Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) purchased U.K. speech recognition company Novauris last year in an unannounced acquisition, according to TechCrunch. TechCrunch suggested the purchase is linked to efforts to improve Siri, the speech-based virtual assistant that is pre-installed on Apple’s mobile devices. Rival Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) this week unveiled its own virtual assistant, called Cortana. Terms of the Novauris acquisition were not announced. In mid-day trade, AAPL was down 1% to $533.41. MSFT is off 2.4% at $40.01 amid widespread tech sector selling. In Other Tech News Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) said its Office app for Apple Inc.’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPad reached 12 million downloads as of…
Author: Ross Shultz
Garrison Capital reported solid fourth-quarter results on Thursday. Net income, which includes unrealized and realized gains/losses on investments, was $0.40 per share, which compared with our estimate of $0.31. Net investment income (NII) was $0.32 per share, below our $0.35 target, as higher-than-expected expenses more than offset the 18% upside to our net interest and fee income. Portfolio migration to the higher-yielding (9.0%-plus yield) core portfolio from the transitory portfolio, which seems to happening faster than previously anticipated, and slightly higher prepayment fees drove the upside to our investment income estimate. The investment portfolio grew 4.3% from the prior quarter,…
Analysts expect CarMax will meet fourth-quarter EPS estimate of $0.50, up 8% and below consensus of $0.53. CarMax will report fourth-quarter earnings before the markets open on Friday, April 4. We believe sales trends at CarMax held up well during the February quarter, although trends seemed to soften somewhat in the latter half of February, perhaps reflecting weather conditions, later tax refunds, and/or curtailed subprime lending availability (or a combination of any or all of the above). We project a 9% used unit comp in the quarter against a 6% year-ago comparison, modestly above consensus of 8% but reflecting a…
On Monday, Quest Diagnostics completed its acquisition of Solstas Lab Partners and updated its original 2014 guidance to include Solstas; we had already included Solstas in our estimates. The company also indicated that weather should affect first-quarter adjusted EPS by $0.10, above our estimate of $0.05, which we lowered on February 26. Full-year revenue growth is now expected to be 2% to 4%, versus the prior flat to 2% (on its recent quarterly conference call, management suggested that revenue growth with Solstas would be 1% to 4%). Adjusted EPS are expected to be between $3.95 and $4.15, versus previous guidance…
Gartner announced the acquisition of Software Advice this morning. This is a relatively small acquisition, but because Gartner has not made many acquisitions during the last few years, it is noteworthy. Software Advice personnel do research on the software for a vertical sector, with a focus on identifying the main differentiators among vendors. The company uses that research to create short online quizzes that help it understand what type of software someone is looking for. Then it provides a phone consultation with software buyers to help narrow down choices to just a few vendors. We believe that search engines provide…
Seagate Technology reported fiscal second-quarter results that were modestly above expectations but gave investors a soft third-quarter outlook. Seagate generated $3.7 billion in revenue on 58.2 million hard-drive units, implying an average selling price of roughly $63. This represents a 3% sequential decline from last quarter’s average selling price of $65, reflecting the ongoing pricing pressures faced by hard-disk-drive suppliers. Unit shipments increased 1% sequentially as sales to enterprise customers jumped 16% sequentially. On the operations front, Seagate’s second-quarter gross margins fell 140 basis points sequentially to 27.0%, which is still above the firm’s long-run historical averages as low margin…
Philips delivered a fourth-quarter loss of EUR 0.39 per share, EUR 0.22 larger than the loss in the fourth quarter of 2011. The result this quarter, however, was driven largely by a EUR 313 million charge (EUR 0.96 per share) related to a fine levied against the firm by the European Commission stemming from the cathode ray tube business, which has been out of the portfolio for more than a decade. Given that the company expects to challenge the ruling and the smaller one-time impact of the charge. Organic revenue improved 3% versus the prior-year period, with health care growing…
In Alstom’s third-quarter sales update, the company reported 1% year-over-year sales growth, while orders grew 3% over the same period. Grid was the only segment that failed to deliver revenue growth in the period, driven by customer delays as well as tough comparison to the prior year. Similarly, Grid orders were down 6% versus the prior year, following a large order in the year-ago comparison as well as a dearth of large project orders in the third quarter. Thermal orders were down 13% in the quarter as there were fewer turn-key contracts in the quarter. In spite of the softness…
This morning, February 12, the FDA released background material in advance of the upcoming Ophthalmic Devices Panel Meeting this Friday, February 14, regarding Staar Surgical’s premarket approval application for the Visian toric implantable collamer lens (TICL). The pre-panel commentary carried a negative slant on certain aspects of the product and corresponding data. However, this is fairly common when it comes to device panels and generally speaking, we would not view the commentary as overly surprising or harsh. One area of likely focus will be the protocol deviations within the company’s trial; there were more than 700 occurrences reported. While the…
Challenger’s normalised earnings increased 4% to AUD 309 million for fiscal 2013 on the back of strong annuity sales (up 18%), solid growth in the retail annuities portfolio (up 9%), impressive funds management performance (earnings before interest and taxes up 62%) and tight cost control (up 2%). The solid overall performance is in line with expectations, and positive underlying industry trends bode well for future earnings growth. The highlight is the strong funds management divisional performance with funds under management, or FUM, up 33% to AUD 41 billion, and divisional pretax profit up 62% to AUD 34 million. The final…
Wipro reported first-quarter results that met expectations amid a soft operating environment, but management signaled that solid demand is buoying the firm’s IT services business, which is encouraging. Wipro’s IT services business (78% of sales) delivered revenue of nearly $1.6 million in the quarter, representing growth of 0.2% sequentially (1.2% on a constant currency basis) as management noted that pricing pressure was not as fierce as expected. The firm booked 28 new customers in the quarter, including several large multiyear contract wins spanning the telecom, health care, retail, financial, and insurance industries. This is encouraging, as it highlights near-term increased…
Zebra Technologies last week announced second-quarter results that were in line with analysts’ expectations . Second-quarter sales grew 3% year over year to $253 million, within management’s guidance range of $246 million-$258 million, as strong printer supplies sales (up 20% year over year to $60 million) offset weaker hardware sales, which declined 3% to $179 million. Zebra has tried to combat the choppy global market by developing printers customized for specific end markets and entering new verticals, but printer shipment growth has been muted in the first half of 2013. However, Zebra also announced that it was developing new motion…