AT&T, Inc and Micron Technology: Comparing Financial Statements
Financial statements inform users about the financial position of a company. In this paper, the similarities and differences between AT&T Inc and Micron Technology are present upon comparison of their financial statements (AT&T, 2011: Micron Technology, 2011). Whereas AT&T Company operates in the telecommunications industry, Micron technology deals in the semi-conductors industry.
A number of similarities were observed from their financial statements. First, both Companies presented consolidated financial statements. Both of them have subsidiaries and affiliates and are therefore compelled to provide financial statements that consolidate the financial information from all the entities. Two, for each of the Companies, the financial statements consisted of at least the following statements: the statement of financial position, the income statement, the statement of cash flows and the statement of changes in stockholders’ equity. These are the basic and minimum number of statements that are required of a corporation such as these two under generally accepted accounting principles. Finally, both statements provided notes to the financial statements. This section, in both reports, accompanies the financial statements and gives more information on the financial performance of the companies.
Likewise, the following differences were observable. First, while AT&T provided only the four basic statements named above (AT&T, p. 34-38), Micron Technology provided in addition, a statement of operations (Micron Technology, 2011 p. 44). In this statement, Micron Technology offers more information on its operations than that provided by AT&T with respect to operations. Second, the fiscal year for which the statements were prepared ended on September 1 2011 for Micron Technology, and December 31 2011 for the case of AT&T. This implies that the two companies have different differing financial periods that do not coincide with the ordinary calendar year.
AT&T, Inc. (2011) 10-K. Annual Report Pursuant to Section 13 and 15 (d). Retrieved from:
http://www.google.co.ke/search?q=AT%26T+Sec-10k+2011+&oq=AT%26T+Sec- 10k+2011+&sugexp=chrome,mod=11&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
Micron Technology, Inc. (2011). Form 10-K Annual Report. Retrieved from
http://investors.micron.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=723125-11-189
