THE WRAP: Apple soars as Nokia, Qualcomm stumble

This week Apple overcame the humiliation of its iPhone secrets revealed as it soared further away from its rivals.
 
Apple’s Q1 profit rose 90% thanks to iPhone sales, and analysts marked the firm even higher, while the device helped even AT&T post a record increase in subs.
 
The bumper earnings overshadowed the embarrassing leak of the next-gen iPhone, which was lost in a bar by an engineer and revealed to be a lighter device with squared edges and a bigger battery
 
By contrast, Nokia’s stock fell after it missed its forecast and cut full-year guidance. Qualcomm also trimmed its forecast and was also marked down.
 
Despite appointing a financial adviser to hunt for a buyer, Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein says he believes the company can survive as an independent.
 
Ericsson paid €181 million for Nortel’s share in its vendor partnership with LG in Korea, and signed an MoU with Datang Telecom to work on TD-SCDMA and TD-LTE.
 
France Telecom’s expansion plans took a knock, when a merger of Orange and Sunrise was blocked by Swiss competition authorities.
 
BT lost out on “hundreds of millions” in back-dated mobile termination rates, after a UK court ruling.
 
Google disclosed details of government requests for information about its users.
 
South Korea, Hong Kong and Japan enjoyed the world’s fastest broadband in Q4 2009. The global average speed declined 1% to 1.7Mbps as more customers signed up. 
 
Skype has 560 million users and last year accounted for 13% of all international voice minutes.
 
China Mobile’s profit rose just 1%, although it increased signings of 3G subs.
 
Verizon’s quarterly profit slumped 75%, mostly due to a healthcare cost write-down, as it also struggled to find new customers.
 
Lenovo said it would target the China market with its new smartphones.
 
Japanese giant Fujitsu said it would release its first smartphone by early 2011.
 
Windows 7 powered a 35% increase in Microsoft earnings but fell short of the top range of analysts’ forecasts.
 
Amazon now sells more electronics and other gear than books and media.
 
Visa agreed to pay €1.5 billion for CyberSource a specialist in payment security solutions for online merchants.
 
Bell Labs researchers hit 300Mbps in a lab test using two DSL lines over 400 meters.
 
Adobe gave up on Flash for the iPhone.
 
And a new iPad app allows gamers to roll out mobile networks, offer handset subsidies and win new licenses. The winner is the one with the most subscribers.