Next quarter guidance is $0.91 to $0.97 EPS on $4.6 to $5.0 billion in revenues, while the consensus estimates are $0.89 EPS and $4.49 billion in sales.  For fiscal year 2012, Qualcomm is offering guidance of $3.55 to $3.75 EPS on sales of $18.7 to $19.7 billion; estimates are $3.59 EPS and $18.48 billion in sales. The company sees 146 to 154 million MSM units shipped in the current quarter.

The company ended its latest quarter with a cash arsenal of $22 billion or so if you include the cash equivalents and short-term investments.

Shares closed up 1.25% at $59.56 and the 52-week range is $45.98 to $59.84 and shares are trading up around $62.00 after a near-4% gain in the after-hours. 

Keep in mind that the market cap hit $100 billion today and that will drive the market well over the $100 billion mark if its holds up after the conference call.  Beating earnings estimates and raising guidance is welcomed.

JON C. OGG

We have now seen positive earnings out of ARM Holdings plc (NASDAQ: ARMH) Jim Cramer turned out to be very spot on when it came to his relative value tout in Broadcom Corporation (NASDAQ: BRCM) with its post-earnings reaction being up 7%.

Options traders are braced for a move of up to about $2.00 in either direction based upon the monthly expirations of puts and calls.

With the stock near a year high, the chart does not offer any great reads right now other than that the most recent support was around $57.25 and if the news is really unpleasant then the 50-day moving average is $55.37 and the 200-day moving average is $54.02.

Analysts still lean toward a ‘Buy’ consensus for their official ratings bias.  Thomson Reuters has a consensus target (mean target) of almost $66.00.

We would probably lean twoard waiting another quarter before expecting Qualcomm to boost its dividend, which has been the same for three consecutive quarters and currently offers investors a 1.5% yield.

JON C. OGG

Sprint’s 4G LTE service, part of its Network Vision rollout, will reach 10 or fewer cities by mid-year. That means it cannot claim it has anything close to national coverage until 2013, at the earliest.

Sprint took a chance with long odds when it tried to take an early lead in 4G with its WiMAX product. Sprint made the critical mistake of adopting of a standard that was never likely to be used by all other major carriers. It now pays for that gamble with its late entry into the market with the widely accepted LTE product.

Sprint has made a long series of missteps, with its LTE rollout only the latest. Also among them was a lack of concentration on customer service, which damaged its reputation for years. The company argues that its merger with Nextel cost its the ability to properly serve customers from both that firm and Sprint. It may be a reasonable excuse, but that has not helped Sprint shareholders or customers. It has, however, helped freeze Sprint’s customer base at about 50 million. AT&T and Verizon Wireless have continued to grow. Sprint cannot play catch-up in a saturated U.S. market in which cell phones outnumber people. Carriers can add customers only by taking them from the competition.

However much Sprint’s customers have suffered, its shareholders have been hurt more by the company’s poor strategic decisions. Over the past five years, its stock is down more than 80%, compared to a 10% drop by AT&T. AT&T’s dividend more than makes up for its share performance shortfall.

Sprint’s late LTE rollout will ensure that it continues to languish in third place, far behind its competition.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Verizon (NYSE: VZ) arguably had the number one brand in wireless service in the U.S. AT&T (NYSE: T) had nearly destroyed its because of trouble with its 3G network that was allegedly caused by data overloads from Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPhone subscribers. Sprint-Nextel (NYSE: S) never had a particularly good reputation for service, and it suffers from its position as the third horse in a three-horse race.

Verizon had two choices, and it probably made the wrong one. It wanted to launch its 4G LTE network ahead of AT&T’s. Verizon also believed that it could flank the less-popular WiMax 4G technology that Sprint-Nextel deployed. WiMax is not compatible with the more widely adopted LTE standard. This likely made it less attractive to many customers.

Verizon’s 4G network has been down three times in the past month. Many customers will not forgive this. Many of those subscribers who can afford to break two-year contracts will do so. Others will wait until their contracts run out. If Verizon still has the problem as millions of 4G subscription deals reach the renewal stage, a migration to AT&T, Sprint or T-Mobile could become a flood of defections.

Verizon, early to market with 4G, may have undermined its chance to be a leader in the industry over the longer term.

Douglas A. McIntyre

NTT DoCoMo’s announcement of a basic agreement to establish a joint venture will cover development of low-power chipsets that are both small in size and feature-rich and will come with modem functionality. The chipsets are said to target the LTE and LTE-Advanced mobile communication standards and are expected to launch by the end of March 2012.

Nikkei in Japan had reported this as a rumor back in September, and this appears to be the confirmation. NTT DoCoMo will establish Communication Platform Planning Co. as a subsidiary, and the Wall Street Journal noted that this will cut the reliance on U.S. chipmaker Qualcomm, with its near-80% market share.

Before assuming that this is the beginning of the end, keep in mind that the investment initially is tiny. DoCoMo is investing a sum of about $5.8 million to create the subsidiary in preparation for the start of the partnership.

The news comes with Qualcomm shares down less than 10% from a year high. Shares closed Friday at $54.63 and the 52-week trading range is $45.98 to $59.84. Qualcomm also carries a market capitalization rate of $91.8 billion.

If NTT DoCoMo was truly going to pose a serious threat, that initial investment would have been in the billions of dollars. The market likely will react negatively and new competition may arise, but the reality is that competing against a company like Qualcomm takes extremely deep pockets.

JON C. OGG

Now AT&T has come out and increased its dividend.  We expected an increase as the telecom giant has maintained a history for over two-decades of dividend hikes.  Still, there were some questions over whether or not AT&T was at a 100% chance of a dividend hike again.

The 2.3% increase is another incremental hike as the payout is moving to $0.44 from $0.43 per share per quarter.  This is effectively an increase from $1.72 to $1.76 a share on an annualized basis, and the $28.73 share price right now generates a dividend yield of 6.12%.  That is almost a full percentage point higher than Verizon’s dividend yield of about 5.2%.  AT&T is now down 10% from its 52-week high versus only about 1% for Verizon.

All those fears that AT&T was going to lose all of its iPhone subscribers to Verizon and now to Sprint Nextel Corporation (NYSE: S) have just not come about.  Sprint also does not even pay a dividend because it is losing so much money. AT&T is by far the highest yield of all 30 DJIA components.

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JON C. OGG

As far as the last quarter, RIM earned $1.27 EPS and sales were $5.2 billion.  Thomson Reuters had a consensus estimate of $1.19 EPS and $5.27 billion.  Net income was actually $0.51 EPS after items.

For the coming quarter, RIM gave guidance of $0.80 to $0.95 EPS on sales of $4.6 to $4.9 billion and the consensus estimate for the coming quarter is $1.18 EPS on $5.12 billion in sales.  Really, can anyone be surprised?  As far as shipments  RIM is targeting 11 million to 12 million shipments as well and gross margin percentage for the fourth quarter is expected to be about 38%.

We noted in our full preview that the next quarter estimates just seemed too high.  It seems that too many Wall Street analysts are stuck still using corporate Blackberry phones rather than iPhones or Android phones and are mistaken that they cannot get out of using them any longer.  We also noted that if those estimates were right that RIM would be trading at less than 4-times earnings.  Usually when you see that it the translation is “value trap rather than a value stock.”

RIM claimed, despite its challenges, that its total BlackBerry subscriber base grew to almost 75 million customers around the world.  That would be “75 million suckers” if you look at the market share trends each month regarding smartphones.

As far as any changes at the top, it doesn’t look like it.  If RIM continues to fall, perhaps the next shareholder class action suit will be a grudge cage match between the co-CEOs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis where the loser goes.

RIM hit a new 52-week low of $14.80 today and closed up 0.3% at $15.13 on the day.  The after-hours has yet a new low of $14.20 after a 6% drop. 

JON C. OGG

Thomson Reuters has a listed consensus estimate of $1.19 EPS and $5.27 billion, and the consensus estimate for the coming (or current) quarter are $1.18 EPS on $5.12 billion in sales.

It seems that the bar is still too high for the coming quarter.  If not, well then R-I-M is trading at less than 4-times expected fiscal February 2012 earnings expectations.  We are also not relying upon the Thomson Reuters consensus price target of $22.16 either.

What is interesting is that the December calls and puts options expire in just over 24 hours and there have so far been more than 50,000 Calls versus about 33,000 Puts.

No reason at all to bother with a chart analysis… We also would not bother looking at any cause and effect on R-I-M peers.  The real question: WILL R-I-M FINALLY FIRE ITS TOP BRASS?

JON C. OGG

The National Transportation Safety Board, usually referred to as the NTSB in public, is announcing a major safety recommendation related to “driver distractions caused by driver use of personal electronic devices.”   The NTSB Fact Sheet notes, “The NTSB has called on the 50 states and the District of Columbia to ban the nonemergency use of PEDs (other than those designed to support the driving task) for all drivers.”

Frankly, the new recommended ban has little chance of success in the current form, even if parts of this should proceed.  A call to ban all electronic devices in vehicles regardless of how they are used (except in cases of emergencies or integrated into the transportation needs) will not garner much public support as it is somewhat like stretching the limits of drunk driving blood levels all the way out to a new attempt of prohibition.

Still, this NTSB recommendation may be the start of a larger move to keep cellphones from being abused by drivers in many locations where no regulations exist.  Drivers who text often cross 50 feet to 50 yards of pavement in a shorter period of time than it takes to type in “lol” or even “driving.”  By the way, calling your friends to gossip about things or to see what is up for the night or weekend are not exactly ‘emergencies’ under this plan.

There could also be rules for teenagers that are different from adults.  Many cities already have curfews for minors and technically minors are not allowed the same liberties and rights as adults who have a bit more life experience under their belts.

You can expect an outright assault from the phone makers and headset makers, the wireless carriers, the tower operators, and even the communication infrastructure equipment to fight this recommendation if it were to gather any momentum. Also, keep in mind that the NTSB has zero power to enforce or even to propose any such bill to move into law.  All it can do is to make recommendations for safety regarding transportation activities.

Logitech International SA (NASDAQ: LOGI) is one headset maker that would severely if there was a nationwide ban on holding your cellphone but still allowed drivers to use cellphones if they have wireless or wired headsets for their mobile phones.  Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ), AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T), and Sprint Nextel Corporation (NYSE: S) would all fight a total ban on cellphone use under any circumstances other than emergency use.

American Tower Corporation (NYSE: AMT) and Crown Castle International Corporation (NYSE: CCI) have spent billions of dollars putting in cellphone towers around the nation, including the highways, to make it so that drivers can stay connected on their cellphones whether those drivers need to or not.

The market does not consider this “recommendation” a serious threat. Not yet.  Frankly, for someone who does support a ban of texting and in-hand use of cellphones while driving, today’s recommendation by the NTSB is a disappointment.  The proposal is too broad and sweeping for the public to support it. If this seemed to be a true threat then these stocks would have traded lower by a significant amount.  Just do not be surprised when some legislator in Washington D.C. decides to take this cause up next year.

The NTSB pre-conference fact sheet is here.

JON C. OGG

The pact is over the next four years for WiMAX services, and includes possible pre-payments for LTE services and potential equity investments.  Sprint has committed to providing additional equity funding to Clearwire in the event of an equity offering. If Clearwire raises new equity between $400 and $700 million, the Sprint “will participate in the offering on a pro rata basis up to $347 million, consistent with Sprint’s current voting interest of 49.6 percent on the same terms and conditions as other participating companies.”

Under the terms of the agreements, Sprint will pay Clearwire a total of $926 million.  The companies noted that about two-thirds of the payments will come in 2012 for unlimited 4G WiMAX retail services during 2012 and 2013.  Clearwire has simultaneously announced that it made interest payments of $237 million on its first-priority, second-priority and exchangeable notes which were due Dec. 1, 2011.  That should alleviate any of the bankruptcy fears, at least for the time being, as Sprint had previously communicated that it had considered not making a coming interest payment.

The move is aimed to further align Clearwire’s LTE network build as a complement to Sprint’s Network Vision strategy.  Sprint is claiming that it gets improved pricing while still allows it to continue providing WiMAX 4G services to customers.  Clearwire calls this an important step in funding its business.

The other note about the terms is that this establishes long-term usage-based pricing for WiMAX services in 2014 and beyond, giving Sprint access to Clearwire’s WiMAX network through at least 2015. Sprint plans to continue selling WiMAX devices with two-year contracts through at least 2012 and support those devices through the life of the contract.

Clearwire is halted and briefly traded up at $1.85 after closing at $1.78 and its 52-week range is $1.24 to $6.80.  Sprint Nextel is down 5% at $2.57 on the news and the 52-week trading range is $2.10 to $6.45.  No good deed goes unpunished.

JON C. OGG