Wall Street Beat: Tech earnings stay strong

21.01.2010

-- EBay, which reported on Wednesday that fourth-quarter revenue was $2.4 billion, up 16 percent from the same period last year. EBay's net income rose to $1.35 billion from $367.2 million. The figures were boosted by its sale of Skype. However, profit still rose 12 percent excluding the sale.

-- Storage vendor Seagate also on Wednesday reported second-fiscal-quarter net income of $533 million, compared to a loss of $2.8 billion a year earlier. Revenue was $3.03 billion, up from $2.27 million in the year-ago quarter.

-- Advanced Micro Devices, which Thursday announced its first quarterly profit in three years. Revenue was $1.6 billion, a 42 percent improvement over the year-earlier period, while profit was $1.2 billion, compared to a loss of $1.4 billion a year earlier. However, in one of the few sour notes for tech financials this week, it said that without a $1.25 billion payment from a legal settlement with chip rival Intel, it would have lost money.