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Many suppliers are happy to sell to Apple, given the company's success in mobile products. ARM Holdings PLC (ARMH), a British chip-maker that licenses the technology used in iPhone and iPad chips, for instance, saw its stock rise nearly 4 percent Thursday, a day after Apple unveiled iPads with faster processors. Other Apple suppliers, including Cirrus Logic Inc., Jabil Circuit Inc. and Skyworks Solutions, have all experienced healthy stock gains in recent months. The iPad's pricing created an odd situation. Usually, the first gadget of its kind to hit the market is expensive. Competition then gradually brings prices down. With the iPad, the reverse happened: Competing products from makers such as Samsung Electronics Co. and Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. were more expensive, at least for the first year. The most extreme example of a tablet failure comes from Research In Motion Ltd., the maker of the BlackBerry. In late 2010, RIM's co-CEO at the time, Jim Balsillie, said interest in the planned PlayBook tablet was "really overwhelming," particularly from corporate customers, a key market for BlackBerry phones. In March, just before it launched, Balsillie said the PlayBook "may well be the most significant development for RIM since the launch of the first BlackBerry device back in 1999." But the PlayBook was widely panned because of its software, which RIM had put together. It was also expensive. It cost the same as an entry-level iPad 2 despite being half as big. When sales failed to materialize, RIM had to slash the price of the PlayBook from $500 to $200. It ended up taking a pre-tax charge of $485 million for the declining value of its inventory. Other manufacturers slashed prices too, culminating in a "fire sale" during the recent holiday season, said Rhoda Alexander, an analyst who covers tablets for IHS iSuppli. "Those price discounts have come out of the profit margin, to a large degree," she said. Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ), meanwhile, left the market completely. In August, it decided to discontinue the fledging TouchPad tablet along with its line of smartphones, despite great reviews for the in-house software running them. Samsung has been one of the survivors, selling 6.1 million tablets last year, according to IHS iSuppli. That makes it the second largest tablet maker after Apple, with a market share of 9 percent compared with Apple's 62 percent. Samsung is also one of the world's leading makers of smartphones, chips and display screens. The company is, therefore, big enough to capture some of the advantages that Apple has as a buyer of components in bulk. Samsung has put out a bevy of tablets in different screen sizes, hoping to capture buyers, who for one reason or another, want something other than the 9.7-inch screen of the iPad.
iPad dominates due to Apple's supply deals Mar 8, 5:52 PM (ET) NEW YORK - Apple certainly has lots of buzz and corporate cache behind its products, but there's a hidden - almost mundane - reason its newest iPad is likely to dominate the competition: the advantageous deals the company cuts with components manufacturers. Apple's size, and the fact that the iPad shares components with the highly popular iPhone, means that the company can buy crucial parts such as processing chips and display screens at lower prices. Any company that wants to make a tablet computer that matches the iPad's $499 starting price has to endure higher costs. As a result, Apple's tablet-making competitors have flailed - and failed. And with the new iPad, Apple is expected to extend its 62 percent market share in the tablet computer category it created. IMS Research expects Apple to capture 70 percent of the market this year. A year ago, scores of companies all thought they had a shot at emulating Apple's success. More than 100 tablet models were on display at the annual consumer electronics trade show in Las Vegas in January 2011. Many of them ran on the Android operating system, developed by Silicon Valley powerhouse Google. As the year progressed, those dreams crumbled. The iPad 2, launched in March, proved nearly unassailable. A big part of the reason was that Apple has priced the iPad aggressively. At just under $500 for the basic model, Apple's profit margin on the device is lower than on the iPhone, a smaller device for which it charges phone companies a wholesale rate of $600 or more. On Wednesday, Apple stuck to that price point when it unveiled the new iPad model. It has a screen that displays sharper images and deeper, more vibrant colors to set it apart from the competition. The new tablet goes on sale March 16 in the U.S. and several other countries. Apple has other advantages, too. The company sells about a third of all iPads in its own stores or from its website. By cutting out the middleman, Apple is able to keep more of the slim profit margin for itself. Because it produces tens of millions of iPads and uses some of the same components as the highly popular iPhone, Apple can buy crucial components such as chips and displays at lower prices. According to research firm IHS iSuppli, Apple is the world's largest buyer of the microprocessor chips that serve as the "brains" of various devices. In January 2011, Apple said it had spent $3.9 billion on long-term contracts to secure supplies for two years of a "very strategic" component it wouldn't name. Few other companies are able to commit that much money.
Friday, March 09, 2012 From London: Morgan Stanley upgraded semiconductor firm ARM Holdings (LON:ARM, NASDAQ:ARMH) today and said it expected the company to get a boost from the launch of the new version of Apple’s hugely successful iPad tablet computer. Tech giant Apple launched the latest iPad last night. The new version will have a high definition screen, a faster processor, a better camera and also be compatible with super fast 4G mobile phone networks. ARM shares have been weak recently, but analyst Francois Meunier at Morgan Stanley expects this to change. "We expect news flow to reverse in ARM’s favour with the launch of the iPad3/iPad2 price cut, actual product launches for Windows8 on ARM at Computex and launches of hybrid products," he added. The analyst has changed his stance to 'overweight' from 'equal-weight', adding that the launch of new forms of technology such as smartphones and tablets along with the emerging demand for tech in emerging markets had been the main drivers of the company’s success in the last five years. http://www.proactiveinvestors.com.au/companies/news/26227/friday-london-broker-comment-corner-morgan-stanley-jp-morgan-cazenove-liberum-capital-rate-stocks-26227.html
ARM accelerates as large-caps extend gains As technology acolytes salivated over the latest iPad unveiled by Apple, investors headed to ARM Holdings, which designs microchips used by the American giant. 6:30PM GMT 08 Mar 2012 ARM’s chips are found in smartphones made by the likes of Apple and Samsung, as well as in items such as printers and sewing machines. The Apple connection appeared to be getting traders hot under the collar as they reacted to Apple’s new iPad, a new version of its tablet computer. But as well as that excitement, ARM investors were also heartened by Morgan Stanley upping its rating to “overweight”. There has been some concern over potential competition ARM faces from Intel, which released an updated processor last month, called Medfield, that can be used in smartphones. But Morgan Stanley analysts were unruffled by Intel’s advances. “Medfield is an improvement for Intel, but ARM is still two generations ahead and that’s enough to maintain leading market share,” said the broker. Analysts thought that investors were also worried about the launch of Microsoft’s Windows 8 on ARM architecture later this year. But they sought to quell those concerns, pointing out that the preview of Windows 8 at a technology jamboree in Barcelona earlier this month was “impressive”. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/markets/marketreport/9131993/ARM-accelerates-as-large-caps-extend-gains.html
MARCH 8, 2012, 3:20 P.M. ET AMD: Little Interest in ARM for Clients, Says Wells Wells Fargo’s David Wong today reiterates an Outperform rating on shares of Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), and an $8 to $10 “valuation range,” while throwing cold water on the notion the company may license chip designs from ARM Holdings (ARMH) for client computing devices. Wong attended a series of investor meetings with AMD management in Boston recently, he writes, and what he observed was some interest in ARM chips for servers, not for PCs or tablets: AMD said that it sees no advantage in the ARM architecture compared to the x86 architecture in the client (notebook and desktop) PC space. The company is not currently working on any ARM-processor designs for PCs. However, AMD does think there could be some advantages in the ARM architecture for some server applications. The company is not discussing whether it currently has any effort underway to develop ARM-based server chips but did note that for ARM processors to achieve traction in the server space the processors would have to be 64-bit processors. AMD does not expect there to be 64-bit ARM solutions widely available till 2014 or 2015. Wong observes that the company’s purchase of server startup SeaMicro, announced last week, will lead to sales of the company’s “Opteron” microprocessor in servers in the latter half of this year. The company will follow that next year with “low-cost CPU and GPU cores” for servers, which Wong speculates will be “presumably the successors to the current Brazos chips.” AMD shares today are UP 32 cents, or almost 5%, at $7.49. http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2012/03/08/amd-little-interest-in-arm-for-clients-says-wells/ 3/8/2012 11:29 AM Elsewhere in the tech sector, Morgan Stanley raised its rating on ARMH to "overweight" from "equal weight." The shares gapped higher right out of the gate, with ARMH sitting on a 4.4% gain as we head toward midday. The equity is rebounding from the low end of its recent trading range between the $25 and $30 levels, which has confined ARMH's progress since mid-November. http://www.schaeffersresearch.com/commentary/content/blogs/upgrades+downgrades+cien+armh+cy+angi+and+btu/trading_floor_blog.aspx?single=true&blogid=110272
Pre-Market Most Active for Mar 8, 2012 : The NASDAQ 100 Pre-Market Indicator is up 12.05 to 2,619.9. The total Pre-Market volume is currently 12,456,411 shares traded. The following are the most active stocks for the pre-market session: Apple Inc. ( AAPL ) is +3.3 at $533.99, with 201,209 shares traded. Over the last four weeks they have had 6 up revisions for the earnings forecast, for the fiscal quarter ending Mar 2012. The consensus EPS forecast is $9.44. As reported by Zacks, the current mean recommendation for AAPL is in the "buy range". ARM Holdings, plc ( ARMH ) is +0.85 at $26.70, with 131,150 shares traded. ARMH's current last sale is 80.91% of the target price of $33. http://community.nasdaq.com/News/2012-03/premarket-most-active-for-mar-8-2012-agnc-aig-bac-qqq-sne-lyg-chl-mcd-siri-aapl-armh-avgo.aspx?storyid=125880
New iPad Could Benefit ARM (ARMH), Imagination (IMG.L), ASML (ASML) and Ericsson (ERIC) - Analyst March 8, 2012 8:34 AM EST Analysts at JPMorgan commented on some possible winners from the introduction of Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) new iPad. The firm said the higher selling price of A5X processor may result in higher royalty payments to Imagination (IMG.L) and ARM Holdings, plc (Nasdaq: ARMH). Also, ASML (Nasdaq: ASML) may benefit from the larger die size of the processors. The new LTE feature will drive network upgrades, benefiting Ericsson (Nasdaq: ERIC), they said. http://www.streetinsider.com/Analyst+Comments/New+iPad+Could+Benefit+ARM+(ARMH),+Imagination+(IMG.L),+ASML+(ASML)+and+Ericsson+(ERIC)+-+Analyst/7252294.html
ARM Holdings expected to benefit from Apple iPad launch, says Morgan Stanley 12:19 pm 8 March 2012 ARM shares have been weak recently, but analyst Francois Meunier at Morgan Stanley expects this to change Morgan Stanley has upgraded semiconductor firm ARM Holdings (LON:ARM, NASDAQ:ARMH) and expects it to get a boost from the launch of the new version of Apple’s hugely successful iPad tablet computer. Tech giant Apple launched the latest iPad last night. The new version will have a high definition screen, a faster processor, a better camera and also be compatible with super fast 4G mobile phone networks. It will be on sale in the UK from 16 March with a basic model selling for £399. Existing models will remain on sale at a reduced price of £329 to compete with the growing number of rivals based on Google’s Android software. ARM shares have been weak recently, but analyst Francois Meunier at Morgan Stanley expects this to change. "We expect news flow to reverse in ARM’s favour with the launch of the iPad3/iPad2 price cut, actual product launches for Windows8 on ARM at Computex and launches of hybrid products," he added. He has changed his stance to 'overweight' from 'equal-weight', adding that the launch of new forms of technology such as smartphones and tablets along with the emerging demand for tech in emerging markets had been the main drivers of the company’s success in the last five years. "Assuming this innovative trend continues in the next five years, we can see a bull case scenario of 37p earnings for ARM in 2016," said the analyst. Meunier also increased his price target to 650 pence. He said that in the past long term unit forecasts from ARM have often looked too optimistic when first published but retrospectively have proven too pessimistic. The City firm also said that fears about Intel taking market share and uncertainties around the Windows8 launch have led ARM shares to underperform in the past six months. "We view this as an opportunity to upgrade to 'overweight' as the risks on earnings remain clearly on the upside, ARM retains a two-year lead over Intel and news flow should improve," Morgan said. http://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/companies/news/39983/arm-holdings-expected-to-benefit-from-apple-ipad-launch-says-morgan-stanley-39983.html
Thursday 8 March 2012 09.54 GMT ARM Holdings jumps on broker comment Chip designer ARM rose 3% after Morgan Stanley raised it to 'overweight' Britain's brightest tech company, ARM Holdings, rose 18p to 567.5p in early trade on the back of a positive broker note. Analysts at Morgan Stanley raised the stock from "equal weight" to "overweight", driving the shares up by more than 3%. A long-time FTSE favourite, ARM designs the architecture for chips used in the vast majority of mobile phones as well as the Apple iPad. The news follows Apple's announcement of the release of "the new iPad" on Wednesday night. http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/marketforceslive/2012/mar/08/arm-shares-rise?newsfeed=true
Thursday, 08 March 2012 For those looking for a FTSE 100 pick, ARM Holdings plc (LON:ARM) have been maintained at Outperform at BMO Capital Markets. BMO have set a target share price at 700, our last quote on ARM Holdings is at 548, suggesting a potential upside of 27.7%. http://www.dofonline.co.uk/content/view/6092/152/ Previous: BRIEF-RESEARCH ALERT-BMO Capital markets raises ARM to outperform, cuts Intel to market perform Wed, 2nd Nov 2011 09:58 Nov 2 (Reuters) - Intel Corp: * BMO Capital Markets raises ARM Holdings PLC to outperform from market perform * BMO Capital Markets cuts Intel Corp to market perform from outperform
3/08/2012 @ 2:26AM ARM: Morgan Stanley Ups To Overweight; Now 'Best Idea' Morgan Stanley analyst Francois Meunier has raised his rating on ARM Holdings to Overweight from Equal Weight, asserting that “the risks on earnings remain clearly on the upside,” with the company holding a two-year lead on Intel in the mobile processor market. The stock was added to Morgan’s “Best Ideas” list. “Long-term unit forecasts provided by ARM have often looked too optimistic when first published but retrospectively have proven too pessimistic – 50-120% for the overall addressable market and 20-40% for the wireless market in the past ten years,” Meunier writes in a research note. “Price elasticity in semiconductors, launch of new form factors such as smartphones and tablets, and increased demand from emerging markets for tech have been the main drivers of upside in the past five years. Assuming this innovative trend continues in the next five years, we can see a bull case scenario of 37 pence EPS for ARM in 2016.” That would be up from his forecast of 15.7 pence per share in 2012, and 18.3 pense in 2013. The Morgan analyst asserts that earnings estimates should rise, even if Windows8 on ARM is delayed or not a success, “given the sheer size of the mobile computing market where ARM has a cost and power consumption advantage over Intel.” He says that while Intel has announced deals to supply processors to Motorola, Lenovo and Orange, “ARM will continue to dominate the sub $500 device market, as we believe it is still two generations ahead of Intel.” The analyst says that the the stock has underperformed for the last six months, but that news flow should reverse in ARM’s favor with the launch of the new Apple iPad and the launch of Windows 8 on ARM products at Computex, among other things. ARMH on Wednesday rose 48 cents, or 1.9%, to $25.85. http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericsavitz/2012/03/08/arm-morgan-stanley-ups-to-overweight-now-best-idea/
ARM HOLDINGS PLC Date Broker Rec. Old target price New target price Notes 08 Mar Morgan Stanley Overweight 650.00 650.00 Upgrades 01 Feb Morgan Stanley Equal weight 600.00 650.00 Retains 11 Jan Morgan Stanley Equal weight 600.00 600.00 Retains Overweight: The analyst opines that the stock is a better value for money than others. Previous: 05 Mar RBC Capital Markets Outperform 670.00 670.00 Retains 01 Feb RBC Capital Markets Outperform 625.00 670.00 Retains 11 Jan RBC Capital Markets Outperform 625.00 625.00 Retains Outperform: An analyst recommendation meaning a stock is expected to do slightly better than the market return. http://sharedealing.nandp.co.uk/broker-views/ARM/ARM-Holdings
Apple could take one of several approaches with the next iPhone, McCarron said, including using either the A5 or A5X design and having the chip made on the more power-efficient 28-nm process. "For phones in particular ... there's a lot of incentive to use the latest process," he said. Ahead of Wednesday's announcement, there was speculation that Apple might use a quad-core processor in its new tablet. But the decision to stick with a dual-core chip was a sound one, analysts said. There are questions about whether current software is ready to take advantage of four cores, and chip makers including Texas Instruments have stuck with dual-core ARM processors for now for that reason. Most of the existing software for Apple devices wasn't designed for a four-core CPU, so going with a dual-core chip made sense, McCarron said. By comparison, graphics performance scales fairly well across more cores and is quite well-abstracted by operating systems. http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9225001/Apple_s_new_A5X_chip_may_be_for_iPad_only_analysts_say?taxonomyId=12
March 7, 2012 08:24 PM ET DG News Service - Apple delivered a performance breakthrough Wednesday with its new A5X processor for the iPad, but it's possible that this chip won't make its way into the next iPhone, analysts said. The chips used in the first two iPads, the A4 and A5, both made their way into a new iPhone soon after. But the A5X, with its heavy focus on graphics, may not be ideal for smartphone use, and Apple may wait for a more power-efficient chip built with a new manufacturing process. The A5X has two CPU cores, just like the A5, and it was the superior graphics performance of the A5X that Apple played up at its launch event for the new iPad in San Francisco. The new chip has four graphics cores, which should boost multimedia performance and allow for smooth operation of the iPad's higher-resolution, 2048-by-1536-pixel display. Apple may have purpose-built the A5X specifically for the new iPad's improved screen, said Linley Gwennap, founder and principal analyst of The Linley Group, who emphasized he was still sorting through the information about the new chip Wednesday. "I think that this new chip is probably just for the iPad," Gwennap said. "It looks like they planned ahead for this." If Apple releases a new iPhone later this year, which seems likely, it may opt to boost battery life rather than graphics, Gwennap said. In that case, it may wait for a chip manufactured on a 28-nanometer manufacturing process, which should make the chip more power-efficient and cheaper to produce, he said. Apple may have been in a hurry to release the iPad and moved ahead with the A5X because it didn't want to wait for a 28-nm part, Gwennap said. The number refers to the size of the smallest circuits etched onto the chip. However, the A5X could be suitable for other devices with slightly larger screens than the iPhone, Gwennap said. It could be used in a smaller version of the iPad, for example. It could also be suitable for a video streaming device like Apple TV. Apple announced a new version of Apple TV on Wednesday, but it has a single-core A5 chip. Dean McCarron, principal analyst at Mercury Research, also sees the current A5X as an unlikely candidate for the next iPhone, which won't require as much graphics processing power as an iPad. The current iPhone has a display density of 326 pixels per inch, greater than the latest iPad's 264 pixels per inch, but the iPhone has only a 3.7-inch display. "There's no technical reason to make the iPhone display better," McCarron said. Like Apple's A4 and A5 chips, A5X is based on an ARM processor core, the same type found in most other smartphones. Many current ARM-based chips are manufactured with a 40-nanometer process, but a shift to 28 nanometers is expected later this year. The latest chips are based on ARM's Cortex-A9 design; the first chips based on a faster and more power-efficient Cortex-A15 core are also due later this year.
>>>> All your posts tell us that ARM is now going to be used in " this & that " which are new to ARM >>> "to ARM" LOL ! no not to ARM ! ... but "to YOU"
>>> So, was I right when I said that ARM's share price should double ? >>> lol... it is not double yet... what substance in my posts made you to think that this should double?
Dialog licenses Cortex-M0, moves ARM into PMICs 3/7/2012 5:31 AM EST LONDON – Dialog Semiconductor plc has said it has licensed the Cortex-M0 microcontroller core from ARM Holdings plc for use in future mixed-signal power management ICs. Resulting chips are likely to be used in quad-core and more advanced handsets the company said. This is the first time a standard 32-bit processor core has been integrated into a mixed-signal PMIC, according to Dialog (Kirchheim-unter-Teck, Germany). The ARM Cortex-M0 processor is the smallest and lowest power ARM core available. It is described as suitable for ultra low power MCU and mixed-signal applications. "Through partnering with Dialog we have opened a brand new application area for ARM processors in a smartphone or tablet design. Dialog is at the forefront of highly integrated power management systems. I am convinced that the availability of sophisticated ARM processor-based PMICs will make a real impact on the user experience delivered by next generation devices," said Tudor Brown, president of ARM, in a statement issued by Dialog. http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4237643/Dialog-licenses-ARM-PMICs
February 28, 2012: 5:39 PM ET NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Apple is expected to announce the iPad 3 at a "special event" in California. Apple sent emails to journalists inviting them to the private event in San Francisco on March 7, at 10 a.m. Pacific Time. March 6, 2012: 12:20 PM ET NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- After all, hopes are high that Apple will have another hit on its hands with the next iPad -- and that should help chip companies tied to Apple like ARM Holdings (ARMH) and, if you believe the iPad 3 4G rumors, Qualcomm (QCOM, Fortune 500). Links: http://money.cnn.com/2012/03/06/technology/thebuzz/index.htm http://money.cnn.com/2012/02/28/technology/apple_ipad_3/index.htm
>>>> Reading all your posts. ARM should be double the price it is now. >>> May I ask what substance in my posts made you to think that this should double?