Good news for Microsoft (MSFT). Clearly, Bing’s traffic is not yet leveling out. That said, it should be noted that according to comScore (SCOR), whose search data are most highly regarded by Wall Street, Bing never lost search market share in the U.S.

Pretty damn badly.

Posting third-quarter earnings that topped Wall Street expectations this morning, AT&T (T) said it activated a record 3.2 million iPhones during the period (not surprising given Apple’s blowout quarter).

Of those, 40 percent were for customers new to the carrier. That’s quite a bit more than Wall Street expected, and this surge did much to balance continued weakness in AT&T’s wireline business (click on slide below to enlarge). In fact, if that 40 percent metric is accurate, then Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone single-handedly generated an astonishing 92 percent of AT&T’s post-paid subscriber growth.

“We delivered a terrific wireless quarter, IP data growth was strong and execution across the business continues to be solid,” AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson said in an earnings release, and indeed, that would seem to be the case.

Wireless data-services revenue spiked 34 percent. And revenue from the wireless segment overall increased 8.2 percent as profit grew 41 percent. Wireless turnover rate fell to a record low of 1.4 percent.

Meanwhile, wireline revenue fell 7.1 percent, profit 30 percent.

So in the end, AT&T posted earnings of $3.2 billion, or 54 cents a share, down from $3.23 billion, or 55 cents a share, a year earlier. Revenue slipped 1.6 percent to $30.86 billion. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected per-share earnings of 50 cents on revenue of $30.88 billion.

At $26.86, shares of AT&T are up about 3.5 percent in early morning trading.

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.”

Now, $500 a share isn’t in the same stratospheric price range at which Google’s stock once traded–certainly it’s not the $707 and $713 it reached in 2007. But it’s a psychological milestone nonetheless, and that’s worth noting because Google’s shares have risen more than 50 percent over the past six months, and Wall Street seems to be growing increasingly more positive on the stock.

Sadly, the same cannot be said for Yahoo (YHOO), which hasn’t elicited the same sort of response. But then why should it? As Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz said earlier today, “Yahoo and Google are different companies. They are in different businesses….They aren’t us and we aren’t them.”

Clearly. Yahoo shares are trading at what, $16?

According to the research outfit, Mac sales for July and August are up seven percent year-over-year. If this proves true, Apple (AAPL) should sell somewhere around 2.75 and 2.8 million Macs in the quarter, which would match or slightly exceed Wall Street consensus estimates. IPod sales should meet estimates as well, though NPD reports that year-over-year sales during July and August were down 16 percent.

Munster figures Apple will sell 9.5 million to 10.5 million iPods for the quarter. The Street is looking for 10 million, and with the launch of the newest nano, Apple will likely meet this goal.

“We are expecting reacceleration in the final month of the quarter given the new iPod nanos that shipped on 9/9,” Munster explained. “Also, iPod international is growing faster than domestic. In other words, we believe the actual reported numbers for iPod will be slightly better than NPD would suggest.”

Clearly, there’s quite a bit of enthusiasm around the device and its Motoblur feature, which connects a variety of social networking services to the phone’s core functions.

Said Mark Sue, an analyst at RBC Capital: “Our initial take is favorable, and it seems that Motorola is carving out a niche in the crowded smartphone market by focusing on socially minded demographics as opposed to enterprise users or pro-sumers. We think it’s a step in the right direction.”

C.L. King analyst Lawrence Harris was similarly impressed. “Our initial impression of the CLIQ is that it is not an iPhone killer, but that it will be a contender,” he said in a research note issued today. “…Initial reviews suggest that the CLIQ’s build quality is excellent with a solid keyboard, two important selling points.”

And Tavis McCourt at Morgan Keegan said the CLIQ is a credible device–assuming Motorola (MOT) can sell enough of them. “MOTOBLUR clearly differentiates a Motorola Android-based smartphone from others on the market and provides Motorola a fighting chance at successfully turning around Mobile Devices with Android-based devices,” he noted today.

“The CLIQ appears to be a solid touch screen smartphone,” McCourt added, “but we will defer from offering a more confident opinion until we get a chance to test one and note that we expect the upcoming Motorola Android-based device for Verizon Wireless may be somewhat more impressive. We believe Motorola ultimately needs to sell about 2 million smartphones/quarter in order to become sustainably profitable in its Mobile Devices business.”

McCourt’s conclusion: “Given Motorola’s global distribution, this does not require a ‘home run’ product, but only a series of ‘solid’ products. The CLIQ appears to be a good first step in this turnaround.”

“Based on our channel checks, the iPhone remains the best selling device at AT&T with both the new $200/$300 iPhone 3GS and $100 legacy iPhone selling very well,” Piper Jaffary analyst Gene Munster said in a research note today.

“In July, our checks had indicated store managers were strongly recommending the legacy iPhone,” Munster notes, “as we believe this was partially driven by store representatives hoping to make the sale with the 3GS stocked out combined with efforts to reduce existing inventory levels of the legacy iPhone. However, in August, our checks indicate store managers are increasingly recommending the 3GS, and we believe this is driven by improved availability of the 3GS at most AT&T stores.”

Munster summarizes: “Overall, the iPhone remains the best selling device and our August checks indicate the iPhone took share from BlackBerry, the Nokia E71x, and most other competitor products. Finally, in our checks at Best Buy, store managers indicated the iPhone was their best selling device with stores selling out of stock as soon as they received the Apple smartphones.”

A bullish assessment, with an even more bullish conclusion: Munster says he expects Apple (AAPL) to ship seven million iPhones in the quarter. If that’s truly the case, Apple should have no trouble beating Wall Street’s expectations for its current quarter despite the gloomy economy.

One last point worth noting here: Munster is not bullish on Apple’s event tomorrow. He describes it as a “non-event,” though he seems convinced Steve Jobs will host it. “We expect Steve Jobs to introduce a new iPod lineup with a new iPod touch, new nanos, and a new classic, with cameras in the new models,” he notes. “We expect the stock to trade off on a lack of surprising announcements.”

Dell (DELL) earned $472 million, or 24 cents a share, on revenue of $12.76 billion. Analysts surveyed by FactSet Research had expected it to earn 22 cents a share on $12.6 billion in revenue. Dell shares spiked nearly seven percent when the news was released, oddly, at 3:57–three minutes before the close of trading Thursday (click on the image below).

Lousy afternoon for someone in Dell Investor Relations. Anyway….

In a statement, CEO Michael Dell said demand for the company’s products appears to have stabilized and, believe it or not, things are starting to look up.

“If current demand trends continue, we expect revenue for the second half of the year to be stronger than the first half,” Dell said in a statement. “We are expanding our capabilities in enterprise technology and services and investing in our core business to distinguish Dell both with customers and in operating performance.”

TiVo’s (TIVO) complaint seeks both damages for past infringement and a permanent injunction–similar to the one it won against satellite provider Dish Network (DISH)–that would force AT&T (T) and Verizon (VZ) to shut down their DVR services.

“Attempts were made to reach a commercial arrangement,” TiVo CEO Tom Rogers said during an earnings call today. “They were not reached. We believe we are being caused irreparable harm and that harm increases everyday this doesn’t cease. We have found ourselves in a similar situation with AT&T and Verizon. We need to stop their continued unauthorized use of our intellectual property.”

And, God willing, corral them into that commercial arrangement to which Rogers refers. After all, the company lost 146,000 subscribers in its second quarter. It desperately needs to do something to win new ones and lower its churn.

[Image credit: Flickr/montevino]

Indeed it is: The Internet phone service provider reported a second-quarter profit of $2.3 million, or a penny a share. Wall Street had been expecting a loss of three cents a share. Great news.

Sadly for Vonage, however, the news was tainted by an increase in subscriber defections. The company lost 89,000 net subscribers during the quarter as churn rose to 3.2 percent from three percent. It ended the quarter with just 2.5 million lines.

“While our financial performance was strong, our subscriber base did not grow at expected levels due in part to the challenges of the current economy and the increasing impact of wireless substitution,” said Vonage Chief Executive Marc Lefar. “During the quarter, we launched our new marketing campaign, which we anticipate will drive new customer acquisition over time.”

“Anticipate” seems a generous word here. “Hope” is perhaps a better one. To lose almost 90,000 subscribers in a single quarter at time when the lousy economy should be inspiring cost-conscious consumers to sign up for Vonage’s discount service seems rather bleak. That better be some marketing campaign.

“The current environment is challenging,” CFO John Killian told analysts during an earnings call Monday, noting that the layoffs we’ve read so much about the past year have badly hurt demand for wired and wireless connections, PC laptop cards and other business services. In fact, so challenging is the environment that Verizon (VZ), which has already eliminated 8,000 jobs in the past year, plans to cut another 8,000 in the second half of this year. “Candidly, we are looking at all other areas of expense,” Killian said.

And what of Verizon’s disputed claims that it plans to add Palm’s (PALM) Pre to its lineup in the near future? The company insists they’re true. During this morning’s conference call, company execs confirmed they plan to carry the Pre “early next year.”

The online DVD-rental pioneer said Thursday that its second-quarter profit rose 22 percent on revenue of $408.5 million. It earned $32.4 million, or 54 cents a share, easily surpassing Wall Street’s expectations of 50 cents per share.

Netflix’s (NFLX) subscriber base finished the quarter at 10.6 million, up 26 percent year-over-year and at the high end of the company’s own forecasts.

“We continued to execute very well in the second quarter and are on track to deliver a record 2009,” Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said in a statement. “As our subscriber base and disc shipments continue to expand, and as we offer more opportunities to watch instantly via the Internet, we believe we are striking the right balance between growth, investment and earnings.”