Tag Archives: intc

HP Ghosts Apple With Spectre, World’s Thinnest Notebook PC

HP Inc. ( HPQ ) is making a play for the premium notebook computer market long dominated by Apple ( AAPL ). At a luxury products conference in Versailles, France, on Tuesday, HP introduced its Spectre notebook, which it billed as the world’s thinnest laptop. Spectre’s aluminum chassis is as thin as a AAA-battery at just 10.4 millimeters. That compares with 13.1 mm for Apple’s MacBook. Spectre has a full HD 13.3-inch diagonal edge-to-edge display and Bang & Olufsen sound. It is powered by Intel ( INTC ) Core i5 or i7 processors, depending on the model. It will be available for preorder online on April 25 starting at $1,169.99. It is expected to be in Best Buy ( BBY ) stores on May 22 starting at $1,249.99. HP also announced limited edition versions of its Spectre notebooks from designers Tord Boontje and Jess Hannah. “The HP Spectre is the thinnest notebook in the world, and unlike the majority of other super thin PCs on the market, this laptop doesn’t compromise power or features,” said Kevin Frost, HP vice president and general manager for consumer personal systems, in a statement. The Spectre notebook weighs 2.45 pounds and has high-gloss copper accents that give it a jewel-like finish. It boasts up to 9.5 hours of battery life per charge. Also Tuesday, HP refreshed its Envy line of notebooks with screen sizes of 15.6 and 17.3 inches. The 15.6-inch Envy starts at $679.99. The 17.3-inch Envy starts at $1,029.99. HP stock was down 1%, near 12, in midday trading on the stock market today . Shares touched a nearly three-year low of 8.91 on Feb. 11. On Monday, UBS analyst Steven Milunovich reiterated his neutral rating on HP stock with a price target of 11. The Palo Alto, Calif.-based company faces near-term challenges in PCs and printers but has longer-term opportunities in copiers and 3D printers, he said. RELATED: HP Stock Slumps On Continued Weak PC, Printer Sales Outlook

Chipmaker Intel Floats On Amazon, Google, Facebook Cloud Sales

No. 1 chipmaker Intel ’s ( INTC ) “winning lottery tickets” — Super 7 and Next 50 clients — will push continued double-digit sales for its Data Center Group, Jefferies analyst Mark Lipacis said Friday. But Intel’s “Cloud Day” event on Thursday didn’t lift Intel stock much on Friday; it closed up only a fraction, at 32.45. Intel stock is down 6% year to date, but it’s been on a three-week run since hitting a seven-month low of 28.22 on Feb. 11. On Thursday, at its Data Center Group (DCG) conference, Intel unveiled a new Xeon processor and a 3D Nand chip — the tech was developed with Micron Technology ( MU ) — and reiterated its commitment to help install “the next 10,000 clouds.” Lipacis wrote in a research report, “Intel’s new products and ongoing initiatives are making it easier to deploy clouds.” Easier cloud deployment should drive incremental demand for Intel’s high-margin microprocessors, he noted. Lipacis has a buy rating and 39 price target on Intel stock. Intel refers to its big DCG customers as the Super 7. They are  Alibaba ( BABA ), Amazon.com ( AMZN ), Baidu ( BIDU ), Facebook ( FB ), Alphabet ( GOOGL ), Microsoft ( MSFT ) and Tencent ( TCEHY ). Intel’s Super 7 sales rose at a 30% compound annual growth rate between 2012 and 2015, RBC Capital analyst Amit Daryanani wrote in a research report. Its Next 50 customer base grew at 40% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over that span. Daryanani figures that the Super 7 comprised 75% of cloud sales in 2015, but Lipacis says that the Next 50 are growing twice as fast. Although PCs continue to represent 60% of Intel’s total sales, the chipmaker is making a smart grab for the cloud market, Daryanani wrote. “Intel is positioning itself at the center of cloud development,” Daryanani wrote, hiking his price target on Intel stock to 33 from 31 and maintaining his sector perform rating. DCG sales are slated for 20% growth through 2019, with a third stemming from the cloud business, Daryanani said. Assuming that DCG is 30% of sales in 2016, cloud revenue alone will account for 10% of Intel’s total revenue. On Thursday, Intel announced its builders program to accelerate adoption of network functions virtualization, and highlighted its nine-month-old Cloud for All initiative. Cloud for All aims to make it easier to deploy agile and scalable cloud platforms. It could be “a potentially positive driver for enterprise server spending (about 35% of DCG revenue),” Credit Suisse analyst John Pitzer wrote in a report. Pitzer rates Intel stock an outperform and has a 40 price target.

Micron Stockpiles After ‘Big Cheese’ Samsung Reportedly Cuts Orders

Micron Technology ( MU ) supplier FormFactor ( FORM ) cut its Q1 guidance Tuesday, indicating that key rival Samsung might curtail production amid a memory-chip glut, Summit Research analyst Srini Sundararajan said Thursday. Wall Street largely blames Samsung for inundating the DRAM (dynamic random-access memory) market, thereby forcing prices to plunge. Late Wednesday, Micron acknowledged the 10% sequential drop in DRAM prices hit its fiscal Q2 top line. For its fiscal Q2, which ended March 3, Micron reported $2.93 billion in sales, down 30% year over year, and a five-cent per-share loss ex items vs. 81 cents earnings per share minus items in the year-earlier quarter. Sales missed expectations for $3.05 billion, but the bottom line topped analysts’ model for an eight-cent per-share loss minus items. Micron’s current-quarter guidance for $2.8 billion to $3.1 billion and a per-share loss ex items of 5-12 cents lagged the consensus of 33 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters. The consensus modeled $3.2 billion and five cents earnings per share ex items. At the midpoint of guidance, sales would fall 23%. In the year-earlier quarter, Micron earned 53 cents per share. As of early afternoon on the stock market today , Micron stock was down about 3%, trading just above 10. At least seven analysts cut their price targets Thursday on Micron stock. At least two downgraded Micron stock. Missed Qualification Pressures Costs Mobile wasn’t Micron’s saving grace in Q2, Pacific Crest analyst Monika Garg wrote in a research report. Garg cut her price target on Micron stock to 13 from 18 but reiterated an overweight rating. During Q2, mobile sales pulled in $503 million, down 40% sequentially, as Micron missed a key qualification, leading to extra inventory on the sheet. Now, Micron says, it will hold more inventory and maintain full utilization. August and November are likely to be seasonally stronger, Micron says. But “this likely does not sit well with memory investors who are concerned about potential oversupply,” MKM analyst Ian Ing wrote in a report. Cowen analyst Timothy Arcuri agreed. Micron was supposed to reach cost reductions in May on its 20-nanometer DRAM build, he wrote in a report. The qualification miss hurt those reductions. “Average sales price declines are still more than offsetting these declines,” he wrote in a report. “There is likely to be at least one more good cost-down DRAM quarter from 20-nm in (August), but the inventory build threatens any material recovery in (pricing).” Arcuri cut his price target on Micron stock to 13 from 20, “throwing in the towel” on any big stock move back to 20. He maintained his outperform rating. Credit Suisse analyst John Pitzer says that Micron is likely building inventory to better its cost disadvantage vs. peers like Samsung and SK Hynix. Pitzer reiterated an outperform rating and 20 price target on Micron stock. Ing rates Micron stock a buy and has a 19 price target. Can Micron Gain On Samsung? The memory oversupply led to a 9% and 10% sequential decline in Micron’s DRAM shipments and pricing. Nand (flash memory) saw respective declines of 11% and 15% quarter over quarter. Pricing will better in Q3 and Q4, Ing wrote. For DRAM, he expects sequential declines of 10% and 8%, and he models 10% and 7% declines in Nand pricing over the next two quarters. Ing sees Micron gaining share vs. Samsung on better gross margins, but Macquarie analyst Deepon Nag says that Samsung will win on its weighty pricing pressure. Nag cut his price target to 12 from 14 and downgraded Micron stock to neutral from an outperform rating. Summit Research’s Sundararajan reiterated both a 14 price target and a buy rating on Micron stock, noting that Micron will likely start making profits in November on capital expenditure cuts by key rivals and 20-nm-related cost reductions. FormFactor, which supplies probe cards for Micron, Intel ( INTC ), Samsung and SK Hynix, said Tuesday that it couldn’t meet DRAM demand from one customer and that other vendors had pushed orders out another quarter. The guidance cut indicates depressed DRAM demand. To that point, Apple ( AAPL ) cut the DRAM in its new iPad Pro vs. the first iteration. “Heavy curtailment by the big cheese (Samsung) is already underway,” Sundararajan wrote in a report. “With such brakes being cut, clearly, the DRAM makers have gotten religion.”