13 Technology Stocks To Outperform Apple (AAPL, AKAM, BIDU, BMC, CLS, GLW, EMC, JNPR, MRVL, MU, NTAP, STX, VRSN, WDC)

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) has been the king of tech stocks. While Apple’s results still showed rapid earnings and revenue growth, the report disappointed and results were below Wall Street’s expectations. And without Steve Jobs many investors are wondering whether Apple can continue to “wow” investors as it has over the last decade. Most analysts are tying Apple’s first earnings miss in years to customer delays of iPhone purchases as they waited for the new model introduced last week. Still, the media, and a few analysts, have brought up the question of whether this could be the end of an era. 24/7 Wall St. has identified 13 technology stocks that are expected to outperform Apple in the year ahead, especially now that Apple’s earnings have stumbled.

Apple hit an all-time high this week at $426.70. The stock closed at $422.20 on Tuesday just ahead of earnings. After the announcement, shares fell to about $400, which is where they are likely to open today. Analysts have a consensus price target of roughly $499.00 on the stock, which implies an upside of about 18% from Tuesday’s close, and an upside of 24.5% from $400. 24/7 Wall St. looked at these analyst numbers and found more than ten technology stocks with more implied upside.

In our screen, we only included companies with a market cap of $1 billion and higher. We also restricted the list to companies that are expected to post positive earnings this year and next and to those with long-term operating histories. We used consensus data on earnings and consensus analyst price targets from Thomson Reuters. We did additional analysis of our own on each company. Oddly enough, several of these companies are even tied to Apple’s businesses.

We include the most recent closing share prices, a 52-week range for comparison, and the Thomson Reuters consensus price target for the next twelve months. We have identified what the implied upside is to that price target, shown a year-to-date change from Finviz.com, and given a forward P/E ratio based on next year (2012 in most cases) earnings estimates.

Akamai Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM) $23.83
52-Week Range: $18.25 to $54.65
Price Target: $30.06
Implied upside: 26%
YTD Change: -49%
P/E Ratio: 14.7

Akamai is a company that may look like it is in trouble but the reality is that its growth rates are just slower than before. Akamai lost Netflix as a customer to a rival. The content delivery acceleration firm has a market value of $4.4 billion and customers include Apple, Amazon, NBC, ESPN, and other tech and media giants. Shares have stabilized since August after a long slide, and now the company is routinely mentioned (and then refuted) as a possible takeover candidate.

Baidu, Inc. (NASDAQ: BIDU) $132.37
52-Week Range: $94.33 to $165.96
Price Target: $188.61
Implied upside: 42%
YTD Change: 37%
P/E Ratio: 30

The “Google of China” has seen shares grow. That growth slowed in July of this year. Baidu has a market cap of about $46 billion. Now that Google has lost some of its business in mainland China, Baidu is the king of search in the People’s Republic. Valuations have always been high for Baildu, and the stock has always traded at a premium over peers. China’s ‘soft-landing’ economy is still set to foster massive growth for Baidu of close to 50% in sales and earnings in 2012.

BMC Software Inc. (NASDAQ: BMC) $38.64
52-Week Range: $35.57 to $56.55
Price Target: $50.00
Implied upside: 29%
YTD Change: -18%
P/E Ratio: 10.8

BMC Software is the Houston-based software and enterprise systems management company worth $6.8 billion in market cap. The firm, a cloud computing player, is not well known to most investors. The stock was hit hard from the July sell-off. Shares appear to have stabilized, and BMC has been considered a takeover target by many Wall Street technology observers. Earnings growth is roughly 10% on expected single-digit sales gains.

Celestica Inc. (NYSE: CLS) $8.33
52-Week Range: $6.79 to $12.48
Price Target: $10.95
Implied upside: 31%
YTD Change: -14%
P/E Ratio: 7.5

Celestica is in the often-overlooked field of outsourced manufacturing services.  It is considered one of the technology outsource destinations by many leading tech companies. While international technology manufacturers like Celestica  have fixed overhead, they always have reasonable revenue streams. They also have highly flexible facilities and workforces that can be cut or added to depending on the overall demand from major technology customer.  The industry in which Celestica operates is considered a slower growth sector of technology. Based on its financials, the company is a deep value play for many investors.

Corning Inc. (NYSE: GLW) $13.60
52-Week Range: $11.51 to $23.43
Price Target: $19.63
Implied upside: 44%
YTD Change: -29%
P/E Ratio: 6.9

Corning is the world’s leader in glass for smartphones, flat panel TVs, and PC Monitors, as well as other hi-tech glass operations. The company is worth more than $21 billion. Most important to shareholders is that it is aggressively buying back stock to retire shares and has recently increased its dividend. Unfortunately, it is facing weak TV and monitor demand for the rest of the year. If there is a true value stock in technology, Corning may be the best of among its rivals with a solid balance sheet. This is true even if its growth is currently slowing.

EMC Corporation (NYSE: EMC) $23.99
52-Week Range: $19.84 to $28.73
Price Target: $30.27
Implied upside: 26%
YTD Change: 4.76%
P/E Ratio: 14

EMC is the global leader of enterprise storage. The company recently said, as it announced earnings, that its government spending business was not really slowing, as some analysts had feared. Its market cap is nearly $50 billion. The storage leader is expected to grow sales and earnings by double digits in 2011 and in 2012. EMC also has a stake of about 85% or so in virtualization leader VMware Inc. (NYSE: VMW). It is worth noting that the stock has not actually hit its price target in the last five years. However,  it has massive cash balances and no real long-term debt to speak of.

Juniper Networks, Inc. (NYSE: JNPR) $21.41
52-Week Range: $16.67 to $45.01
Price Target: $26.90
Implied upside: 26%
YTD Change: -42%
P/E Ratio: 14

Juniper is often called “the baby Cisco but better” when it comes to networking and routing equipment for communications. Its market cap is about $11.4 billion. Juniper didn’t have the same diversification problems as Cisco, yet shares have been brutalized as Cisco’s have sold off. Earnings and revenues are expected to grow by double digits from this year to next after an earnings hiccup in 2011. If Juniper recovers as much as Cisco did from its lows, it will still not even be close to challenging its 52-week highs.

Marvell Technology Group Ltd.(NASDAQ: MRVL) $14.56
52-Week Range: $11.23 to $22.01
Price Target: $18.42
Implied upside: 26.5%
YTD Change: -21%
P/E Ratio: 9.5

Marvell is a communications chip and circuits design outfit that competes in the crowded space for microprocessors.  Its market cap is about $8.8 billion.  While off of recent highs, Marvell has bounced back considerably from the August lows.  Many investors have considered its patents and its customer base worth at least some takeover speculation.  The company has maintained a go-it-alone stance so far.  Unfortunately sales growth has stalled and is only expected to move up by high single-digits in 2012.

Micron Technology Inc. (NASDAQ: MU) $5.77
52-Week Range: $3.97 to $11.95
Price Target: $9.01
Implied upside: 56%
YTD Change: -28%
P/E Ratio: 9.6

Micron is not just in DRAM any longer as it is in flash memory as well.  It is effectively the last of the big chip outfits that is U.S. based.  Its market cap is about $5.7 billion.  It also has the Crucial.com site for consumers to buy extra DRAM online for just about any PC that can be upgraded in memory.  Its latest earnings picture was far from robust and it is in a highly cyclical business.  Expected earnings growth from the August 2011 year-end is tiny and that low forward P/E is actually based upon the expected growth from the August fiscal year 2012 to 2013.

NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ: NTAP) $39.45
52-Week Range: $33.00 to $61.02
Price Target: $50.19
Implied upside: 27%
YTD Change: -28%
P/E Ratio: 14

NetApp has finally seen a slowdown of what had been major growth in the networked storage solutions sector.  Sales growth this year is expected to be more than 20%.  NetApp’s market cap here is about $14.5 billion.  Wall St. hoped that NetApp would be a takeover candidate in the past. But, the valuations were always considered too high for a reasonable buyout offer.  That could change, but NetApp has shown it prefers to remain independent.

Seagate Technology PLC (NASDAQ: STX) $12.10
52-Week Range: $9.05 to $18.35
Price Target: $18.33
Implied upside: 51%
YTD Change: -17%
P/E Ratio: 5.7

Being in the world of disk-drives and external drives has been challenging because no one wants to trust the long-term earnings estimates.  Still, these companies are going to be competing in the flash storage world in the years ahead. Their valuations are generally so low that patient investors can wait for a likely improvement.   Seagate Technology’s market cap here is just over $5 billion.  The biggest challenge the company has is that external storage is such that a Terabyte can be bought for under $100.  It looks as though Seagate’s purchase of the Samsung storage unit will now be allowed, so it will be down to Seagate and Western Digital dominating the field.

VeriSign Inc. (NASDAQ: VRSN) $30.43
52-Week Range: $27.00 to $37.73
Price Target: $39.73
Implied upside: 31%
YTD Change: 1%
P/E Ratio: 16.7

VeriSign is the leader of internet domain industry, It has recently focused on SSL Certificates and other online trust and verification services as well as cloud-based services.  It has also faced management departures which have squashed recent takeover rumors.  VeriSign’s market cap is just over $5 billion, earnings growth is robust right now, and sales are expected to grow in the low double-digits in 2011 and 2012.

Western Digital Corp. (NYSE: WDC) $26.94
52-Week Range: $24.00 to $41.87
Price Target: $43.67
Implied upside: 62%
YTD Change: -20%
P/E Ratio: 6.1

Western Digital is the rival of Seagate and the company has many of the same problems. It is a larger Apple Store feature than its rival for external storage products that Apple’s customers may need.  The company is also in a pending merger for Hitachi’s drive unit and its shares have recently been hit due to Thailand factory delays due to floods.  This is another value stock and its market cap is about $6.3 billion.  Sales growth is expected to average 5% this year and next. Western Digital  is still expected to have double-digit earnings growth.

JON C. OGG