can’t be faulted for thinking big and setting impressive goals. Especially when they have met most of those goals. No matter what the next twist for the mobile market is, as Android transitions to phase four in 2013 the platform will, most likely, continue to pull in big revenue for Google.

Take a look at Google’s slide presentation yourself and see what a difference two years can make in the mobile sector. If you have insight about where Android has been and where it is going, make sure to leave a comment below and let us know.

(via Marketing Land)
(Slide pictures courtesy The Verge)

Below is a chart form LinkedIn’s annual report:

LinkedIn’s net income last year was $26 million. This number would’ve been far higher if it hadn’t hired 531 sales and marketing people in 2011, a roughly 270% increase. Likewise, the sales and marketing budget rose to $165 million in 2011, up from $59 million in 2010. Though, this was all part of a plan, as LinkedIn has stated that it was more focused on brand awareness and upping its user base than profitability.

LinkedIn’s comment on the matter – “We plan to continue to invest heavily in sales and marketing to expand our global footprint, grow our current customer accounts and continue building brand awareness. In the near term and consistent with our investment philosophy for 2011, we expect sales and marketing expenses to increase on an absolute basis and as a percentage of revenue and to be our largest expense on an absolute basis and as a percentage of revenue.”

LinkedIn presently has 150 million users, from over 200 hundred countries. Sixty percent of its user base is located outside the U.S., and as of Dec. 31st, 2011, the company had 2,116 full-time employees.

Dell’s revenue for Q4 last year was $16 billion, up 2%, while its net income was down 18%, at $764 million, compared to $927 million for the 4th quarter of 2010. Dell called 2011 the “company’s most successful financial year ever,” with a full year revenue increase of one percent to $62 billion, according to The Inquirer.

Michael Dell, chairman and CEO of the company, goes on to say, “I’m very pleased with our fiscal year results and the strong performance we’re seeing in our commercial businesses. We remain focused on developing and acquiring new technologies and capabilities, and our IT solutions portfolio has never been stronger. Customers are now seeing Dell in a fresh light, and we’re heading into the new year with strength and optimism.” Dell’s expanding strength as an enterprise solutions provider helped to drive revenues of late, which saw a record $18.6 billion in 2011. Dell’s net income for the fiscal year was $3.5 billion, up 33%.

Consumer business experienced a drop of 2% in revenue to $3.2 billion, and fell 43% in operating income to $39 million. The company attributed this to the general decline of the U.S. economy. Dell also released the Inspiron Duo last year, which has a unique flip-hinge design akin to a tablet, but likewise dropped out of the U.S. tablet market after discontinuing it’s Streak 7.

Dell expects revenue growth of 5 to 9 percent for 2012, with typical seasonal declines in its consumer and public businesses, for Q1 of this year.

I would be interested to see what employees make at these tech firms. It’s interesting that these few companies can generate so much revenue. I can’t help but wonder about the larger manufacturing and service based corporations. What does their per employee breakdown look like?

Facebook is unique in that its users have played a significant role, if not the most significant role, in what it is today. According to its S-1 filing, Facebook has 845 million active monthly users. Due to this widespread user base combined with the nature of Facebook, the news of the IPO has been particularly intriguing.

Users are excited because they feel a special connection to Facebook. While it is substantial news, there are some issues being raised about it from a business perspective, particularly over its estimated valuation.

Is Facebook worth $100 billion? What do you think?

According to Francis Gaskins, President and Partner at IPODesktop.com, the past 4-5 quarters are very indicative of its future. Based on the information that was released in the filing, he does not think $100 billion is a reasonable valuation for Facebook.

“At $100 billion market cap, Facebook would be selling at about 53 percent of Google’s cap,” he said.

As he explains, Facebook’s revenue in 2011 was $3.7 billion. Google, on the other hand, had revenue of $46 billion, which is more than 10 times the amount of Facebook’s. Given this data, Gaskins doesn’t see how Facebook is worth 53 percent of Google.

Gaskins also points out that the past quarters are telling of the company’s rate of growth. He told us he was “quite surprised” when he saw the details.

“[If] you look at what happened for December 2010, March, June, and September of 2011, oddly enough, what you will find is the operating earnings were flat,” he said. “The net after tax earnings were flat, and the margins – the profit margins – went down.”

He believes the $100 billion valuation points to the ego of Mark Zuckerberg as well as the fact that Facebook is falling into the trap of believing their own press releases, a move that he calls “very, very dangerous.”

“The credibility of management’s forecast is very, very important,” he said.

Gaskins told us that Facebook didn’t have a solid strategy for being profitable that would appease Wall Street, especially since its revenue was flat even without any real competitors. However, now that Google+ exists and is appearing to gain ground, he said that Facebook’s current projections could really hurt it. He believes that Facebook should have filed its IPO last summer when it was the only player in the space.

Another issue he sees from a business perspective is how Facebook is defined.

“It’s not a technology company,” he said. “It’s a consumer of technology, which is different. They’re offering a service, and they’re not selling technology.”

Facebook is, however, an Internet advertising company like Google. According to Price Waterhouse, the yearly compound growth rate for Internet advertising will be 12 percent through 2015. So, at this rate, it doesn’t translate into high multiple market growth for Facebook.

With these revelations and others being analyzed, the social giant will likely face a lot of scrutiny. What’s bad is that Facebook is about to enter the quiet period, which means that it will not be able to respond to the negativity.

On the bright side, Gaskins did say that Facebook’s IPO would have a positive impact on the economy.

“It’ll definitely help the economy because there will be a lot more money flowing around in the tech area,” he said.