Texas Instruments 4Q Results to Show the Strength of Mobility?

TMC (News - Alert) reported last week that ARM (News - Alert)-based applications processors currently had a virtual lock on the smartphone market. But ABI Research principal analyst, Peter Cooney, said, “Both Intel (News - Alert) and ARM have been working hard to address their weaker areas and there will be a point in the next few years when the performance/power efficiency of these technologies will be equal. At that point the competition in the market should be immense. x86 and MIPS cores have entered the market in 2011, and are forecast to grow to around 18 percent of the market by 2016.”

The top four suppliers, Texas Instruments (News - Alert), Qualcomm, Samsung, and Marvell were estimated to account for over 70 percent of total market revenues in 2010, which is expected to double between 2010 and 2016. The smartphone market is growing fast; in 2016 it is expected to reach over 700 million units per annum. “The critical 'if' in these forecasts is the performance of the smartphone market. If it continues to grow at its recent rate, these market forecasts should be accurate, and we have no reason to believe that it won't,” said Chief Research Officer, Stuart Carlaw, in a statement.

Texas Instruments (TI) sales have recovered to pre-recession levels as manufacturers have ramped up production of electronics that use TI chips. TI signaled in 4Q 2010, however, that demand for chips for laptop computers, hard disk drives and televisions had been weak, and chips for video games and smartphones grew in demand.

TI shares are back to pre-recession levels too. The company anticipates earnings per share for the fourth quarter to range from 61 cents to 65 cents, with a revenue between $3.43 billion and $3.57 billion. Analysts expect TI to earn 63 cents per share on $3.51 billion in revenue.  In a statement, Wedbush Analyst, Patrick Wang, said, “We expect TI to report fourth-quarter results in-line with its mid-quarter update with communications and smartphones strength balanced by weaker PC/consumer and muted industrial.”

TI, more popularly known as a maker of calculators, has become a major player in the mobile computing space, manufacturing chips used for multimedia applications.

Nonetheless, it must be recognized that the positive estimate for TI’s 4Q 2010 for TI could be affected by some of the following points (these are just a few):

• Market demand for semiconductors, particularly in communications, computing, industrial and entertainment electronics industry
• TI's ability to develop, manufacture and market innovative products in a rapidly changing technological environment
• TI's ability to maintain and enforce a strong intellectual property portfolio and obtain needed licenses
• Economic, social and political conditions in the countries in which TI, its customers or its suppliers operate
• Availability and cost of raw materials, utilities, manufacturing equipment, third-party manufacturing services and manufacturing technology