It's extremely tough to survive in the retail consumer electronics space, especially with competitors like Best Buy (NYSE: BBY) and Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT). Yet, RadioShack (NYSE: RSH) continues to find ways push ahead.

Today, the company released its Q3 report. Revenues came in at $990 million, which was a nice beat on the Wall Street consensus (about $962 million). Net income was $37.4 million, or $0.30 per share, which compares to last year's earnings of $49.1 million, or $0.38 per share. Keep in mind that the company has increased spending on branding (for its new positioning as "The Shack," which appears to be getting traction).

Verizon Communications' (NYSE: VZ) shares have pulled-back from a high above $32 registered earlier this year, but you can view this move lower as a way to establish or to add to a VZ position, which is I'm reiterating my Buy rating for the company, first recommended on February 12, 2009 at a price of $29.86.

Verizon, which boasts 6 million landline subscribers, is still viewed by institutional investors as more old economy than new economy -- this despite being the largest wireless carrier in the U.S. with about 88 million wireless subscribers. Further, VZ's FiOS broadband service continues to exceed expectations, and the company's recently raised dividend adds to the positive mix: not bad, for a 'stodgy' old company.

The only DOW component reporting earnings this morning is Verizon Communications (NYSE: VZ). The nation's largest wireless carrier reported second quarter numbers that fell inline with analyst estimates.

Going into this morning's earnings report, analysts polled by Thompson Financial expected Verizon to earn 63 cents per share. Excluding merger and various one-time labor costs, Verizon was able to match that number.

Tel-Aviv based Ceragon Networks (NASDAQ: CRNT) will be releasing its second quarter earnings on July 20. After a miserable first quarter, in which profits fell 95% over the year-ago quarter, investors are skittish about the stock's prospects. My view: for investors, Ceragon is a good long-term play.

Here's why. First, the company has got a great business. It is a key player in helping wireless carriers increase the speed at which data flows over their networks. The company's equipment connects wireless base stations to a mobile operator's main network, where traffic flows. It's this transmission technology that is critically important to carriers as demand for data services -- and for smartphones -- rises. And they are both rising.

Motorola Inc. (NYSE: MOT) has been in deep trouble for a while now. For some untold reason, the company placed almost all its growth bets on its wireless division but has not produced a hit handset in years. Nokia Corp. (NYSE: NOK) and Samsung Electronics have been producing and selling all kinds of cutting-edge wireless handsets to carriers all over the world. What has Motorola been up to?

It's still producing handsets, but so many of the designs and marketing strategies have been commodities lately. Meanwhile, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) has taken the mobile crown with the iPhone, and even Palm Inc. (NASDAQ: PALM) has risen from the dead with the new Palm Pre. Motorola was in such bad shape financially that it even suspended the spinoff of its mobile unit last year.

Today's economic (and credit market) conditions call for taking a page out of that great analysts' defensive play book: if we liked it at $27, we like it even more at $24.

The 'it' being AT&T's (NYSE: T) shares. AT&T shares walked in tandem with the market's great slide in 2008, but just as significant, the shares have been essentially unchanged since October 2008. In other words, shares were essentially unmoved by the greatest financial market and stock market turmoil since the 1930s.

"Well managed, dominant firms use downturns to become more powerful -- and that's definitely what Telefonica (NYSE: TEF) is up to," says Roger Conrad in The Utility Forecaster.

"Incorporated in 1924 as a unit of US-based ITT, the Spain-based company now serves 47 million customers in its home country, 150 million in 14 Latin American nations and 45 million elsewhere in Europe.

"Thus far in the recession, diversity and dominance of fast-growing markets has kept Telefonica growing. Overall global customer rolls increased by 15.2% through the third quarter 2008.

Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM), which competes with Texas Instruments (NYSE: TXN), reported Q1 numbers after the bell on Wednesday. The data continue to show that all is not well with the world.

Demand for Qualcomm's products is down, and as far as management is concerned, earnings visibility just isn't in the cards due to the financial mess and its effect on the company's marketable securities. Talk about not inspiring confidence.

For the first quarter, Qualcomm delivered pro forma earnings per share of $0.31. That represented an ugly drop of 40% on a year-over-year basis. Revenues inched up 3% to $2.5 billion. The top line beat expectations, but the bottom line didn't come anywhere close as Wall Street was counting on $0.47 per share. Then again, what did any of us expect? It's tough out there in the world.

"Whenever anyone asks, 'Why invest in China?' the answer is very simple: that's where the money is, and it's where exponential future economic growth is also," says Jim Trippon.

The editor of The China Stock Digest then asks, "Will China suffers an Oympic hangover?" Here, he explains why that should not happen and offers a look at China Mobile (NYSE: CHL), which he calls the "top dog" in the Chinese wireless sector.

"The Bank of China (BOC) conducted a study of the effects of 12 Olympiads on their host countries over the course of 60 years. They found that nine of the twelve Olympic host countries suffered a decline in GDP growth in the eight years after the games.

"The key to a post Olympic slump is the size of the economy. Smaller economies like Korea suffered larger downturns after the games, while larger economies like the United States were not affected at all. In smaller economies the enormous investment dedicated to staging Olympic games created an arti?cial bubble which was followed by a slump when Olympic building booms came to an end.

"China has made one of the largest investments ever in the Olympic Games with some estimates of spending topping $40 billion. But we don't believe the capital city will go into a slump after the games.

Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ) today reported better-than-expected second quarter results, fueled by growth in its wireless and FioS TV and Internet customers.

Net income rose 12% to $1.88 billion, or 66 cents a share, from $1.68 billion, or 58 cents, a year earlier, according to the New York-based company. Sales rose 3.7% to $24.1 billion. Excluding one-time costs, profit was 67 cents, two cents ahead of the 65-cents expected by analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News. Sales were slightly below the $24.2 billion Bloomberg estimate.

"Our second quarter results were on track with our business plan, and top- and bottom-line growth remained solid," said Chief Executive Officer Ivan Seidenberg in the earnings press release. "We remain focused on steady improvements in revenue growth and productivity that will increase profitability and cash flows and create future opportunities to enhance shareholder returns."

Among the highlights:

• 1.5 million net customer additions for the wireless business;
• Wireless churn of 1.12%, 0.83% retail post-paid churn;
• 11.8 percent increase in total revenues; data revenues up 45.3%
• 176,000 net new FiOS TV customers and 187,000 net new FiOS Internet customers

Going forward, it will be interesting to see if consumers, who are already stretched thin, begin holding off on ordering FiOS even if the service is superior to cable. Also, will stressed consumers quit the service because they are worried about more pressing needs like their mortgage?

Motorola Inc. (NYSE: MOT) just can't seem to find a sliver of good news to hang on to these days. The cellphone manufacturer based outside of Chicago saw its shares hit a five-year low this week as the outlook for its cellphone division continues to worsen. The company is in the midst of preparing to spin off the division to rid itself of that baggage. It's a sad state when that "baggage" is what defines Motorola.

Motorola contract manufacturer FoxConn had some cautious words to say this week as well, which probably helped propel Motorola's shares downward to $7.61, a level not seen since May 2003. After losing $194 million in the first quarter alone, it's just bewildering to see how such a great company completely lost its way, financially speaking.

It's not getting any better. The company's product launches have been described as a "half-baked mess" and it can't seem to find a knack for the cellphone handset design that it made so famous years ago with the RAZR. Motorola certainly isn't a one-hit wonder, but in the brutal cellphone market you need a hit every year to stay at the top of your game. Korean giant Samsung Electronics passed Motorola by in 2007 to become the world's second-largest cellphone manufacturer by having a whole host of cellphone designs available to almost every wireless carrier in the world. That's just for starters, but for Motorola, it seems to be an impossible goal at the moment.

Now that Verizon Wireless has agreed to purchase privately held Alltel from its private equity owners (giving them a small profit and an out), what else is on tap for the soon-to-be largest wireless carrier in the U.S.? Verizon Wireless is chomping at the bit to overtake AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) as the largest wireless carrier in the U.S., and its acquisition of Alltel will give it an 8 million+ wireless subscriber advantage over Ma Bell.

Although Alltel's buyout by Verizon was expected last year, it's now going to finally happen. Both companies use the same technical wireless standard, so this will be an easy merger. There will be no issues like when Sprint merged with Nextel in 2005 and the two incompatible networks caused an epic failure of those two companies to merge into one. Speaking of Sprint Nextel Corp. (NYSE: S), where does it play into the Verizon-Alltel landscape? Does its WiMAX plans now become derailed with the Verizon announcement, adding more insult to injury about the state of the company?

If anything, look for Verizon to take a strong look at buying Sprint Nextel shortly after its deal with Alltel closes. There would be way more regulatory scrutiny than the Alltel deal (overlapping markets, etc.), but a one-two knockout punch like this would make Verizon Wireless the pre-eminent wireless carrier in the U.S. for a long time. AT&T would have no choice but to plead with Deutsche Telekom to buy T-Mobile USA, the nation's fourth-largest wireless carrier, and one who also shares the same type of technical network as AT&T. Perhaps 2009 will see some of the neatest consolidation in the wireless world yet.

Motorola (NYSE: MOT) is getting close to picking a CEO for its handset division. The operation is going to be spun-out next year. Its worldwide share of the cell phone business has fallen from 22% to about 10% over the last two years.

The CEO search may be one of those odd situations where a chimpanzee may be as good as a man.

According to The Wall Street Journal, "Chief Executive Greg Brown is desperate to find a manager to turn around Motorola's mobile-devices division, which has lost $1.6 billion since January 2007, when its hit Razr phone ran out of steam." But, can new management do what two previous generations of managers at Motorola could not do? The company has been effectively flanked by the world's largest handset company, Nokia (NYSE: NOK), along with Samsung and Sony Ericsson. Getting back any market share may be hard for Motorola.

The spin-off also raises the issue of how the new unit will find capital. It will need at least $2 billion to $3 billion in cash. For a failing company, that may be hard to come by.

Motorola now trades at $9. Its enterprise and home electronics divisions could be worth as much as its $20 billion market cap. That leaves the handset unit with a value of zero.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com and the author of the Ten Stocks Under $10 newsletter.

Shares of Sprint Nextel Corp. (NYSE: S) are rising on a Wall Street Journal (subscription required) report that Deutsche Telekom AG (NYSE: DT) is poised to make a bid for the wireless telecommunication company. If the report is accurate, Sprint's long suffering shareholders should do as the Steve Miller Band song suggests "take the money and run" because the deal may not happen.

For Sprint, though, this may be its only hope. Sprint shares have slumped almost 40% this year as the Overland Park Kansas-based company tried in vain to gain marketshare against larger rivals including Verizon and AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T). The commercials starring the company's affable CEO Daniel Hesse haven't helped much either. Remember when Hesse was named CEO last December, board member Irvine O. Hockaday Jr. remarked that Hesse "has the board's full support to take decisive actions necessary to improve our performance."

Does that mean a sale to the former German telecom monopoly? The deal makes sense in theory because combining Sprint and Deutsche Telekom would create the top wireless company with more than 82 million customers. Verizon, which is a joint venture between Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ) and Vodafone Group Plc. (NYSE: VOD) has 67.2 million customers while AT&T has about 71 million wireless subscribers.

But as Bloomberg News points out, analysts argue that integrating the Deutsche Telekom and Sprint Nextel networks wouldn't be easy. Moreover, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security may not look kindly on a foreign company taking over a U.S. telecom provider for national security reasons, the news service notes.

Even so, the arguments for the merger are so compelling that it might be worth the risk.

AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) today posted strong first quarter results thanks to the continuing popularity of the iPhone and its ability to squeeze more savings from the BellSouth merger.

Net income rose to $3.46 billion, or 57 cents a share, from $2.85 billion, or 45 cents. Sales climbed 6% to $30.7 billion. On an adjusted basis, profit was 74 cents. The results matched the estimates of analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial, which in this market is good news. Shares of the telecommunications company were trading up in early morning market action.

"Revenue growth continues to ramp, we have good momentum across key growth areas, major cost initiatives are on track, and our operational results reinforce the confidence we have in our outlook," said Chief Executive Randall Stephenson in the earnings release.

Among the highlights:

• Total wireless revenue increased 18.3% year-over-year to $11.8 billion. Wireless service revenue, which excludes handset and accessory sales, grew 17.1% to $10.6 billion. Growth was driven by strong subscriber gains and continued improvement in ARPU (average monthly revenues per subscriber).
• Wireless data revenues grew 57.3% to $2.3 billion, reflecting surging demand for Internet access, e-mail, messaging, data access and media bundles.
• The first quarter net gain in wireless subscribers totaled 1.3 million. AT&T ended the quarter with 71.4 million subscribers.
• AT&T's broadband revenue grew 13.2% in the first quarter to $1.4 billion.
• Total video connections, which include AT&T U-verse service and bundled satellite television service, increased by 264,000 to 2.6 million.

The mean price target of Wall Street analysts is $44.39, well above where it currently trades. Perhaps investors are expecting the next earnings report to show signs of a slowdown.