Technology

Despite Slowing Apple Growth, These 4 Chip Stocks Will Be Fine

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Wow, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) is the only company in the world that could report huge numbers and still get hammered to the tune of over 5%. While the mega-growth story that the stock has been for almost 10 years may be drawing to a close, it still remains a huge player in the tech world. Many are concerned for how the “somewhat” slower growth will affect vendors to the company.

A new RBC research report acknowledges that on some very important metrics Apple did miss its numbers on Tuesday, but the earnings report and guidance are an overall modest positive for the Apple supply chain, as it should indicate that demand at the company is better than feared. Apple came in just under 75 million iPhone units for the fourth quarter, and RBC estimates 48 million for the March quarter and 45 million for the June quarter, still very solid.

The top chip companies that do business with Apple should be just fine, and here are four investors can consider now.

Analog Devices

This stock has been hit hard and is offering solid entry levels for investors. Analog Devices Inc. (NASDAQ: ADI) is a leader in the design, manufacture and marketing of analog, mixed-signal and digital signal processing integrated circuits for use in industrial, automotive, consumer and communication markets worldwide. It offers signal processing products that convert, condition and process real-world phenomena, such as temperature, pressure, sound, light, speed and motion, into electrical signals.

The company was awarded a nice a product slot in the iPhone as it supplies the processors that enable 3D Touch in Apple products. Analog Devices reportedly will be the sole supplier for the 3D touch processor to Apple, and RBC thinks it did 13% of its fiscal 2015 business with Apple, based on the company comments.

Analog Devices investors receive a 2.6% dividend. The Thomson/First Call consensus price target is $57.94. The stock closed Wednesday at $51.28.


Avago

This company recently made big headlines with a blockbuster buyout of chip giant Broadcom. Avago Technologies Ltd. (NASDAQ: AVGO) was originally a part of Hewlett-Packard and gets a huge chunk of its business from Apple and Samsung.

Avago is a big provider in the cloud/hyperscale data center and networking segment. In fact, the company recently announced it will demonstrate its latest optical transceiver technologies for next generation data center and enterprise storage applications. As data center networks transition to 100G speeds to support higher bandwidth demands, technical challenges emerge across various levels of the network from storage endpoints to servers to top-of-rack (ToR) and core switches.

The company produces radio frequency or RF front-end for LTE enable Apple products. RBC estimates that the company does as much as 20% of its total business with Apple. The analyst noted Avago plans to increase capacity by 50% next year, which should enable it to better service Tier 1 customer demand from Samsung and Apple. as well as begin to layer on additional Chinese customers.

The consensus price objective is $171.68. Shares closed on Wednesday at $122.35 apiece.
Intel

This top chip company has traded sideways this past year, and the recent very positive earnings report certainly has helped to lift the investors pall hanging over the company. Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC) is one of the companies regarded as having among the highest shareholders cash returns at approximately 8%, but it has lagged high-growth specialty chip stocks. It does provide processors for all Apple desktop and notebooks.

Intel purchased chip rival Altera for a massive $16.8 billion. Some on Wall Street view the deal pessimistically, citing its high cost, aggressive growth assumptions on the part of Intel and the increase in debt. Others feel the addition will help Intel start to move away from the personal computer (PC) dependence. This acquisition puts Intel into the traditional fabless market of programmable logic devices. Ultimately, by 2020 50% of Altera’s product line could be manufactured at Intel facilities.

Intel’s NAND flash memory business has a strong focus on enterprise opportunities. Many on Wall Street think that the company’s new chip, which is a collaboration with Micron Technology called the 3D XPoint, could be primarily In-Memory compute in servers, and its launch should coincide with Intel’s Purley platform server launch in 2016.

Intel investors receive a solid 3.21% dividend. The consensus price target is $36.46. Shares closed Wednesday at $29.81.

NVIDIA

This is another top tech stock, and many analysts have hopped on the company bandwagon. NVIDIA Corp. (NASDAQ: NVDA) is one of the leaders when it comes to supplying graphics processing technology for the 3D graphics market, including desktop graphics processors and gaming consoles. It provides the chip used in the 15-inch Macbook pro and recently announced the Quadro K5000 for the Mac.

NVIDIA also is moving into visual computing chips for cars, mobile devices and supercomputers. It has a technology partnership with electric car maker Tesla. The company has been able to use its ability to leverage past investments, with a more controlled spending structure ahead on unified, which enables strong cash flow that is allowing a focus on capital return, which is currently estimated to be $1 billion next year.

The company recently posted earnings that were way ahead of estimates, and the first quarter outlook implies earnings per share 26% ahead of current consensus. With gaming revenues up 44% year over year, the analysts believe there remains high overall Wall Street skepticism around the company, as most are unaware of the positive dynamics in the PC Gaming and eSports markets.

Some Wall Street analysts feel that virtual reality could see 10 million in annual shipments in three to five years, and NVIDIA will be a huge player. In fact, it’s possible that those shipments could represent as much as $750 million per year for the company and competitor AMD. The large Technology Assessment Management Systems in gaming, autos and cloud enabled by the company’s graphics leadership are a huge positive.

Shareholders are paid a 1.62% dividend. The consensus target is at $31.65. The stock closed Wednesday at $28.36.


Despite the turbulence at Apple, these companies will continue to do fine. The Apple nation will start to really pay attention in the second half of 2016 when the iPhone 7 should be revealed.

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