Slower Growth Seen In '05 For Mobile Phone Industry (Investor's Business Daily)
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Investor's Business Daily - Color screens, cameras and clamshells. Those features helped drive the cell phone industry to another record year in 2004, according to new sales data.
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The global mobile phone marketis expected to see a slow down in market growth due to the lack ofadditional catalysts, US high tech market research firm IDC warnedon Tuesday.
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InfoWorld - Amid increasing competition in a fickle cell phone market, Motorola expects to report a loss for its mobile devices business in 2007 and now estimates that second quarter sales will be lower than expected.
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(InfoWorld) - Concerns about a spending slowdown continue to make IT investors nervous. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index closed Thursday at 2601.06, down from the 2700 level two months ago. The faltering U.S. housing sector, widespread mortgage payment failures, and related worries about the credit market have depressed share prices since the middle of the third quarter. IT companies, although not hit as hard as businesses in other sectors, have not been immune to the turmoil. A tightening of credit is often expected to dampen business and consumer spending. SoÂ Alcatel-Lucent's Thursday warning about the quarterÂ and the rest of the year struck a nerve, several weeks in advance of quarterly results. The company said it expects to break even on an operating basis in the quarter, and cut its 2007 revenue forecast. It said revenue for the year would be flat or slightly up, at constant exchange rates. Previously, it said that revenue would be up about 5 percent for the year. It was the third time this year the company cut its projections. Its share price dropped $0.88 to close at $9.16 Thursday. Alcatel-Lucent's announcement hinted at what many market observers have been fearing: slowing purchases by North American customers. "Alcatel-Lucent is now seeing a change in capital spending with those (North American) customers in 2007, compared to what it had anticipated," the company said. The company said it still expects ongoing cost savings in the wake of the merger of Alcatel and Lucent, but that did not quiet concerns about the overall market. "Merging may have made sense, but it does not change the marketplace. Demand is demand and that does not change because of mergers," said telecom analyst Jeff Kagan in an e-mail report. A slowdown in demand would make competition in the tough telecom market even more fierce. Earlier this week Alcatel-Lucent rival LM Ericsson said it was gaining market share in Europe and Asia. Ericsson shares rose $0.36 Thursday to close at $36.59. Ericsson's claims notwithstanding, U.S. and European vendors are getting hit with increasing competition from Chinese vendors such as Huawei Technologies and ZTE, which are steadily expanding their product portfolios. Not all tech-sector news this week was grim, however. The notebook market continues to experience explosive growth, according to a report released earlier this week by market research company DisplaySearch. The nine biggest notebook companies saw double-digit growth during the second quarter, while the market, measured by units shipped, grew by more than 24 percent, DisplaySearch said. Although those figures were generated before the third-quarter turmoil, the firm raised its estimate from 97.5 million notebooks shipping in 2007 to 103 million. The true impact of economic turmoil on IT will not be clear until the end of the year. For now, IT investors will try to read the tea leaves, in the form of quarterly results that will start to trickle in next over the next few weeks. Â
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Investor's Business Daily - Jobs and factories continued to expand at a modest pace as the U.S. economy showed resilience despite crumbling housing activity.
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Plus: Qualcomm results show strong demand...eBay warns of weaker 2008 results...Motorola profit shrinks, phone forecast dims...Apple posts good Q1, despite slow iPod sales.
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Investor's Business Daily - Philips Semiconductors has a plan to cash in on the craze for cool new features in cell phones.
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(InfoWorld) - As IT investors brace for a wave of financial reports next week, mobile device makers are attracting attention as Asia becomes an increasingly important battleground for handset sales. For example, Motorola preannounced part of its quarterly report, due July 19, on Wednesday, saying thatÂ second quarter sales would be $8.6 billion to $8.7 billion, instead of $9.4 billion as previously forecast. The company expects a drop in handset sales in Asia, where vendors are vying to get the lion's share of the market in growing national economies, as North American and Europe become saturated with mobile phones. Despite the revised forecast, Motorola enjoyed a spike in the price of its shares caused by rumors that CEO Ed Zander might resign. Motorola shares jumped Wednesday by $0.33 Wednesday to close at $17.95, and rose again Thursday to close at $18.08. Zander attracted criticism from heavyweight investor Carl Icahn earlier this year and now has come under attack from well-known activist shareholder Eric Jackson. Zander's departure would indicate that a serious restructuring was under way at the company, which has been outflanked on several fronts in the handsets wars by rivals like Apple. Meanwhile, investors saw Motorola's quarterly weakness as Nokia's gain. Brokerage Oppenheimer & Co. reiterated a "buy" rating on Nokia after Motorola's announcement. Nokia shares rose $1.08 Thursday to close at $29.95. The mobile phone market has come under increasing scrutiny lately in the wake of the June 29 launch of Apple's iPhone in the U.S. Apple is now reported to be in talks with carriers to launch the device in Europe, Finland-based Nokia's home market. A report from a JP Morgan Chase analyst Tuesday thatÂ Apple will also launch a cheaper version of the iPhoneÂ in the fourth quarter drove up Apple shares. JP Morgan analyst Kevin Chang said the new model could sell for less than $300, basing his report on Apple patent filings and component supplier sources. A cheaper iPhone would put it within reach of younger customers. Apple shares rose by $1.68 Thursday to close at $134.07. Technology companies for the most part are riding high on general confidence in corporate earnings. The technology-heavy Nasdaq has hit several six-and-a-half year highs over the last 10 days. General economic conditions have helped. For example, the Dow Jones Industrial Average reached a record Thursday on positive news from retail sales data and continued mergers and acquisitions announcements. But IT vendors themselves are coming off a string of quarters that have generally been good for earnings overall. The torrid pace of M&A in IT also continues unabated: Just this week, for example, Google beefed up security offerings with itsÂ planned $625 million buy of Postini. Next week will provide key information for forecasts for the rest of the year as a string of IT bellwether reports quarterly sales and guidance for the rest of the year. Among those due to report: IBM, Google, Yahoo, Motorola, Microsoft, Intel, AMD, and SAP.
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South Korean mobile phone makers  continued a rapid move up the global market rankings during the  third quarter, while growth in the wider mobile phone market  slowed, a survey found on Wednesday.
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Mixed news in the telecommunications segment dominated technology trading last week, with key players reporting less than stellar third-quarter earnings.
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Investor's Business Daily - It's close but no cigar for Google in the Federal Communications Commission's much-anticipated auction of public airwaves, a process that could enable a new wave of wireless devices and services.
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Stocks slid on Thursday, setting lows  for 2005, after disappointing reports from eBay Inc. EBAY.O  and Qualcomm Inc. QCOM.O added to worries about earnings  growth, while a survey showed factories in the Mid-Atlantic  region expanded at a slower pace than expected.
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Investor's Business Daily - The Business Roundtable&#39;s CEO Economic Outlook Index fell 3 points to 81.9 in May amid high energy prices and the housing slump. But that&#39;s still well-above the boom-bust line of 50. Most executives expect sales, capital spending and hiring to be flat or rise in the coming months. &quot;While the survey does suggest that the economy is settling into a softer consolidation phase, as long as consumers keep spending, the economy can continue to move ahead,&quot; said Harold McGraw, the group&#39;s chairman.
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The global personal computer market is expected to grow at a modest pace in 2005 as the economic recovery slows, according to a report Wednesday by a market research firm.
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Bell tolls for handset makers Sales of mobile handsets will decline to single digit growth, but not before annual sales break the billion barrier.â¦
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Investor's Business Daily - Wireless phone company Turkcell has a lot going for it -- Turkey&#39;s strong economy and a young population that likes to gab on cell phones -- and one big worry: Vodafone.
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Investor's Business Daily - When the U.S. began slowing last year some analysts began hoping for a trade-off.