loridans
17 years ago
Motley Fool on SIRF
A coal-black heart
First the market smacked SiRF Technology over the head with a shovel after it reported an earnings miss earlier this month. Then investors seemed ready to use that shovel to bury the GPS chip maker, too. Shares dropped nearly 60% in one day, after SiRF reported profits of only $700,000, compared to $9.1 million the year before. Worse still for the company was its anticipated loss of $0.04 a share in the first quarter of 2008, compared to analyst projections of $0.24 per share in earnings.
Shares sank amid the market's concerns that prices for navigation device prices would pressure SiRF's margins. Demand remains high for personal navigation devices, but competition is getting stronger, too. The news had a ripple effect as well: Shares of GPS maker Garmin (Nasdaq: GRMN), a customer of SiRF, fell 8% as a result.
Looking a little further into the future, you still see Research In Motion (Nasdaq: RIMM), Sony, and even General Motors needing SiRF's technology for their own product offerings. Skeptics may be premature in planning for the specialized chip maker's demise.
That's certainly the feeling over on CAPS, where All-Star investors like lBluttol and PopsDaniecki, with 98.95 and 99.52 player ratings respectively, feel that the sell-off is overdone. With a balance sheet that's still relatively strong, SiRF could make an attractive takeover candidate at worst. According to lBluttol, "I say that SIRF is an absolute screaming buy here if only for one compelling reason: SIRF is now dirt cheap and a prime takeover candidate."
Another All-Star, ddberg, is worried about the earnings miss and the company's regular practice of share dilution. Still, the stock's recent hammering makes its current price an attractive entry point:
Unless I'm completely missing something, or there's more going on than is publicly known, this sell-off seems highly overdone. Share dilution: bad. Falling short of estimates: relatively bad. But a 50% 1-day drop for a company still looking at double-digit growth across the board that wasn't significantly over-valued beforehand? Seems extreme.
Shocker00
17 years ago
SiRF Unveils the SiRFprima Multifunction Location Platform to Drive Next-Generation Mobile Convergence Devices
Thursday February 7, 7:38 pm ET
Innovative Architecture Integrating GPS/Galileo Location with Multimedia and 3D Graphics to be Demonstrated at 2008 GSMA Mobile World Congress
SAN JOSE, Calif., Feb. 7 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Delivering on its vision of the convergence between location, multimedia and content in the mobile device market, SiRF Technology Holdings, Inc. (Nasdaq: SIRF - News), a leading provider of GPS-powered location platforms, today launched its SiRFprima(TM) multifunction platform to enable the next generation of location-aware mobile devices that significantly enhance the consumer experience for location applications and media rich content. The SiRFprima platform combines an industry leading GPS/Galileo location engine, powerful application processor, rich audio and video recording and playback capabilities, high-resolution 3D graphics and a host of peripheral interfaces -- all tuned to operate concurrently. Supporting both WinCE and Linux operating system environments, the SiRFprima platform will give manufacturers greater flexibility to create in a timely and cost-effective manner unique, full-featured products that meet consumers' high expectations for performance, affordability and portability.
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"With its high-performance multifunction engines all tuned to run in harmony, the SiRFprima platform sets a new standard for performance and integration in the emerging market for exciting new location-aware convergence products," said Kanwar Chadha, founder and vice president of marketing for SiRF. "We believe the SiRFprima platform delivers on our vision of the convergence of location with rich media content, and extends SiRF's leadership in providing innovative solutions that bring the power of location to the mainstream."
The SiRFprima platform includes an ultra-high-speed, multifunction processor comprised of an advanced ARM11 core, a high-performance location engine that supports both GPS and Galileo satellite systems and an on-chip DSP. It also includes hardware-accelerated 3D graphics and multimedia encoding and decoding engines based on the gaming-grade PowerVR MBX 3D graphics accelerator core, vertex geometry processor and PowerVR MVED1 video encode/decode accelerator from Imagination Technologies.
The SiRFprima multifunction processor delivers SiRF's renowned, industry leading, GPS-enabled location performance, featuring 64 channels with -161 dBm sensitivity. The hardware scalable location engine, with more than 1,000,000 correlators, is among the first capable of working with both GPS and Galileo signals simultaneously. Additionally, the SiRFprima processor has been specifically designed to support SiRF's proprietary GPS technologies, providing, for example, a dedicated accelerator for the SiRFInstantFixII(TM) technology.
"We are very excited by the SiRFprima platform because it offers an opportunity that until now software developers have only dreamed of. With its overall high performance, from its graphics to its memory bandwidth, the SiRFprima platform is definitely the 'prima' solution for us," said Peter Balogh, CTO of Nav N Go, a leading developer supplying navigation applications to leading PND players, including the award-winning Nav N Go iGO8 3D navigation software. "With its high degree of integration and extensive array of design features, the SiRFprima platform is truly a fantastic advance in the convergence market, and will make it much easier for us to achieve our goal of making navigation and mobile software more accessible and enjoyable to as many people as possible."
The SiRFprima platform supports OpenGL ES, Direct3DM and OpenVG, and can drive full-color, high-resolution displays with multiple hardware overlay layers. The hardware media acceleration has enough processing muscle to encode and decode mainstream and high-resolution video standards concurrently with navigation and other operations.
In addition to performance gains delivered by the multifunction processor, the SiRFprima platform also offers a full complement of peripheral and external interfaces for connecting to touch screens, mass storage devices, video cameras, DVD players, satellite radios and other devices.
What previously required several external coprocessors has now been integrated into the SiRFprima platform, significantly reducing bill-of-material (BOM) costs for SiRF customers. By integrating typical discrete components onto its own silicon, SiRF not only reduces the total system cost, but also decreases board design complexity and time to market risk.
According to a report released recently by New York-based ABI Research, manufacturers of personal navigation devices are facing continued stiff competition and will likely seek to stand out in the market by adding speech technology, multimedia capabilities, 3D map content and other features to their products. ABI Research predicts worldwide sales of these convergence devices will surpass more than 100 million units by 2011.
Mobile consumer electronics devices -- including mobile phones, portable navigation devices, handheld computers, games and even cameras -- have already begun moving beyond their original, single-function designs to incorporate numerous combinations of connectivity, location and media and content functions. Mobile phones today routinely offer music playback and integrated cameras, while portable navigation devices increasingly contain audio, still image and video playback capabilities and connect wirelessly to mobile phones for hands-free operation.
SiRF believes the distinctions between some of these product categories will blur as this convergence progresses, creating new generations of more powerful multifunctional consumer electronics devices that navigate, inform and entertain. To compete effectively and satisfy consumer demand, manufacturers of these convergence products will require more flexible, highly integrated solutions. SiRF believes the SiRFprima platform launched today delivers all the necessary ingredients and flexibility for developing tomorrow's premium convergence systems.
Availability and Pricing
SiRF is demonstrating the SiRFprima multifunction location platform in the SiRF Technology booth (Hall 1, Booth F06) at the upcoming GSMA Mobile World Congress 2008 being held in Barcelona, Spain, February 11-14, 2008. The SiRFprima multifunction platform will begin sampling to lead customers in the second quarter of this year. As with most SiRF solutions, the SiRFprima platform offers form factor reference designs and full evaluation boards. Please contact SiRF for pricing information.
About SiRF Technology
SiRF Technology Holdings, Inc. develops and markets location platforms based on semiconductor and software products that are designed to enable location-awareness utilizing GPS and other location technologies, enhanced by wireless connectivity and multimedia capabilities for high-volume mobile consumer devices and commercial applications. SiRF's technology has been integrated into a wide range of mobile consumer devices such as automobile navigation systems, portable navigation devices (PNDs), mobile phones, mobile computers, GPS-based peripherals and handheld GPS devices, and into commercial applications such as location servers, asset tracking devices and fleet management systems. SiRF markets and sells its products in four target platforms: wireless handheld devices such as mobile phones; automotive electronics systems, including navigation and telematics systems; consumer electronics products such as recreational GPS handhelds, mobile gaming machines, digital cameras and wearable devices; and mobile computing systems, including personal digital assistants, notebook computers, universal mobile personal computers (UMPCs) and mobile internet devices. Founded in 1995, SiRF is headquartered in San Jose, California, and has sales offices, design centers and research facilities around the world. The company trades on the NASDAQ Stock Exchange under the symbol SIRF. Additional information about SiRF and its location technology solutions can be found at http://www.sirf.com.
Forward Looking Statements
Except for the historical information contained herein, the matters set forth in this press release, including, but not limited to, statements regarding the anticipated benefits and functions of SiRFprima, including a customer's ability to full-featured products timely and cost-effectively, and providing flexibility for developing premium convergence systems, the new generation of more powerful multifunction consumer electronic devices, manufacturers' requirements and timing of product release, are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as "to," "being," "possible," "may," "will," "addresses," "designed to," "expand", "provide," "believe," and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and should not be considered as an indication of future performance. SiRF's actual results could differ materially from those discussed in these forward-looking statements as a result of risks and uncertainties, including, among others, the risk that we may not realize the anticipated benefits of this acquisition, risks associated with acquisitions, including the ability to successfully integrate the acquired technologies or operations, potential diversion of management's attention and our ability to retain key employees of acquired businesses, demand and market acceptance for our products and those of our customers, the market for GPS-based location awareness, risks associated with the semiconductor industry and other risks and uncertainties discussed in the Company's Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2007 and from time to time in SiRF's SEC reports. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date hereof. We do not undertake any obligation to update forward-looking statements.
SiRF, the SiRF orbit logo, SiRFstar, SiRFLoc and SiRFDRive are registered trademarks of SiRF Technology, Inc. SiRFPrima, , SiRFInstant, SiRFInstantFix, SiRFDiRect, and SiRFecosystem are trademarks of SiRF Technology, Inc. All other corporate names or trademarks are the properties of their respective owners.
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Source: SiRF Technology Holdings, Inc.
griff100
17 years ago
RealMoney by TheStreet.com
After SIRF's Pounding, the Stock Is Dirt-Cheap
Wednesday February 6, 11:01 am ET
ByJay Somaney, RealMoney.com Contributor
SiRF Technology , a maker of GPS semiconductors, got taken apart in trading Monday after the company reported earnings of 28 cents a share on revenues of $100.4 million; analysts expected 32 cents a share on revenues of $101 million.
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So, an earnings shortfall of 4 cents a share and a revenue shortfall of $600,000 caused the good guys to shatter the market capitalization of SIRF by a hair under 55%. Makes sense to me.
Wait, no it doesn't.
I say that SIRF is an absolute screaming buy here if only for one compelling reason: SIRF is now dirt-cheap and a prime takeover candidate.
The company has $139.4 million in cash and cash equivalents and no debt whatsoever. Using the fully diluted share count of 60.7 million shares at the end of the December quarter, that works out to $2.30 a share in net cash.
After all the cheerleaders were done slashing their numbers, we have new estimates of 55 cents a share in earnings for 2008 and 77 cents a share for 2009. Before Monday's earnings report, the genius sell-siders were expecting earnings of $1.32 a share for 2008 and $1.49 a share for 2009. Oops!
The sell-siders have lowered their revenue expectations for 2008 to $378.5 million and for 2009 to $440.2 million. Before the results, they were at $446 million for 2008 and $530.6 million for 2009. Slight oops again!
So after Monday's shellacking, SIRF trades at 9.2 times (factoring out the $2.30 a share in net cash) estimated 2008 earnings of 55 cents a share and at 6.5 times estimated earnings of 77 cents a share for 2009.
Using market cap (again factoring out net cash) to revenue multiple, SIRF is now valued at 0.81 times estimated 2008 revenue of $378.5 million for 2008 and at 0.70 times estimated revenues of $440.2 million for 2009.
Estimated revenue growth for SIRF is now 16% (2009 over 2008) and earnings growth is 40% (again 2009 over 2008).
SIRF is dirt-cheap anyway you look at it, despite concerns of coming market-share losses, pricing and competitive pressures, and any other stuff the sell-siders have come up with to justify their slashing of estimates.
I am not saying by any means that the company is not in the penalty box. It surely is, but at these valuations, it will not remain in the penalty box for too long.
In addition, I am not dismissing the poor outlook provided by the company, including an expected small loss to break-even for the first quarter with gross margins guidance of 50% going forward for now.
However, the strength in their Research In Motion business and design wins at Motorola and Lenovo could at least partially offset the slightly-less-than-expected sales at Garmin and Mio going forward, based on last week's announcement from the latter two regarding cellular-based products, which could be an issue for SIRF.
I took a good-guy shot at SIRF in Monday's pounding and stand ready to buy more in case the stock comes in more today.
I think a buyout will happen sooner rather than later.
In the current shoot-first-ask-questions-later environment, SIRF could prove a sweet gift in a few weeks or months.
Until the next time, happy investing.