Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) made a big splash today at the Consumer Electronic Show (CES) with the introduction of the iPhone. If you still haven’t seen the iPhone you have no idea what you are missing. You can see the engadget coverage here. The iPhone is good enough to make a grown man cry.
Random thoughts:
- Apple stole the show with the iPhone announcement.
- Apple did a great job of not letting the iPhone specs and features leak out.
- Market Reaction:
- Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL): Up 8.31%
- Nokia (NYSE: NOK): Down 1.32%
- Motorola (NYSE: MOT): Down 1.83%
- Research in Motion (Nasdaq: RIMM): Down 7.85%
- Palm (Nasdaq: PALM): Down 5.69%
- Research in Motion and Palm got clobbered today but it might be interesting to note that the iPhone is not a smartphone. iPhone can play music and video, take 2 mp pictures and browse the web but doesn’t have Microsoft Office/ Exchange capabilities and no 3G. So it won’t be a business phone like a Treo or a Blackberry.
- iPhone is expensive.
- $499 - 4gb version with a 2 year Cingular contract
- $599 - 8 gb version with a 2-year Cingular contract
- This is a major win for Cingular (NYSE: T) as well. They also had exclusivity with the Motorola Razr when it came out.
- I am not sure if anyone can beat Apple when it comes to design and usability. The Apple and Steve Jobs legend keeps growing thanks to the iPod.
- We now have another Mobile OS with Apple using OS X in the iPhone.
- This is a wake up call for cell phone makers such as Nokia and Motorola. Apple has come up with a cell phone that has all the world drooling while Nokia and Motorola keep popping out variations of Razr.
- Motorola (NYSE: MOT) hasn’t been able to come up with a compelling cell phone since the Razr.
- Nokia (NYSE: NOK) hasn’t come up with a compelling device in ages. At least, Motorola came out with the Razr and the Q. Nokia was late in figuring out the ‘flip’ phone trend and then was late in figuring out that ‘thin’ is in. Nokia finally has come out with a ‘thin’ phone but it looks like an exact replica of Motorola Razr. Nokia does have some cool phones but they seem to lack mass market appeal. N-Gage was another failure for Nokia. Nokia really needs to wake up.
- Are we going to see Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) come up with a Zune Phone? They do get hit by this because of their Windows Mobile OS.
- Nokia and Sony Ericsson (NYSE: SNE) (NYSE: ERIC) Samsung, Siemens and Panasonic also get hit because they have a stake in Symbian. I use a Nokia E62 which uses Symbian OS and let me tell you that its the slowest mobile OS I have ever seen.
I am still wiping the drool off my keyboard.
Share This
This is a follow-up to my earlier article on SiRF titled ‘SiRF gets beaten up’.
I am completely out of SiRF (Nasdaq: SIRF) as of today. I sold half my shares on Friday and sold the rest this morning while the stock was still positive but starting its downtrend.
Why did I get out:
- I didn’t like the price action the last couple of days as we saw no major rebound. I wanted to get out while I was still up and ended up with a small profit. Plus, I am little bearish as far as the overall market is concerned.
- I still think SiRF is a good company with a bright future but there is no point falling in love with a stock. I am going to closely monitor the stock and maybe get back in the near future when I feel like it has been overly punished.
- The cell phone GPS market is going to be huge but there is more competition in that arena then in the Personal Navigation Device (PND) arena. Check out this new GPS chip from Epson. This new chip is supposed to be the world’s smallest. I had no idea Epson made GPS chips to begin with let alone the world’s smallest.
- There was also Barron’s mention about SiRF’s high multiple.
I still like the GPS sector and am looking into Navteq (NYSE: NVT).
Share This
This is a follow-up to my earlier article on SiRF titled ‘SiRF gets beaten up’.
I am completely out of SiRF (Nasdaq: SIRF) as of today. I sold half my shares on Friday and sold the rest this morning while the stock was still positive but starting its downtrend.
Why did I get out:
- I didn’t like the price action the last couple of days as we saw no major rebound. I wanted to get out while I was still up and ended up with a small profit. Plus, I am little bearish as far as the overall market is concerned.
- I still think SiRF is a good company with a bright future but there is no point falling in love with a stock. I am going to closely monitor the stock and maybe get back in the near future when I feel like it has been overly punished.
- The cell phone GPS market is going to be huge but there is more competition in that arena then in the Personal Navigation Device (PND) arena. Check out this new GPS chip from Epson. This new chip is supposed to be the world’s smallest. I had no idea Epson made GPS chips to begin with let alone the world’s smallest.
- There was also Barron’s mention about SiRF’s high multiple.
I still like the GPS sector and am looking into Navteq (NYSE: NVT).
Share This
GPS chip maker SiRF Technology (Nasdaq: SIRF) got beaten up pretty bad today. The stock went down 11.46% to end the session at $26.20. This is a stock I own and wrote positively about in the past.
What happened?
- Jefferies & Co. analyst Adam Benjamin speculated that SiRF may have lost business with TomTom One to privately held Global Locate.
- SiRF used to be the exclusive supplier to Europe’s TomTom, a competitor of Garmin, but TomTom is going with Global Locate for its TomTom One line of GPS products. SiRF chipsets will still be used in the high end TomTom product line but not the low end TomTom One products.
- Jefferies & Co. also cut the price target on the stock to $34 from $36, and lowered the 2007 revenue estimate to $304 million from $321 million.
What now?
- Deutsche Bank Securities analyst Brian Modoff said potential market share loss that drove shares down Thursday “does not change the fundamental case for the company.”
- Brian Modoff further added that SiRF will inevitably lose some of its market share and he saw “no reason” to change earnings estimates. He said the competitor won the deal by offering lower prices, not a better product, and “given the important of accuracy and reliability” for their products, “we think a pricing-taking strategy can only go so far.” Deutsche Bank maintained a “Buy” rating and $33 price target.
- The cellphone GPS market is still in its infancy and provides a huge opportunity for SiRF.
What will I do?
- As it turns out I am still in positive territory even after today’s big fall, although not by much. I actually didn’t get a chance to even consider selling because it was too late as the stock had fallen considerably before I could react.
- I like the fact that the stock was up almost 2% after hours. I am going to closely monitor the stock tomorrow to see how it reacts. If the downturn continues, I might just sell all or part of my holdings and try to predict the bottom to buy again.
Share This
Let me begin by apologizing for the lame and unoriginal headline of this article. However, GPS chip maker SiRF Technology Holdings (Nasdaq: SIRF) is on a upswing and it blew past $30 after a weak opening today.
I wrote back on July 25th to keep an eye on the stock as it got clobbered after reporting second quarter earnings. Shortly there after, I wrote about its recovery citing a positive AP article. I even said that I am going to buy some SiRF myself. I actually ended up waiting until the third quarter earnings came out and got in under 25.
SiRF is the leader in its field and I know competition worries are abound. There was even a Barron’s article citing growing competition. However, I am willing to ride this SiRF until I see any signs of competition hurting them. I love the GPS market and feel like its still got a long ways to go. Market is not saturated at all. GPS devices are still not common place and are still pretty expensive. We still haven’t seen full scale integration of GPS devices into Cellphones, Smartphones, Ipod’s (one can hope?) among other things. Only a handful of cars on the road have GPS navigation devices but I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t want a GPS navigation device in their cars. Then only thing keeping them back is the price.
I realize the Garmin fell hard earlier due to margin pressures but I think Garmin and other manufacturers can cut down in other areas before worrying about GPS chips. Garmin Nuvi sells for over $500 but the SiRF chip in it is less than $10.
Share This
