Though Palm Inc. managed to lower its losses in fiscal third quarter, it cautioned of considerably poorer revenue in the current quarter. Plummeting sales of the company's smart phones has caused a great amount of apprehension.

The sale of the company's Pre and Pixi smart phones haven't matched expectations. The reason for the drop in sales is that Palm Inc. has received great competition from gigantic corporations like Apple. Marketing by rival carriers has also impaired the sale of the phones.

Google on Tuesday began selling a version of its Nexus One smartphone that works with AT&T's 3G wireless network, in a move that will allow it to compete with Apple’s iPhone.

Previously, the Nexus One smartphone had been running on the slower networks of AT&T, which is the primary network provider iPhone in the US.

Tony Hayward, the chief executive officer of BP has seen a pay rise of 41 per cent in 2009 even as the company saw a 50 per cent drop in net profits in the year.

The annual report of the company which was published yesterday showed that Mr. Hayward earned a total of £4.01m in the year compared to £2.85m in 2008.

Bus and train operator Arriva has announced that its pre-tax profits slipped 19 per cent to settle at £121.7 million in 2009.

Revenue at CrossCountry train franchise grew just 2.6 per cent, below an estimated growth of 10 per cent when it bid for the franchise.

However, the company is confident about its future. It expects passenger revenue to grow at its CrossCountry train franchise. It also expects its fuel bill to come down by £30 million in 2010.

Bookmaker Paddy Power announced on Tuesday that its profits for 2009 tumbled year-on-year 15 per cent to 67.2 million euros.

Paddy Power described the past year as ‘cracking year for punters’ as its punters enjoyed a series of winning results.

Paddy Power suffered as punters won, particularly with bets placed on Ireland's Six Nations rugby grand slam and horse racing.

Defence and aerospace equipments producer Meggitt reported a drop of 4 per cent in pretax profit for the full year to December 31 as sales to civil customers fell due to economic downturn.

Company’s underlying pre-tax profit plunged from £243.3 million in 2008 to settle at £234.2 million, while sales tumbled year-on-year 1 per cent to £1.15 billion. On underlying basis, earnings per share dropped 5 per cent to 25.3 pence.

The chairman of HSBC, Stephen Green, has defended bank's move of paying millions of pounds in bonuses as the British lender posted a fall of 24 per cent in pre-tax profit to $7.1 billion.

Stephen Green argued that that the bank's decision of bonus pay-out was right as its management-team was under-paid.

Stuart Gulliver, bank's investment banking chief, received 9.3 million pounds, while chief of global markets Samir Asaf has been awarded with a bonus of around 9 million pounds.

Shares in Pearson on Monday gained 44 pence to close at 956 pence-a-share as the British publisher reported better-than-expected headline pretax profits for 2009.

The London-based Pearson saw an increase of 13 per cent headline pretax profits to £761 million, up from market forecasts of £741 million.

Engineering group Tomkins plc has reported a pre-tax profit of $38.4 million for 2009 as compared with a loss of $8.1 million in the pervious year, sending shares up.

Shares in Tomkins surged 4.4 per cent to 201 pence-a-share on Monday in London.

However, company's sales were reported at $4.18 billion, representing a year-on-year decline of 24.2 per cent.

Net finance costs declined from $75.0 million to settle at $46.3 million from year earlier period.

London-based media group Pearson announced on Monday that its headline pretax profits climbed better-than-expected 13 per cent to settle at 761 million pounds, beating market forecasts of 741 million pounds.

Adjusted operating profit was reported at 858 million pounds as compared with analysts' expectations of 808.7 million pounds, while sales advanced 17 per cent to 5.6 billion pounds, up from analysts' projection of 5.44 billion pounds.

Earnings per share were 65.4p where analysts had predicted 63.7p.

Britain's biggest bank HSBC has announced that its pretax profit slipped worse-than-expected 24 per cent to settle at $7.1 billion during 2009 as bad debts and other risk provisions soared to $26.5 billion.

Shares in HSBC responded by shedding 3 per cent to 696 pence-a-share.

Commenting on the full-year results, HSBC's chairman Stephen Green said, "Huge challenges and risks remain for all of us."

Prudential's with-profits fund regained 18.7 per cent in 2009, three times more than Aviva's with-profits fund, which returned 6 per cent.

However, Aviva says Prudential's strong results has not filtered through to customers with a 10 year bond return of 4 per cent, contrasted with Aviva's 6.4 per cent payout last year.

The Pru's giant £61 billion with-profits fund grabbed up an 18.7 per cent return before tax supported by 30 per cent return in the FTSE all share index.

Outsourcing firm Serco announced better-than-expected results for the full-year to December, sending shares up by 32 pence to 553½ pence-a-share.

UK-based Serco said it pocketed a pre-tax profit of 177.1 million pounds in 2009, up from 136.1 million pounds in the year ago period. Sales were reported at 3.97 billion pounds.

Wide-ranging services from Royal Navy tugs in Britain to prisons in Australia and air-traffic control towers in the United States are operated by Serco. It has already won future orders worth 17 billion pounds.

Cigarette-maker British American Tobacco posted an increase of 11 per cent in pre-tax profit to £4.08 billion for the one-year period ended December 31, proving resilient to recent recession.

Revenue jumped 17 per cent to settle at £14.2 billion, boosted mainly by acquisitions and weaker pound. A drop of 3 per cent in like-for-like sales was offset by increased prices of most of the company's brands.

The company raised cigarette prices by an average of 8 per cent in Europe, Asia, Africa and America.

Shares in Hays slipped 7.9 per cent after the international recruiter announced that its pre-tax profits slipped 97 per cent to 3.4 million pounds in six months to December 31.

Underlying pre-tax profits dropped 70 per cent to settle at 30.4 million pounds. Shares shed 9.1 pence to 104.1 pence on the FTSE 250 index.

The company was successful in trimming down its debt pile from 54.6 million pounds to 38.4 million pounds.

Hays’ chief executive Alistair Cox said that the last year was the toughest recruitment period on record.