Sprint (S) Suffering From Market Saturation In Telecom Sector?
2009-11-11 17:37:17
TWST: You mentioned saturation in the market. Are we at market saturation in this sector?Mr. King: Certainly these segments themselves are still growing, but growth has slowed significantly over the last several years. From an industrywide perspective, wireless net adds have fallen off by several million from their peak on an annual basis. You have carriers like Verizon (VZ) and AT&T (T) that continue to do well. But more and more, they are doing it at the expense of carriers like Sprint (S) that continue to lose postpaid subscribers. So from an industry standpoint, there is still growth, but it's certainly much slower growth than it has been in the past.
CHRISTOPHER C. KING is a Senior Telecom Services Analyst and Principal at Stifel Nicolaus, where he covers telecommunications and cable services firms. His current coverage universe consists of rural local exchange carriers (RLECs) as well as Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs), in addition to a focus on Latin American and national independent wireless carriers. Mr. King joined the Legg Mason telecommunications equity research team in January 2001. He was an Equities Trader and fixed-income Analyst with Wachovia Bank and Allfirst Bank. Five years prior to joining Legg Mason/Stifel, Mr. King was a Financial Analyst with Allfirst in the company's brokerage and capital markets groups. Mr. King has a bachelor's degree in politics and economics from Wake Forest University and an MBA with a concentration in finance from the University of Maryland.
Read more of the interview with Mr. King and other Telecom sector analysts.
A Positive Outlook for Data Services
2009-09-03 09:42:11
The title says it all. In a recent interview with Colby Synesael Senior Analyst Kaufman Bros., L.P. as part of our Data Hosting & Data Storage Services Report. Here is his take on the group;Mr. Synesael: I'm positive on the group. Out of the four subsectors I cover within telecom and data services, the two that I'm most favorable on are neutral co-location providers like Equinix (EQIX) and Switch & Data (SDXC), as well as managed hosting providers like Savvis (SVVS) and Terremark (TMRK). In terms of why I'm positive, from a modeling perspective, I like the fact that they're recurring revenue-based models. I think that that gives a lot of visibility for shareholders.Make sure to follow us on Twitter for exclusive content
Best of Breed Technology - Monolithic Power (MPWR)
2009-09-01 13:05:19
Our current Semiconductor report contains a roundtable discussion with Dan K. Scovel of Tokeneke Research LLC, Kevin D. Vassily of Pacific Crest Securities and Patrick Wang of Wedbush Morgan Securities. According to Patrick Wang the top of his list is MPWR;Mr. Wang: When I think about best-of-breed technology, I think about a company called Monolithic Power. It's my favorite small cap name. Hopefully it'll graduate to mid-cap sometime soon. It[s one where these guys have just a very, very compelling, very cost competitive and performance competitive process technology, which allows them to essentially build chips that are cheaper, smaller and faster than a lot of the competitors out there.Other companies mention in the rountable include: Intel (INTC); Micron (MU); Microsemi (MSCC); STEC (STEC); National Semiconductor (NSM);Texas Instruments (TXN); ON Semiconductor (ONNN); Linear Technology Corporation (LLTC)
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Application Software Pick - Avocent (AVCT)
2009-08-31 13:33:44
As part of our Application Software Report we spoke with Aaron Schwartz, Senior Analyst, Ladenburg Thalmann & Co. thinks software stocks , have gotten a little ahead of fundamentals, and he expects the group to trade sideways into the fourth quarter . He does like Avocent (AVCT) on the long side:Mr. Schwartz:"...It's a company that's a mix of hardware and software. To me, this is a company in sort of a turnaround story, it's a non-consensus call. They've had a new CEO in there for about a year and he started to influence some change in the company, but they're going to see their software mix increase as a percent of total. I think that they are a derivative play on the Windows 7 release - that's the desktop operating system release that will be out in October. They should see some pretty strong margin and earnings leverage into next year, and the valuation is at about a little less than 10 times earnings. To us, it is very attractive for a company that's continuing to see things improve."Make sure to follow us on TWITTER for exclusive content
Featured Interview - Pansoft Company Limited (PSOF)
2009-08-28 11:21:32
Our Featured Interview this week is with Allen Zhang of Pansoft Company Limited (PSOF)Pansoft is a leading enterprise resource planning (ERP) software solutions and services provider for the oil and gas industry in China. Founded in 2001, the company is uniquely positioned to capture anticipated growth in customer driven software solutions and services by targeting large and mature business clients in the energy field in China. Pansoft has a strong balance sheet, solid revenue growth and impressive operating margins.