Trefis Week in Review

+3.93%
Upside
171
Market
178
Trefis
AAPL: Apple logo
AAPL
Apple

The Week in Review

Below is a summary of the activity on Trefis during the past week that we thought you would find interesting.

Insights from the Week

Relevant Articles
  1. Down 10% This Year, Will Gen AI Tools Help Apple Stock Recover?
  2. Down 5% Over The Last Month, Will Strong iPhone Sales Help Apple Offset Mac Headwinds In Q1?
  3. After Over A 40% Rally In 2023, Will Antitrust And iPhone Issues Hurt Apple Stock?
  4. Up 45% Since The Beginning Of 2023, Where Is Apple Stock Headed?
  5. Up 34% This Year, Will Apple Stock Rally Further Following Q4 Results?
  6. Will New iPhones Help Apple Stock Offset A China Slump?

Technology Media & Telecom

Microsoft officially launched the Office 365 software last week, which marked its foray into the cloud computing productivity software market which is dominated by Google and Salesforce.com …

Viacom’s film division Paramount Pictures will be launching its own animation division. This division will be focused on animation movies with budgets of up to $100 million per movie …

Comscore just delivered a flying back elbow to RIM by releasing its U.S. smartphone operating system market share data for February to May 2011, which showed that Apple with 27% market share passed RIM’s that declined to 25% …

With the launch of Office 365, it has a very good chance of becoming the dominant player even in the cloud based productivity software market based on initial reviews …

Considering the positive initial reviews, if the Sales OnDemand application turns out to be a hit, SAP could end up with a greater market share by the end of the forecasting period …

Microsoft Office and the Windows operating system are the greatest moneymakers for Microsoft. Android could turn out to be its next billion dollar business and one of its largest revenue generator …

We believe CBS owned TV stations and CBS radio ebitda margin and cable networks ebitda margin may hold potential of rising higher than we forecast …

In the scenario where BlackBerry’s gross margins decline at a faster rate to reach 20% in the long term, there could be additional 10% downside to our RIM value …

eBay’s transaction take rate has actually increased over the last few years and the company may be able to limit the negative impact of the factors we believe will influence the take rate …

The issue for Google is that if it doesn’t agree to license the wireless patents held by competitors, it could find itself mired by patent lawsuits …

Apple’s global mobile phone market share was around 3% as of 2010. A low cost contract-free iPhone presents Apple with a huge opportunity to expand its market share …

The resulting competition for user listening hours can result in more than 10% downside risk to our already conservative estimates for Pandora’s stock …

Nokia’s stock price has taken a beating during the last few months having declined from around $10.20 at of the beginning of the year to around $6.30 today. The cheaper iPhone could exacerbate this decline …

While iPhone sales declined significantly in Q2 2008 compared to Q1 of same year, they increased by significant amount for corresponding periods in 2009 …

We estimate that SAP’s share in ERP market has declined from around 29% in 2005 to around 27% in 2010 and we expect it to decline further …

If Apple ends up winning this lawsuit, it will not only gain a one time amount from Samsung for the past devices sales, but it also could negotiate royalty payments from Samsung …

Although Google+ is still in beta phase, many users reckon that it can be a serious FaceBook competitor and Hangout is one of the most talked about unique features of Google+ …

Though Chatter itself comprises only about 2% of the Trefis price estimate for Salesforce.com stock, increasing adoption of Chatter by enterprises could provide upselling opportunities to Salesforce.com …

The Reuters report also states that although these are not very big cuts per model, the breadth of products receiving price cuts has not been seen for some time …

While the potential market opportunity is large, there could limitations from poor broadband quality and low per capita income in the region that might could reduce the near-term adoption …

The European lodging industry is dominated by small, independent hotels unlike the U.S. where hotel chains are more prevalent. This makes  TravelAds a more compelling proposition to European travel service providers …

Baidu, the most popular Chinese search engine with over 83% of the market, has been the dominant player in the Chinese search landscape for years …

The latest filing by Oracle reveals that Oracle is demanding $900 million to $1.4 billion up front as well as 15% of the advertising revenue that Google earns from advertising on phones that run the Android OS …

Given RIM’s struggle so far to counter the iPhone and iPad, shoring up its core BlackBerry offering with a “super” phone makes sense …

So the market was looking at how much these patents could be worth based on the Nortel auction, which could have been inflated for competitive reasons …

Last week also Dish also received approval for its $1.4 billion bid for DBSD North America, and it’s getting close to acquiring TerreStar …

Charles Schwab recently announced a new service called Clients Speak that allows customers to publicly rate Scwhab’s online services and write detailed reviews …

Although Verisign has been the exclusive provider for .com and .net domain names historically, this is nonetheless positive news for Verisign as it allows it to maintain registry rights from ICANN several more years …

 

(Trefis Pro Exclusive) Consumer, Retail, & Automotive


In order to strengthen its position in the lucrative global confectionery industry, Kraft acquired the British confectionery firm Cadbury for $18.9 billion …

Firstly, being present on Facebook is more of a necessity for P&G since all other leading brands have similar pages dedicated to them …

Pharmacies also have to sell general merchandise in addition to drugs to make up for high rental rates as well as shrinking margins on pharmaceutical drugs …

Altria’s Smokeless Tobacco products division occupies over 40% retail market share and has growth potential for this niche segment as industry volume are growing at over 7% annually …

The newly independent Philip Morris International sells tobacco products in the international markets while Altria maintains its operations in the US …

We believe that the cotton prices may not hold up to these levels in 2011 as the production numbers in the Asian countries stabilize during the year …

 

(Trefis Pro Exclusive) Financial Services


If China decides to open up its market, we may witness a steep rise in transaction volumes for Visa which can reach 120 billion by 2017 …

NYSE has been extremely aggressive in marketing its service offerings recently – putting in a lot of effort to meet with companies in the Silicon Valley to discuss potential listings …

Goldman charges 42 cents to store a metric ton of aluminum in its facilities for a day, which translates into $150 in annual revenues for every metric ton it stores …

The new partnership will allow users to link an American Express card with their Foursquare account allowing users to take advantage of special offers by paying with their AmEx cards …

The short term gold options contracts will help market participants manage risks associated with economic data pertaining to governments, world events and other market-moving factors better …

Barclays became the second bank after the Lloyds Banking group (NYSE:LYG) to settle this dispute by having a “no questions asked” settlement to all its customers who made a PPI complaint before April 20 this year …

Goldman Sachs spent $1.3 billion in Q1 2011 on issues that included the overhaul in financial regulation. Its lobbying efforts were also directed at the CFTC according to its disclosures …

The Federal Reserve voted to cap the swipe fees at 21 cents per transaction vs. the original plan that called for a 12 cents fees cap the Fed proposed in December last year …

JPMorgan’s approach is in stark contrast to Bank of America’s which plans to close 10% of its branches as mobile and Internet banking have reduced the need to have a branch on every corner of the city …

AIG will face costs of about $500 million from U.S. storms in April and May that are likely to pressure property- and-casualty margins in the second quarter, according to Jimmy Bhullar, an analyst at JPMorgan …

 

(Trefis Pro Exclusive) Energy & Natural Resources


First Solar’s share price saw a steady decline from a $170 high in February to less than $120 last month due to concerns about the company’s ability to sell its products at the rate it is producing them …

BP botched deal with Rosneft to gain access to the lucrative Arctic shelf was a move that opposed the interest of the Alfa-Access-Renova (AAR) consortium …

The rooftop installation will need 27,528 photovoltaic rooftop solar panels from SunPower, with a power generation capacity of 9 megawatt (MW) …

The US is expected to be the single largest market for First Solar’s products in the years to come – surpassing Germany which has contributed most to the company’s sales in recent years …

The story added that Duke might consider an outright sale of assets to GDF Suez or could form a joint venture  and sell 60-70% to  GDF Suez …

 

(Trefis Pro Exclusive) Basic Materials


Multi-billion dollar stimulus packages introduced by the Chinese government for developing infrastructure should boost specialty chemical demand for construction chemicals …

There is close to 5.9 billion tons of mineral deposits in the region with an average copper grade of 0.41% and gold grade of 0.22 grams a tonne …

The project, located at Mt Hillalong, is an advanced exploration target, located 22 kilometers to the west of Rio Tinto’s Hail Creek mine that produces close to 6 million tons of coking coal annually …

For Newmont, the lower ore grades have been a cause of concern as the company faced production losses at the Boddington mine last year …

The mining giant received yet another setback from its crown-jewel, the Indonesian Glasberg mine, when 8,000 mine workers started a 7-day strike …

 

(Trefis Pro Exclusive) Industrials & Transportation

 

Export coal freight is a very profitable segment of CSX due to its highly efficient unit train configurations and longer than average lengths of haul …

If demand for natural gas surges further, pushing up the annual natural gas shipments to 4,200 billion cubic feet during 2012, there could be potential upside of 5-6% to the Trefis price estimate …

Coal freight service of Norfolk Southern consists of transportation of coal and petroleum coke and accounts for the highest share of Norfolk Southern total freight volume …

KMP competes with interstate and intrastate pipelines and their shippers for attachments to new markets and supplies as well as for transportation, processing and treating services …

The total volume levels for 2010 including carloads and intermodal units are still below 2008 levels and so we believe railroads have further opportunities for volume growth …