Brace yourself
The BBC breathlessly announced today that we're officially in a recession now in the UK, having confirmed two consecutive quarters of a fall in GDP.
Meanwhile quarterly earnings season has revealed a succession of ‘shocking' results, although most people's ability to be shocked by economic news must be somewhat dulled by now.
In a bid to draw a line under the news, for this week at least, we decided to give you a summary of it all in one bite-sized chunk.
The table below shows technology companies that have announced their quarterly earnings this week, including year-on-year change where we've been able to access the information. Note it's not all bad news, with Apple, Google and IBM all exceeding expectations.
Before you get too chirpy, however, we also had the news that DRAM maker Qimonda has opened insolvency proceedings and consumer electronics giant Sony has warned it expects to announce a considerable loss for 2008.
| Company | Q4 revenue | YOY change | Q4 net income | YOY change |
| AMD | $1.162 bn | -33% | -$1.424 bn | 19.6% |
| Apple | $10.17 bn | 5.9% | $1.61 bn | 1.9% |
| Avnet | $4.27 bn | -10.2% | $112.3 m | -21% |
| $5.7 bn | 18% | $382 m | ||
| IBM | $27 bn | -6% | $4.4 bn | 12% |
| Microsoft | $16.63 bn | 1.6% | $4.17 bn | -11.3% |
| Nokia | €12.67 bn |
-19.5% | ||
| Samsung | KW18.45 trn | -KW20 bn | ||
| Seagate | $2.3 bn | -$4.96 m | ||
| TSMC | Tw$64.6 bn | -31% | Tw$12.6 bn | -64% |
