Technology Focus

Apple iPhone 4 sets record sale pace despite gaffe
Apple (AAPL: Charts, News, Offers) shares rose nearly 3 percent on Wednesday after it announced sales of more than 600,000 iPhone 4s, a record for just a single day of pre-orders. That put the device on track to surpass sales of its previous iPhone models as well as its iPad tablet computer, and sounded a strong challenge to rivals like Nokia Corp (NOK: Charts, News, Offers), which warned of weaker-than-expected sales at its phones unit.

But Apple apologized on Wednesday for having to halt sales temporarily after the surprising volume of online interest overloaded order and approval systems and supplies ran out.

Apple’s website said Wednesday afternoon that products ordered then would be shipped by July 14, three weeks after the phone’s scheduled June 24 launch in stores and slower than the July 2 shipment promised earlier in the day. The site was still slow on Wednesday, making it unclear if orders were going through. (Source: Reuters)

Best Buy shoppers spend less than expected for qtr
Best Buy (BBY: Charts, News, Offers) shoppers spent less than expected this spring, contributing to a rocky first quarter for the chain and disappointing Wall Street, but executives said the weak results don’t mean Americans have less of an appetite for electronics.

The company’s profit edged up 1 percent but fell far short of what analysts were expecting. Best Buy stock tumbled 6 percent.

Company executives pointed out Tuesday that the first quarter makes up just 10 percent of Best Buy’s annual revenue and expressed confidence in Americans’ demand for products such as phones and computers. (Source: Google News)

Nokia Cuts Quarterly Outlook
Nokia Corp. (NOK: Charts, News, Offers) said Wednesday that its sales and profits will be lower than expected this quarter, the latest setback for the company as it struggles to compete in the premium smartphone segment against Apple Inc.’s (AAPL: Charts, News, Offers) iPhone and Research in Motion Ltd’s (RIMM: Charts, News, Offers) BlackBerry devices.

Nokia, the world’s leading mobile phone maker with about 40% of the market, attributed its reduced guidance to intensifying competition in the high-end market segment, a shift in its product mix toward devices with lower margins, and the recent depreciation of the euro.

But it is the company’s failure to deliver high-margin products to match the iPhone’s slick design and easy-to-use operating system that have cost it most dearly. That failure forced it to reorganize its business twice in recent months in a bid to regain the initiative, replacing a top handset executive and creating a business unit to focus solely on smartphones. (Source: Wall Street Journal)

AOL Sells Bebo to Criterion for Less Than $10 Million
AOL Inc. (AOL: Charts, News, Offers), the Internet company spun off from Time Warner Inc. (TWX: Charts,News, Offers), sold its Bebo social-networking service to Criterion Capital Partners LLC for less than 2 percent of what it paid for the site two years ago.

AOL, which paid $850 million for the site, got less than $10 million for it, said a person familiar with the matter, who declined to be identified since the price wasn’t made public. AOL said in a filing today it expects to record a tax benefit this quarter of $275 million to $325 million from the sale.

The New York-based Internet company said April 6 it was weighing a sale or shutdown of Bebo. AOL said it wasn’t in a position to fund a turnaround at Bebo after losing ground to bigger social-networking rivals Facebook Inc. and News Corp.’s (NWS: Charts, News, Offers) MySpace. The price AOL paid for Bebo included $766 million of goodwill, according to regulatory filings. (Source: BusinessWeek)

Follow us on twitter: Penny_stock

StockSource.us

ABOUT US:
Stock Source is a full service investor relations firm dedicated to growth stocks. We seek out innovative, emerging companies poised for growth and tell their stories to qualified, aggressive investors looking for ground floor opportunities.
We connect investors with investment prospects—cutting through the noise and churn of Wall Street to shine the spotlight on companies on their way up. These companies trade on the Nasdaq, Amex, OTCBB, and Pinksheets.

Sign up for our FREE newsletter HERE