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nationalsemiconductor posts

Semis and electronics retailers look weak

Posted Dec 20th 2006 10:55AM by Eric Buscemi (RSS feed)
Filed under: Earnings Reports, Forecasts, Bad News, Industry, Palm Inc (PALM), Texas Instruments (TXN)

Last night, Palm (NASDAQ:PALM) met its reduced revenue and earnings guidance, but lowered guidance again for next quarter. Palm's weakness follows the lower guidance offered recently by Texas Instruments (NYSE:TXN) and National Semiconductor (NYSE:NSM). Both blamed weakness in the handset market for the miss.

Yesterday morning, Circuit City (NYSE:CC) missed earnings due to a price war for flat panel TVs. The price war showed up at the gross margin line -- dropping 192 basis points, a massive decline for an electronics retailer. Circuit City also said satellite radio sales were weak, along with desktop PCs, camcorders and DVDs. On the positive side, two growth areas were video game consoles and laptops.

As we blogged last week, the malaise in electronics right now most likely means semiconductors will have a tough three to six months. Make sure semiconductor companies have their inventories in order before you jump back into either electronic retailers or semiconductors.

National Semi weak quarter doesn't bode well for industry

Posted Dec 11th 2006 9:41AM by Eric Buscemi (RSS feed)
Filed under: Earnings Reports, Bad News, Competitive Strategy, Motorola (MOT), Nokia Corp. (NOK)

National Semiconductor Corp. (NYSE: NSM) reported weak results last week and also gave a weaker profit guidance for the current quarter. Quarterly revenue fell 8% to $501.6 million from $544 million last year.

Brian Halla, National Semi's CEO, said there was no seasonal uptick for the holidays, which is not a good sign for the handset industry. National Semi makes system-on-a-chip semiconductors that go into many wireless phones. If National Semi's demand is down, that means demand is most likely down for Motorola Inc. (NYSE: MOT), Samsung and Nokia Corp. (NYSE: NOK).

Halla expects revenue to drop another 8% to 11% in this quarter. There is no reason for investors to bottom fish semiconductor stocks yet. It appears it will take a few quarters for the industry to bottom.

National Semiconductors using iPods and podcasts to keep its employees up to date

Posted Jun 14th 2006 8:21AM by Tobias Buckell (RSS feed)
Filed under: Deals, Products and Services, Consumer Experience, Apple Inc (AAPL)

There's always a new indication that iPods and the technologies around the device are hitting the mainstream. In the curve of adoption, you don't expect manufacturing companies to be up there dabbling with the latest, hip, technology, but apparently National Semiconductors is giving every employee an iPod, or some 8,500 units.

Every employee will be receiving a 30 gigabyte iPod. Each one will be loaded with company podcasts and other such corporate communications, a cutting edge way to get everyone to sit up and pay attention. And that's 8,500 more people who will become quickly exposed to the idea of podcasting, using iTunes, and getting a look at Apple product.

And as a straightforward gift, I wouldn't have minded getting an iPod for any reason as an employee!

[Disclosure: I own Apple stock at the date of this post]

[photo credit: ugaldew]

[Link discovered via MicroPersuasion]

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