Now’s a pretty good time to be in the real estate business —  or at least the real estate listing business.

Zillow reported its fourth quarter 2012 earnings today, crushing analyst estimates and perhaps silencing the critics who say its business model is baloney.

Revenue on the quarter was $34.3 million, a 73 percent increase over the same period in 2011 year. Much of that cashflow came from Zillow’s Marketplace, which pulled in $26.8 million — nearly double its Q4 2011 numbers.

Zillow traffic growth continues to be driven by mobile readers, who currently make up over half of its traffic. Zillow’s overall monthly uniquess increased 47 percent to 34.5 millon during the quarter.

Going forward, Zillow says it will focus on increasing the number of people who use it, growing its Premier Agent service, and expanding its rental, mortgage, and home improvement business — the latter of which the company launched earlier this month.

Zillow’s shares are up 11 percent to $43.50 in after hours trading.

Photo:Shutterstock

The new AOL relies on content and ads to drive revenue, and content and ads are delivering.

AOL reported net income of $35.7 million for the fourth quarter 2012, which was in-line with analyst expectations.

Net revenue was $599 million, a four percent increase over last year’s $576 million. As AOL points out, this is the first time in eight years that it reported year-over-year revenue growth.

Translation: Things are looking good in Tim Armstrong’s house.

The big thing analysts were paying attention to this time around was AOL’s domestic display ads business, which dropped three percent this quarter even as AOL’s larger ad business increased by 13 percent and its search business improved by 17 percent.

AOL’s dial-up service (which, yes, still exists) pulled in $174.2 million, a 10 percent drop year-over-year.

Overall, CEO Tim Armstrong is pleased.

“AOL has strong momentum entering 2013 and is positioned to continue on our growth path by executing our strategy to build the next generation media and technology company,” Armstrong said in a statement.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

The more iPhones Sprint sells, the more money Sprint loses.

The third-place U.S. carrier sold a record 2.2 million iPhones last quarter, though that didn’t help its fate much. Though Sprint pulled in 9 billion, it bled a net $1.32 billion, thanks to Hurricane Sandy, its network build out, the ongoing closure of its Nextel network, and subsidy costs from the iPhone itself.

The good news for Sprint is that its post-paid (contract) subscribers increased by 18 percent year-over-year to 401,000, a clear sign that its iPhone gambit continues to pay off. Sprint also added 525,000 prepaid customers.

The problem, however, is that while Sprint is adding subscribers on its Sprint-branded end, it’s rapidly losing them on the Nextel side. A total of 1.02 million Nextel customers jumped ship last quarter, resulting in a net loss of 337,000 subscribers.

For Sprint, the biggest challenge has been convincing those fleeing customers to stay with it and not flee to competitors, which it’s so far struggled to do. The company expects to recapture only 40 percent of its ex-Nextel customers in the first half of this year.

Sprint’s 2.2 million iPhone sales look good, but they’re tiny in comparison to those of Verizon and AT&T, which sold 8.6 and 6.2 million iPhones last quarter, respectively. Sprint said it sold 6.6 million iPhones in total last year, making that disparity even more jarring.

Photo: David Neubert

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Four words best summarize LG’s fourth quarter 2012: televisions, smartphones, and slight disappointment.

LG reported a $98.08 million profit for the quarter on $12.37 billion in revenue. Roughly half of that cash came from LG’s television business, which reported $5.91 billion in revenue.

The story is slightly more interesting for LG’s phone division, which reported $2.58 billion in revenue. LG shipped 15.4 million phones in the quarter, half of which were smartphones like the Optimus G and Nexus 4.

And this is where the disappointment comes in: LG’s smartphone numbers would have looked a lot better had LG been able to satisfy the insane demand that greed the Nexus 4. It’s a bittersweet realization, no doubt.

Fortunately, LG has since fixed the Nexus 4′s stock issues, which is pretty certain to spell good news for the company’s results this quarter. 

Photo: Devindra Hardawar/VentureBeat

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Samsung, in case you didn’t know, is really good at selling smartphones.

Over 60 percent of its record $52.6 billion Q4 2012 revenue came from sales of phones like the Galaxy S III and Galaxy Note 2. Net profit rose 76 percent in the quarter to $6.6 billion.

Samsung’s overall revenue was also given a bump thanks to good numbers from its chips and television businesses.

But even among all those big numbers there are signs that that growth is starting to flatten out. Year-on-year revenue growth for the mobile division dropped from 82 percent in the third quarter to 58 percent, as The Wall Street Journal points out. Samsung is essentially running out of people to sell its phones to.

To reverse this slowdown, the company will likely refocus its efforts on mid- and low-end phones, which more people can afford. The problem here is that margins on cheaper phones are lower than those on more expensive devices. So while Samsung may end up selling more phones, it’ll make less money on them. (If that sounds familiar, it’s likely because Apple’s in a very similar situation.)

In the meantime, however, Samsung’s Android gambit continues to pay off.