But steel manufacturers have turned in weaker second-quarter performances as a number of major customers reduced demand, including the construction industry.
The flipside of this is "cookie jar" accounting: pushing today's revenue into tomorrow so it can be dipped into to shore up weak quarters.In the second, more serious category, the sales are fake: often, a related party poses as a customer to generate phoney invoices.
"We were very pleased with how Google did this quarter, especially with revenue growth in a seasonally weak quarter, and with what appears to be an increase in rates of user traffic growth," Eric E. Schmidt, Google's chief executive, said in an interview.
That was a bright spot in an otherwise weak quarter for gold.
The firm's Brazilian operations, in particular, had a weak quarter after reporting a 10 percent fall, to $558 million, in net profit compared with the year-ago period.
The company says it expects the highly anticipated series to draw new subscribers in what is typically a weak quarter.
Windows revenue from the nonprofessional market rose 27percentthoughugh that was in comparison with an unusually weak quarter last year.
"We are pleased to report an operating profit in what is traditionally a weak quarter for United compared to our peers, clearly reflective of our commitment to drive systemic improvements that are delivering results across the company," said Glenn Tilton Glenn Tilton, UAL chief executive.
Their weak quarter is 1.5 in the first quarter.
Typically, Q3 is a weak quarter for Apple in terms of iPhone sales, but again, this Q3 saw a record.
