Analyst sees upside for chip makers in HP results

Analyst sees upside for chip makers in HP results


Dylan McGrath
Page 1 of 2
EE Times
(08/19/2009 11:43 AM EDT)

SAN FRANCISCO — Hewlett-Packard Co.'s net profit fell considerably in the company's fiscal third quarter, but a financial analyst said the results—including a 2 percent year-to-year increase in PC sales and possibly record inventory lows—bode well for semiconductor suppliers.

HP (Palo Alto, Calif.) saw its GAAP net profit for the quarter ended July 31 fall 19 percent as a record $1.3 billion profit from services and double-digit sales growth in China were not enough to offset revenue declines in PC, software and servers, the company said Tuesday (Aug. 19).

"The PC supply chain has reached the leanest levels of inventory ever, in our opinion," wrote FBR Capital Markets analyst Craig Berger in a research noted circulated Wednesday. Any seasonal uptick in demand should lead to a healthy chip pull through in the third and fourth quarters of calendar 2009, Berger wrote.

Companies such as Marvell, International Rectifier, LSI Corp., Fairchild Semiconductor and ON Semiconductor "should benefit from improving PC demand in 3Q and grow that portion of business in the high-single-to-low double digits sequentially," Berger wrote.

PC hardware and storage days of inventory (excluding Dell) fell by one day in the calendar second quarter and are now slightly below all-time trough levels set in the third quarter of 2004 and the third quarter of 2007, according to Berger.

Berger also said that analog chip stocks should benefit from stronger-than-expected quarterly results reported by Analog Devices Inc. Tuesday.

HP said its quarterly net revenue fell to $27.5 billion, down 2 percent from the year-ago period. Revenue was up 4 percent when adjusted for the effects of currency fluctuations, according to the company.

HP posted net earnings of $1.6 billion, or 67 cents per share, in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), down from $2 billion, or 80 cents per share, in the year-ago quarter, the company said.

Non-GAAP operating profit was $3 billion, or 91 cents per share, up from 86 cents per share in the prior-year period, HP said.. Non-GAAP financial information excludes $568 million of adjustments on an after-tax basis, or $0.24 per diluted share, related primarily to amortization of purchased intangible assets, restructuring charges and acquisition-related charges, HP said.



CEO says business stabilizing
"Business is stabilizing, and we are confident that HP will be an early beneficiary of an economic turnaround and will continue to outperform when conditions improve," said Mark Hurd, HP chairman and CEO, in a statement.

Revenue grew 8 percent year-to-year in the Americas to $12.6 billion, HP said. Revenue in China grew by double-digit percentage, HP said, but declined in other regions of the world. Revenue from outside of the U.S. accounted for 62 percent of total revenue, HP said.

Services revenue increased 93% to $8.5 billion due primarily to last year's acquisition of Electronic Data Systems Inc. (EDS), HP said. Services perating profit was $1.3 billion, or 15.2 percent of revenue, up from $567 million, or 12.9 percent of revenue, in the prior-year period, HP said. The EDS integration is tracking ahead of plan, the company said.

HP's Enterprise Storage and Servers business reported total revenue of $3.7 billion, down 23 percent year-to-year, the company said. Software revenue declined 22 percent to $847 million, HP said, while revenue from its Personal Systems Group fell 18 percent to $8.4 billion. HP remains the No. 1 supplier of PCs worldwide.

Imaging and Printing Group revenue declined 20 percent to $5.7 billion, HP said.

HP projected revenue for the current quarter to be about $29.7 billion, which would be an increase of 8 percent sequentially.

Apple working on software fix for MacBook Pro hard drives

Owners of Apple MacBook Pro notebooks with 7200rpm 500GB hard drives have been complaining for months of clicking sounds followed by temporary stalling. According to Apple, a fix is in the works.


"We are aware of the issue and are working on a software update," Apple representative Bill Evans, told CNET News on Monday. He gave no time frame for the release of the software update.

People have been reporting that they hear a beep from the computer shortly before the hard drive clicks and then the computer stops responding. The computer is unresponsive for 10 seconds or so and then begins to work normally again.

The hard drive issue does not require the user to force-reboot the computer, which would cause any unsaved work to be lost. Simply waiting out the unresponsive system apparently works every time.

There doesn't appear to be any specific task that triggers the hard drive to enter its unresponsive state. Users on Apple's support forums are reporting that it seems to be completely random and doesn't matter where they are or what they are doing when it happens.

It does appear that the issue only affects the 500GB hard drives that run at 7200rpm.



Jim Dalrymple has followed Apple and the Mac industry for the last 15 years, first as part of MacCentral and then in various positions at Macworld. A guitar player for 20 years, Jim also writes about the professional audio market, examining the best ways to write and record songs on a Macintosh with Logic Pro and Pro Tools. Jim is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET.