Category Archives: oud

Virtual Reality Headset Sales Seen Reaching $895 Million This Year

High-end virtual reality headsets from Facebook ( FB )-owned Oculus, HTC and Sony ( SNE ) will account for just 13% of unit shipments in the emerging market this year. But they’ll make up 77% of revenue spent on VR headsets in 2016, Strategy Analytics predicted Thursday. The research firm estimates that VR headsets will generate sales of $895 million worldwide this year. Most of the revenue will come from the recently launched Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, as well as this fall’s PlayStation VR, the firm said. But most of the 12.8 million VR headsets sold this year will be lower-priced devices in which a smartphone serves as the VR screen. Samsung’s Gear VR and Alphabet ’s ( GOOGL ) Google Cardboard are among these cheaper headsets. State-of-the-art virtual reality headsets tethered to PCs and game consoles will barely exceed 1.7 million devices shipped globally in 2016 due to high pricing, Strategy Analytics said in a research report. Smartphone-based VR systems can serve as an effective “gateway drug” to upsell users to higher quality VR experiences down the road, researchers said. VR could fuel a new “tech spec race” in high-end hardware in areas such as display resolution, graphics processing units, storage and 360-degree cameras, Cliff Raskind, director of Strategy Analytics’ wearable device ecosystems service, said in a statement. Video games will be an early driver for VR headset sales. Other applications include virtual experiences in entertainment and sports, marketing and product retailing, and education and training. “Further out still, it is envisioned that increasingly capable 3D cameras and apps will allow users to relive (play back) and share experiences to VR headsets with compelling realism,” Strategy Analytics said. Oculus Rift began shipping on March 28 and costs $599. HTC Vive went on sale Tuesday and costs $799. PlayStation VR will cost $399 and go on sale in October. Oculus Rift and HTC Vive require the use of a high-end PC and PlayStation VR needs to be coupled with the PlayStation 4 game console. Image provided by Shutterstock . RELATED: Virtual Reality Could Disappoint Initially, Baird Says

Silicon Motion Jumps As Preliminary Q1 Revenue Exceeds Estimates

Silicon Motion Technology ( SIMO ) stock hit a record high Thursday after the company said first-quarter revenue would come in higher than expected. The Taiwan-based provider of flash-chip storage devices used in consumer products said revenue is expected to be 14% to 15% higher than the previous quarter. It’s prior guidance was in the range of a 2.5% decrease to a 2.5% increase. The consensus estimate, prior to the improved guidance, is for Silicon Motion to report revenue of $99 million, up 1% sequentially and up 23% year over year, which would be the eighth quarter in a row of double-digit gains. The consensus on earnings per share is 56 cents, up 17%, according to analysts polled by Thomson Reuters. Silicon Motion also said its gross profit margin is expected to be in the upper half of its original guidance range of 49% to 51%. Silicon Motion stock was up 4%, near 39.50, in afternoon trading on the stock market today . Shares rose as much as 6.4% earlier, hitting an all-time high of 40.27. Silicon Motion has an IBD Composite Rating of 99, the highest possible, and broke out of a cup-with-handle base at 34.08 last month. That leaves the stock 16% extended. The company is scheduled to release full Q1 earnings after the market close April 27. The majority of Silicon Motion products are integrated in consumer electronic devices. A significant portion of revenue is from customers that use the products in removable and embedded solid state storage solutions for smartphones, tablets, digital cameras, notebooks and desktop PCs. Its customers include Samsung and SK Hynix. Competitors in the mobile storage market include Marvell Technology ( MRVL ). On Tuesday, husband and wife co-founders Sehat Sutardja and Weili Dai resigned under pressure as CEO and president, as the company in March completed a review by its audit committee that found sales staff was under significant pressure from management to meet revenue goals. The company has delayed the filing of its 10-K statement, and Nasdaq has put the company on notice of possible delisting. Marvell stock jumped 13% on Tuesday on that news, but was down a fraction, near 10.80, Thursday afternoon.

Twitter Failure To Engage Mass Market Sparks Price-Target Cut

Twitter ( TWTR ) got a price-target cut Thursday from investment bank Morgan Stanley, citing falling user engagement and shrinking user growth at the social media site. Unlike its chief rival Facebook ( FB ), Twitter has yet to “break into the mass market,” wrote Morgan Stanley analyst Brian Nowak in an industry note Thursday. Remaining a niche service “makes us wary of Twitter’s addressable audience, and the question marks around the company’s ability to drive future user growth appear unlikely to go away in the near term,” he said. Nowak lowered his price target on Twitter stock to 16 from 18. Twitter stock was down a fraction in afternoon trading in the stock market today , near 17, but that was up 24% from its all-time low of 13.91 brushed on Feb 12. Morgan Stanley also trimmed its projections for Twitter’s user growth. Twitter will end this year with 307.1 million global users, the investment bank now says, down from its original projection of 310.6 million. The amount of time each user spends on the site is also declining, Nowak said, with those lower engagement levels “holding back revenue growth.” In Q4, Twitter’s U.S. mobile users averaged just 2.7 minutes daily on the site, said Nowak, compared to 40.5 mobile minutes for music streaming service Pandora Media ( P ), 30.3 minutes for Facebook and 8 minutes for YouTube, owned by Alphabet ( GOOGL ) subsidiary Google. That’s based on research from ComScore and Morgan Stanley. This year’s new users are expected to come mainly in the second half of the year, with major news events including the U.S. presidential election, the Rio Summer Olympics and the company’s recently announced deal  with the NFL. Twitter reportedly beat out Facebook, Alphabet,  Amazon.com ( AMZN ),  Verizon Communications ( VZ ) and Yahoo ( YHOO ) to capture digital rights to the NFL’s Thursday Night Football. It’s a high-profile foray into live programming for Twitter and for the NFL, which in the past has only streamed selected games. “An inability for these events to deliver would likely mean even more downside to our monthly active user estimates,” Nowak wrote.