“Most stores we contacted reported strong follow-through sales last week and have received ‘re-stocks’ following the initial launch,” says McKechnie. “We had guesstimated ~ 200k Verizon-only ‘sell in’ prior to the launch. We now expect at least another 200k by Black Friday and 150-200k through the remainder of the holiday season, which gets us to our 600k forecast for the quarter. All stores appear ‘well stocked’ with none reporting shortages….Our checks with stores indicate no issues with returns of the Droid.”

Evidently, Verizon’s Droid saturation campaign, with a budget estimated at $100 million, is paying off–despite its impersonal sci-fi positioning.

“The company is taking this action in a careful manner to ensure that there is no impact on the improved customer experience that has been reflected in much higher levels of satisfaction in customer surveys and in independent performance tests,” Sprint said in a statement. “Sprint has pledged to not waver on the company’s commitment to quality service and products….The impact on geographic locations will vary, and many impacted positions will be eliminated by Dec. 31, 2009.”

Nice. Just in time for the holidays, too.

Not the prettiest of quarters, but that penny-a-share profit beat the consensus estimates of analysts, who had expected the company to simply break even.

“We delivered on our commitment to improve the financial performance of Mobile Devices and to commercially launch two smartphones in time for the fourth-quarter holiday season,” Sanjay Jha, co-CEO of Motorola and CEO of Mobile Devices, said in a statement.

“The introductions of our new products powered by Android,” Jha continued, “are important milestones as we begin to address the mobilization of the Internet and the growing demand for modern smartphones. Next year, we will continue to expand our smartphone portfolio and deliver improved financial results.”

Glad those layoffs are paying off for someone.

Which is not to say that Motorola’s suffering is over. Sales at the company’s struggling wireless division dropped a precipitous 46 percent to $1.7 billion. Its estimated global market share is now 4.7 percent, compared with 8.4 percent it claimed in 2008. An ugly decline indeed.

That said, with some strong new Android handsets in the pipeline, things are beginning to look up for Motorola (MOT). At $8.44, company shares are trading up six percent this morning.

“It appears that Amazon is gaining share the old-fashioned way,” ThinkEquity analyst Ed Weller noted last week, “by acquiring more and more customers…and selling more to each of them.” And judging from the nice gain in third-quarter earnings the company posted after Thursday’s closing bell, that would seem to be the case.

Net income for the period surged 69 percent thanks to a strong increase in sales. Analysts had been looking for earnings of 33 cents a share on revenue of $5.02 billion for the quarter. Amazon (AMZN) reported 45 cents a share, compared with 27 cents a share for the same period the previous year. Revenue rose 28 percent to $5.45 billion.

Once again, it seems Amazon has not broken out Kindle sales numbers in its report, though CEO Jeff Bezos did stress them in an earnings release. Said Bezos: “Kindle has become the #1 bestselling item by both unit sales and dollars–not just in our electronics store but across all product categories on Amazon.com. It’s also the most wished for and the most gifted. We are grateful for and energized by this customer response.”

Looking ahead to the key fourth quarter, Amazon is calling for revenue in the range of $8.125 billion to $9.125 billion. Analysts have been forecasting revenue of $8.13 billion. Given that the upcoming quarter includes the annual holiday shopping binge, Amazon may be looking at another blowout quarter.

Shares in the company are spiking on the news, up over nine percent to $101.90 as I write this.

The online auctioneer reported revenue of $2.23 billion, up six percent from a year ago, while net income fell 29 percent to $350 million or 27 cents per share. Excluding some items, earnings were 38 cents a share. Analysts who follow eBay expected the company to turn in a gain of 37 cents per share on sales of $2.14 billion.

Gross merchandise volume–the value of all goods sold via eBay–rose seven percent from the same period last year. Analysts had believed it would drop between five and 10 percent.

EBay said it sees fourth-quarter earnings of 38 cents to 40 cents a share, on revenue of $2.2 billion to $2.3 billion.

“Our third quarter results were strong, with PayPal gaining momentum and market share worldwide and our core eBay business showing positive trends,” John J. Donahoe, eBay’s chief executive, said in a statement.

NOTES FROM THE EARNINGS CALL

On business overall:
eBay CEO John Donahoe: “These are strong results for a strong company….We’re seeing our turnaround efforts begin to pay off.”

On the economy:
Donahoe: “The economy as we see it is stable, and we’re cautiously optimistic about consumer spending going into the holiday.”

On the Skype lawsuit:
eBay CFO Bob Swan: “We’re highly confident in our position.”

“We are very impressed by Apple’s ability to post a record profit quarter during difficult macro spending conditions,” Canaccord Adams analyst Peter Misek said in a note to clients this morning. “A host of new product introductions and continued traction with the iPhone give us confidence in the sustainability of Apple’s operating model.”

Suffice it to say, Misek wasn’t the only the analyst lauding Apple’s (AAPL) fourth-quarter performance. Below a selection of commentary from other Apple watchers:

Gene Munster, Piper Jaffray
“September results were strong despite headwinds of iPhone production constraints and a Mac desktop offering in need of a refresh. We expect these headwinds to become tailwinds in the December quarter, which we believe will be positive for AAPL shares in the coming months.”

Mike Abramsky, RBC Capital Markets
“With strong financial performance and product uptake amidst recession, and further catalysts (iPhone in China, Tablet, refreshed iMacs, iPhone share gains/momentum), we foresee further upside for the shares.”

Maynard Um, UBS
“Upside to virtually every metric in the qtr backs our positive view on Apple. We continue expect greater “recurring” iPhone hardware revenue (growing installed base & stickiness of the App Store), which should drive more visibility into iPhone sales (20%+ of our FY10 iPhone shipments), as well as iPhone expansion driven by new partnerships (& end of exclusivities). Longer term, we believe a service to provide seamless access & mobility of digital content across all products may be the draw (halo) that drives additional future Apple product sales.”

Tavis McCourt, Morgan Keegan
“Overall, Q4:09 was a strong quarter for Apple, as the Mac is nearly becoming the de facto computer for the back-to-school season. Additionally, iPhone trends remain remarkably strong, with unit economics holding up at unheard of levels in the wireless industry.”

Yair Rainer, Oppenheimer
“As usual, Apple appears to be leaving plenty of room for upside surprises to both revenue and margins. On the revenue side, Apple should benefit from continued Mac momentum (particularly in Europe), higher recognized iPhone revenue, and some channel fill for both Mac and iPhone. Gross margin upside is likely to come from a higher proportion of recognized, high-margin iPhone revenue.”

No wonder it was a blowout quarter.

After market close Monday, Apple reported a fiscal fourth-quarter profit of $1.67 billion, or $1.82 a share, on revenue of $9.87 billion. That topped the estimates of analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters, who’d expected the company to earn $1.42 a share on revenue of $9.2 billion.

The company sold 3.05 million Macs during the quarter, a 17 percent increase over last year. It sold 10.2 million iPods, an eight percent decline from the year-ago quarter.

And iPhones? Apple (AAPL) sold 7.4 million of those–seven percent more than during the same period last year. So much for those supply-chain issues that some analysts warned might undermine iPhone sales.

“We are thrilled to have sold more Macs and iPhones than in any previous quarter,” said CEO Jobs. “We’ve got a very strong lineup for the holiday season and some really great new products in the pipeline for 2010.” [Editor's Note: "...really great new products"--is that code for a tablet?]

Apple shares, which closed at $189.86 today, are spiking as I write this. At $203.90, they’re up more than seven percent in extended trading.

Looking ahead to its fiscal first quarter, Apple estimates it will earn between $1.70 and $1.78 a share on revenue in a range of $11.3 billion to $11.6 billion. That’s comically lower than the $1.91 a share on $11.45 billion in sales that analysts are forecasting. But as today’s results clearly demonstrate, Apple subscribes to the underpromise-and-over-deliver school of guidance theory, so there’s likely little cause for concern.

So, to recap: Apple sold more Macs and more iPhones than in any previous quarter in the company’s history. Before the holiday quarter. And in midst of the worst economy we’ve seen in 50 years.

Notes From the Earnings Call:

• Apple COO Tim Cook and CFO Peter Oppenheimer are handling the earnings call. CEO Steve Jobs will not be attending.
• Oppenheimer says this was Apple’s second-highest quarterly revenue ever. Highest-ever operating margin. “We are thrilled with these record-breaking results, particularly given the economic environment around us.” Obviously.
• Macs are showing “fantastic momentum,” says Oppenheimer. Sales have outpaced the market in 19 of the past 20 quarters. Quarterly sales were up 17 percent; portable sales, 35 percent. Interesting: 42 percent growth in Asia.
• Moving on to iPods: Sales were down to 10.2 million from 11 million a year ago. But iPod touch sales doubled. MP3 market share in the U.S. is now more than 70 percent (according to NPD, I think).
• iPhone sales were up seven percent. Apple will begin selling iPhones in China later this month. More than 85,000 apps in App Store. Two billion downloads.
• Apple opened 15 new stores during the quarter. Now has 273. Will soon open first two stores in France, including one at the Louvre.
• Moving on to the Q&A. Asked about those iPhone 3GS supply issues I mentioned earlier, Cook acknowledges that demand did outstrip supply in a number of countries. But the situation improved “markedly” in September. How are things looking for China? Cook: “I would have liked to have had more, honestly, because we were still short in some countries at the end of the quarter.”
• Apple is obviously very excited about the iPhone’s impending debut in China. “There’s a good opportunity, and we’re really excited to get started,” says Cook. “It’s the largest market in the world in terms of total phones.”
• No comment on the broader economy. “We just spend our time projecting our business and leave the economy to the economists.”
• Does Apple worry about iPhone rivals? Android? Not really, says Cook. “We feel very good about suiting up and competing against anyone.” Our competitors are still trying to catch up with the first iPhone, he adds.
• Snow Leopard? Cook says the company’s been “pleasantly surprised” by sales of Apple’s latest OS.
• How does Apple benefit from carrier-exclusivity iPhone deals? Cook says carriers with exclusivity deals are willing to invest more in the platform and that means greater innovation. Visual voicemail is an example of that. That said, he adds, “We’ve found no lack of people wanting to sell iPhones, frankly.”
• International store revenue up more than 20 percent, on average.
• More on iPhone supply issues. Cook insists this is not a component issue, though he notes that silicon can sometimes be hard to get. “We feel good about our position now.”
• And still more on iPhone supply issues: How many iPhones would Apple have sold if it had an adequate supply? Impossible to say, really, Cook says, adding that 3GS units were in short supply virtually everywhere in September.
• Enterprise demand for the iPhone is very strong. It’s either being deployed or already in use at some 50 percent of Fortune 100 companies. Same with Europe and the FT 100. Widely used in higher ed and government as well.
• But perhaps not widely enough. Asked about institutional sales, Cook says Apple isn’t seeing much stimulus funding. The company’s worried about state spending. Says Cook, “We may see more this quarter, but it’s too early to tell.”

In a note to investors today, Oppenheimer analyst Yair Reiner warned that supply-chain issues may have prevented Apple (AAPL) from selling the seven million iPhones consensus estimates have been predicting. “During the iPod event on Sept. 9…Apple implied that ~3.5M phones had been sold with only 21 days left in the quarter,” Reiner wrote. “Subsequent checks showed the iPhone 3GS sold out in many markets. Something was clearly preventing Apple from shipping to demand.”

Apple was able to resolve those issues, but they lasted long enough that Reiner fears consensus estimates implying that the company sold an additional 3.5 million iPhones in the final weeks of the quarter may be a bit too aggressive.

That said, it’s worth noting that Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster pointed out the same supply issues in a research note of his own earlier this week and came to a very different conclusion. Munster is calling for iPhone sales of about 7.5 million units in the Sept. quarter.

Who’s right? We’ll find out Monday, when Apple reports earnings.

Dragging the company down: A 908 million euro goodwill write-off in the Nokia Siemens Networks venture it co-owns with Siemens (SI). Revenue was 9.8 billion euros, or about $14.6 billion, which was down about 20 percent compared to last year. Worse, smart-phone market share declined to 35 percent from 41 percent in the previous quarter.

Six points gone in three months? That’s a brutal loss and one that demonstrates just how much pressure the company is seeing from Apple (AAPL) and Research in Motion (RIMM), among others.

“Nokia is launching plenty of new high-end smartphone models, such as the N900 and N97 mini,” Strategy Analytics analyst Neil Mawston told Reuters. “But as yet there is no iPhone killer to drive a major revival in its smartphone volumes. Nokia is still struggling in the U.S. smartphone market, and with competition intensifying in China as well, Nokia’s battles can only get tougher in 2010.”

Still, Nokia (NOK) did have some good news to report. It expects mobile device volumes to increase in the fourth quarter of 2009 and it sees the global handset market shrinking less this year than analysts had feared–seven percent instead of 10 percent.

“It is encouraging to see some signs of recovery in our markets,” Kallasvuo said during a conference call. “But let’s be clear, uncertainty in end-consumer demand remains.”

Posting third-quarter results Tuesday, Intel (INTC) said it earned 35 cents a share on revenue of $9.39 billion. That’s not quite what the company reported during the same period last year, when it saw earnings of 35 cents a share on revenue of $10.2 billion. But it’s much better than investors had been hoping for. Analysts had expected Intel to report earnings of 28 cents a share on revenue of $9 billion, according to a consensus survey by FactSet Research.

Not bad. Even better, the company bumped up its fourth-quarter guidance from sales of $9.7 billion to sales $10.6 billion. Consensus estimates have been calling for sales of $9.5 billion, according to FactSet Research data.

Intel’s rosier Q4 guidance suggests that the slow increase in end-market demand for PCs we’ve been seeing lately isn’t simply inventory refill but reflects an upswing in demand for end-customer goods. Perhaps that turnaround CEO Paul Otellini has been heralding for the last half year is not as far off as it might seem.

“Intel’s strong third-quarter results underscore that computing is essential to people’s lives, proving the importance of technology innovation in leading an economic recovery,” Intel CEO Paul Otellini said in an earnings release. “This momentum in the current economic climate, plus our product leadership, gives us confidence about our business prospects going forward.”

Excluding charges related to stock options and other items, Palm (PALM) said net losses were $13.6 million, or 10 cents a share, for the recent period. Revenue slipped to $68 million from $366.9 million in the same period last year. Excluding revenue deferred from sales of the company’s new Pre handset, Palm said adjusted revenue would have been $360.7 million. Analysts had expected the company to turn in a loss of 24 cents a share on sales of $291 million.

Palm shipped a total of 823,000 smart phone units during the quarter, up 134 percent over the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2009, but down 30 percent year over year. Smart phone sell-through for the quarter was 810,000 units, up 76 percent from the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2009 and down 21 percent year over year.

Speaking to analysts Thursday afternoon, Palm execs claimed that “the vast majority of new sales” for the quarter were generated by the Pre. But they declined to separate Pre sales from those of other handsets.

Skeptics will no doubt look at this and conclude that Palm didn’t meet expectations for Pre shipments of about 520,000. That, or the company is still selling a hell of a lot of Centros.

“We’re making significant progress with Palm’s transformation, and our culture of innovation is stronger than ever,” said Jon Rubinstein, chairman and chief executive officer. “We’re launching more great Palm webOS products with more carriers, and turning our sights toward growth.”

A few more Jon Rubinstein remarks from the earnings call:

On additional form factors:

I’m a big believer in families of products, and we’ll continue to evolve the line in the future and have a family of products for webOS.

On Carrier Customization:

We don’t really talk about our carrier agreements.

On Pre sales:

Sell-in and sell-through…the vast majority of new sales…relate to the Pre.

On the Pixi cannibalizing Pre sales:

The Pixi is a more cost-effective offering, so yes we expect some people might come into the store looking to buy a Pre and end up with a Pixi. But others might come in looking for a Pixi and end up with a Pre. As I said, we’re big believers in families of products. We’re happy to have two webOS products on the market.

On carrier diversification:

Sprint did a phenomenal launch with the Pre. They invested heavily in advertising….We’re looking forward to launching the Pixi with them as well. We don’t talk about our roadmap, but we’ll have more carriers and more products in the future.

On Motorola’s new Motoblur service:

We don’t really know much about it. To build really great consumer products, you have to own the OS and services. And the fact that we have webOS as our asset is really important.

For its fourth quarter, Sun posted a loss of $147 million, or 20 cents a share, compared with a profit of $88 million or 11 cents a share in the same period a year earlier. Revenue dropped 31 percent to $2.63 billion. Excluding special items, the company said its quarterly loss was three cents a share.

A sad final showing for the former Silicon Valley icon, which is soon to become another acquisition notch in Oracle’s (ORCL) belt. The database giant won U.S. antitrust regulatory approval for its merger with Sun earlier this month, and a ruling from European regulators is expected in September.