The logo of Japanese entertainment and electronics giant Sony is displayed at the company’s headquarters in Tokyo on May 14, 2025.

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Sony on Thursday reported a rise in operating profit that beat expectations, supported by favorable foreign exchange rates despite surging memory chip costs. 

Here are Sony’s December quarter results compared with LSEG SmartEstimates, which are weighted toward forecasts from analysts who are more consistently accurate: 

• Revenue: 3.71 trillion Japanese yen ($23.68 billion) vs. 3.69 trillion yen
• Operating profit: 515 billion yen vs. 468.9 billion yen

Operating profit jumped 22% from a year earlier, rebounding from a year-on-year decline in the previous quarter. Revenue was up a modest 1% over the same period.

The Japanese technology and entertainment giant raised its full-year outlook and now expects operating profit of 1.54 trillion yen, an increase of 110 billion yen, or 8% from its previous forecast.

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Sony also raised its annual revenue projection by 300 billion yen to 12.3 trillion yen, or 3%, while keeping its estimated losses from U.S. tariffs at 50 billion yen.

Meanwhile, the board approved increasing the share buyback program to 150 billion yen from 100 billion yen, to run through May 2026.

Sales in the game and network services division, which houses its popular PlayStation home console brand and represents Sony’s top revenue driver, totaled 1.613 trillion yen, down 68.7 billion yen from a year earlier.

While the unit has benefited from a shift to digital game purchases and growth in the PlayStation Plus subscription service in recent quarters, hardware shipment growth has remained more subdued.

Sony’s hardware business is expected to face headwinds this year from rising component costs.

PlayStation consoles rely on a type of dynamic random access memory, or DRAM, chips, which are in short supply as demand from artificial intelligence and data center operators increases.

As a result, contract prices for conventional DRAM chips are projected to rise 90% to 95% in the current quarter from the previous three months, according to a report from market researcher TrendForce on Monday.

In an earnings call on Thursday, a Sony executive said the company aims to blunt the impact of higher memory costs by focusing on monetizing its current install base and further expanding its software and network service revenue.

Offsetting some of the pressure on the gaming business were stronger results from its music and imaging segments.

Revenue in Sony’s music business rose 12.6% from a year earlier in the December quarter, supported by growth in live events, merchandising and streaming services.

Meanwhile, its imaging and sensing solutions business grew by over 20% in revenue. The unit specializes in the development and manufacturing of semiconductor-based imaging and sensing technologies, including components used in smartphones.

Sony said that while the ongoing memory shortage is expected to impact the smartphone industry, its image sensors are primarily for the high-end market, which it expects to be less affected.

Shares of Sony reversed gains after the earnings release and ended the trading day flat on Thursday.

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Hoka shoes are seen in a store in Krakow, Poland on February 1, 2023. 

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Shares of footwear maker Deckers Brands plunged 15% Friday after the company trimmed its sales guidance for Hoka and Ugg — the two brands driving its growth — over concerns that tariffs are leading to a slide in demand.

Hoka, an up-and-coming running shoe brand, is now expected to grow by a low-teens percentage in fiscal 2026 after growing 24% in the year-ago period, while Boots brand Ugg is expected to grow in the range of a low to mid single-digit percentage, after growing 13% in the year-ago period.

In May, the company said Hoka and Ugg were expected to grow in the mid-teens and mid-single digits, respectively, in fiscal 2026 but it caveated that forecast by saying it was conceived prior to the introduction of President Donald Trump’s tariffs. At the time, it quantified the expected impact to its costs but said it remained to be determined what kind of impact the new duties could have on demand.

When reporting fiscal second-quarter earnings on Thursday, finance chief Steven Fasching said the impacts tariffs and higher prices are having on demand are now more clear.

“Part of the framework that we gave at the beginning of the year really said if tariffs did not have an impact on consumers, how we saw kind of certain growth, and we still believe that, right? But we do know and we are more currently seeing some impacts on the U.S. consumer,” Fasching told analysts on the company’s conference call. “So as U.S. consumers are beginning to see some price increases. It is impacting their purchase behavior within the consumer discretionary space.”

He added the guidance isn’t far off from what the company originally thought but acknowledged there is a “little bit of a reduction” in its forecast.

The slower pace of growth for Deckers’ two top-performing lines, along with the trim to their sales guidance, signals the two brands could be losing momentum after years of outperformance. Together, Hoka and Ugg account for the vast majority of Deckers’ revenue and have been critical in offsetting weaknesses in other categories.

CEO Dave Powers, however, downplayed fears of a long-term slowdown, telling investors that both brands remain strong among core consumers.

“We’re confident in the long-term trajectory of our portfolio,” Powers said. “While tariffs and inflation are creating near-term pressure, Hoka and Ugg continue to lead in brand heat and market share gains across their categories.”

Beyond Hoka and Ugg, Deckers’ full-year revenue guidance came in lower than analysts’ expectations. In fiscal 2026, the company expects revenue of about $5.35 billion, shy of Wall Street’s $5.45 billion forecast, according to LSEG. It expects earnings per share to be between $6.30 and $6.39, roughly in line with the $6.32 per share estimate, according to LSEG.

In the company’s call with analysts, Fasching warned that tariff costs could total about $150 million this fiscal year. Executives said they expect to offset roughly half of those costs through price adjustments and cost-sharing with factory partners.

Deckers’ shares have dropped more than 55% year to date, leaving investors on edge about any signs of decelerating demand.

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People walk past a Sweetgreen restaurant in Manhattan.

Jeenah Moon | The Washington Post | Getty Images

Sweetgreen shares dropped 23% on Friday after the salad chain cut its 2025 outlook for the second quarter in a row, citing issues with its loyalty program, weak consumer sentiment, tariff headwinds and store challenges.

For the full-year 2025, Sweetgreen now expects revenue of between $700 million and $715 million, down from its May prediction of $740 million to $760 million and its February outlook of $760 million to $780 million.

It also projects negative same-store sales for the full year, estimating declines of between 4% and 6%, down from its original outlook of single-digit growth. Restaurant-level profit margin for 2025 is expected to be 200 basis points lower than Sweetgreen’s latest outlook in May. That includes a 40 basis-point hit due to the effect of tariffs.

On a Thursday call with analysts, CEO Jonathan Neman said Sweetgreen had a “really, really rough quarter.”

He said both external headwinds and internal actions played a role in the performance, including “a more cautious consumer environment starting in April, lapping a tough comparison with last year’s successful steak launch and the transition of our new loyalty program at the beginning of the quarter.”

The company reported a second-quarter earnings and revenue miss, reporting a loss of 20 cents per share versus a loss of 12 cents expected by analysts surveyed by LSEG. Revenue came in at $186 million compared with the LSEG estimate of $192 million.

Same-store sales dropped 7.6% during the quarter, significantly underperforming the same quarter a year earlier when the company reported a same-store sales increase of 9.3%. Analysts were expecting a second-quarter decline of 5.5%, according to StreetAccount.

Executives said “loyalty headwinds” played a key role in the results. Neman said the transition from the Sweetgreen+ subscription program to a new program, SG Rewards, generated a 250 basis-point headwind to the company’s second-quarter same-store sales. He said Sweetgreen saw a falloff in revenue from that small but high-frequency cohort of Sweetgreen+ customers, but he said he believes the effect will be temporary.

Going forward, company leaders said they are focused on improving customer satisfaction and operations in stores.

Neman told investors on Thursday that only one-third of restaurants are performing at or above standards, while the remaining two-thirds “represent a meaningful opportunity for improvement.”

He said the company is aiming to improve operations through the leadership of its new chief operating officer, Jason Cochran, and the launch of a new program called Project One Best Way, focused on improving speed and food standards and increasing portion sizes.

Consumer sentiment has played a role in the company’s performance. Sweetgreen Chief Financial Officer Mitch Reback said pressure on consumer spending has persisted longer than expected.

“It’s pretty obvious that the consumer is not in a great place overall,” Neman said.

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Microsoft‘s Outlook email service malfunctioned for over 21 hours Wednesday and Thursday, prompting some people to post on social media about the inability to reach their virtual mailboxes.

The issue began at 6:20 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesday, according to a dashboard the software company maintains. It affected Outlook.com as well as Outlook mobile apps and desktop programs.

At 12:21 ET on Thursday, the Microsoft 365 Status account posted that it was rolling out a fix.

“Our configuration changes have effectively resolved impact in targeted infrastructure. We’re now deploying the changes worldwide to resolve impact for all users,” Microsoft said in an X post on Thursday afternoon.

The company’s status page said “most impacted users will experience relief within the next two hours,” and that it was continuing to monitor the service.

On social media, some people reported that Outlook was functioning properly after hours of users posting about problems.

Some posts included screenshots of Outlook that said “something went wrong.” 

Finally, at 3:36 p.m. ET, Microsoft said in another X post that its configuration change had reached all users, bringing the outage to a conclusion.

With hundreds of millions of active users, Outlook is important, although Apple and Google‘s email clients are more popular, according to data from analytics company Litmus. 

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Delta Air Lines planes are seen parked at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport on June 19, 2024 in Seattle, Washington.

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Delta Air Lines slashed its first-quarter revenue and profit outlooks, citing weaker domestic demand, backing up growing concerns about lackluster sales in some corners of the travel industry.

Delta expects revenue in the quarter ending March 31 to rise no more than 5% from last year, down from a forecast in January of 6% to 8% growth. It slashed its adjusted earnings forecast to 30 cents to 50 cents per share from a previous guidance of 70 cents to $1 a share. Delta’s shares were off more than 13% in after-hours trading after falling more than 5% in the regular session on Monday.

“The outlook has been impacted by the recent reduction in consumer and corporate confidence caused by increased macro uncertainty, driving softness in Domestic demand,” Delta said in a securities filing.

Delta CEO Ed Bastian told CNBC’s “Closing Bell” on Monday that he does not expect a recession but said consumer confidence has weakened and that both leisure and business customers have pulled back on bookings.

He said concerns about safety “somewhat exacerbated the impact on us” after the deadly midair collision between a regional jet and an Army helicopter in January in Washington, D.C., as well as Delta’s crash on landing in Toronto last month that was not fatal.

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Bastian’s comments come after a broad market sell-off.

Delta’s forecast, delivered after the market closed on Monday, comes a day before a JPMorgan airline industry conference in which CEOs are expected to update investors on current demand trends. Delta said in a filing that demand for premium travel, international travel and loyalty revenue growth is still in line with its expectations.

American Airlines, Southwest Airlines and United Airlines are among the other carriers that will also update Wall Street on demand trends.

Airline shares prices have dropped sharply in recent days as growing signs of weaker consumer spending hit the sector, which had been resilient compared with other industries in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.

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Mike Cannon-Brookes, co-founder of software company Atlassian Corp., in Sydney, Australia, Dec. 6, 2023.

Lisa Maree Williams | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Atlassian shares popped 14.9% after the software company blew past Wall Street’s fiscal second-quarter earnings and guidance expectations.

The stock hit a fresh 52-week high and closed at its highest level since April 2022. It was also the stock’s best day since November.

Adjusted earnings came in at 96 cents per share, ahead of the 76 cents per share projected by analysts polled by LSEG. Atlassian reported revenues of $1.29 billion, versus the $1.24 billion estimate.

For the third quarter, Atlassian said it anticipates $1.35 billion in revenue, above the $1.31 billion LSEG estimate and previous guidance.

Atlassian benefited from robust cloud and data center growth during the period as more customers turned to artificial intelligence solutions. That contributed to 30% subscription revenue growth over the prior year. Atlassian also said it now expects 26.5% cloud growth and 21.5% data center growth for the fiscal year.

“The momentum we’re seeing across the business reinforces our conviction around investments we are making in our key strategic priorities of serving enterprise customers, AI, and the System of Work to deliver durable, long-term growth,” finance chief Joe Binz said in an earnings release.

The Australian company, known for organization software tool Trello, has made a push into the artificial intelligence race alongside megacap technology competitors in recent years. In 2023, the company tapped OpenAI to bring AI capabilities to its Jira and Confluence solutions. Last year, Atlassian debuted its Rovo AI assistant.

Morgan Stanley’s Keith Weiss cited back-to-back solid quarters and 25 times year-over-year growth in Atlassian Intelligence among the reasons the company should “join the upper echelon” of software companies best situated for generative AI.

“1 million [monthly active users] for Atlassian Intelligence all point to a strong yield against investments in a unified Cloud platform ‘infused with AI’ and an improving enterprise motion. While the valuation gap narrows [after hours], we still see upside in TEAM,” he wrote in a Friday note.

Shares have gained 25% since the start of the year.

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The Eli Lilly & Co. logo at the company’s Digital Health Innovation Hub facility in Singapore, on Thursday, Nov. 14, 2024. 

Ore Huiying | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Eli Lilly cut its revenue guidance on Tuesday as it said demand for its weight loss and diabetes drugs would not meet its lofty expectations.

The drugmaker’s shares dropped more than 7% in midday trading Tuesday.

Eli Lilly said it now expects full-year 2024 revenue of about $45 billion. That’s lower than the $45.4 billion to $46 billion the company anticipated in October. The new outlook would still mark a 32% jump in revenue from the prior year.

Eli Lilly has been racing to meet soaring demand for its diabetes treatment Mounjaro and obesity drug Zepbound, investing billions to ramp up its manufacturing capacity of the company’s booming so-called incretin drugs. The efforts appear to be paying off: The Food and Drug Administration in December reaffirmed its decision to declare the U.S. shortage of tirzepatide — the active ingredient in both drugs — over.

In an interview with CNBC on Tuesday, Eli Lilly CEO Dave Ricks said the company has “tons of supply coming online” and “that kind of growth will likely continue.”

He also noted that the company will add more manufacturing capacity and expects to produce at least 60% more sellable doses of its incretin drugs in the first half of the year compared with the same period in 2024.

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For the fourth quarter, Eli Lilly expects $13.5 billion in revenue. The total includes about $3.5 billion for Mounjaro and $1.9 billion for Zepbound.

Wall Street had expected fourth-quarter and full-year revenue of $13.94 billion and $45.49 billion, respectively, according to analysts surveyed by LSEG.

The outlook cut comes as Eli Lilly competes with Novo Nordisk and other, smaller rivals for share of the exploding weight loss and diabetes drug market. Eli Lilly is developing an obesity pill that would be more convenient for patients and easier to manufacture, and Ricks expects it to be approved as soon as early next year.

“While the U.S. incretin market grew 45% compared to the same quarter last year, our previous guidance had anticipated even faster acceleration of growth for the quarter. That, in addition to lower-than-expected channel inventory at year-end, contributed to our Q4 results,” Ricks said in a statement.

The drugmaker also said it expects sales of $58 billion to $61 billion in fiscal 2025.

Eli Lilly is expected to report full quarterly results on Feb. 6.

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Shoppers walk into a Nordstrom department store in Austin, Texas, on March 3, 2023.

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Nordstrom on Friday raised its full-year sales outlook, after holiday shopping at its stores and on its website came in stronger than the department store’s cautious expectations.

The company stuck by its profit guidance despite the higher sales guidance.

The Seattle-based retailer said it now expects full-year revenue growth of 1.5% to 2.5%, which includes the effect of having one fewer fiscal week. That compares to its previous outlook of flat to up 1%.

Nordstrom struck a conservative note with its outlook in late November, despite topping Wall Street’s expectations for fiscal third-quarter sales. It had projected full-year revenue to range from flat to up 1%. It said adjusted earnings for the year would range between $1.75 and $2.05 per share. Its revenue includes retail sales and credit card revenue.

On an earnings call at the time, CEO Erik Nordstrom said the company had seen “a noticeable decline in sales trends towards the end of October” and factored that into its forecast.

Yet in a news release on Friday, he chalked up better-than-expected holiday sales to the company’s “efforts to remain competitive in the promotional environment and the strength of our offering.”

Nordstrom said net sales rose 4.9% and comparable sales, a metric that takes out the effect of store openings and closures, increased 5.8% for the nine-week holiday period that ended Jan. 4 compared with the year-ago quarter that ended Dec. 30.

During the holiday period, net sales at the Nordstrom banner increased 3.7% and comparable sales rose 6.5%. At Nordstrom Rack, the company’s off-price banner, net sales were up 7.4% and comparable sales increased 4.3%.

The department store operator’s results provide more insights for investors monitoring the health of U.S. consumers and the performance of retailers during the key shopping season. Retailers, including Walmart, Best Buy, Macy’s and others, will report earnings starting in late February.

So far, early holiday numbers have looked promising. Online spending in the U.S. rose nearly 9% from Nov. 1 through Dec. 31 compared to the year-ago period and totaled $241.4 billion, according to Adobe Analytics. Retail sales for the holiday season in the U.S., excluding automotive sales, rose 3.8% year over year for the period from Nov. 1 through Dec. 24, according to Mastercard SpendingPulse, which measures in-store and online sales across payment types.

Nordstrom’s update comes as the founding family prepares to take the retailer private. Nordstrom announced in late December a roughly $6.25 billion buyout deal with the family and Mexican department store El Puerto de Liverpool. The transaction, which was approved by the company’s board of directors, is expected to close in the first half of 2025.

Shares of Nordstrom closed at $24.01, down roughly 4% from its 52-week high. The company is scheduled to report its full fourth-quarter and full-year results on March 4.

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