Raven Industries, Inc. (RAVN) recently entered into an agreement to buy Ranchview, Inc., a privately-held Canadian corporation. The company did not disclose the terms of the deal but said that this acquisition will contribute to next years’ earnings.  Ranchview develops products that use cellular networks instead of the traditional radio systems that are typically used to deliver RTK (Real Time Kinematic) corrections to GPS enabled equipment. RTK corrections improve the accuracy of GPS equipment.  This acquisition is in-line with Raven’s plans of increasing its market share in precision agriculture. The company sees increased acceptance of precision agricultural equipment as an essential tool for maximizing yields. Agricultural market fundamentals remain strong and we believe the Applied Technology division will continue to be a primary growth driver for Raven in the long-term.  Raven is aggressively pursuing opportunities to expand its position in niche markets and take market ...

America Movil (AMX) reported results for third-quarter 2009 with earnings per ADS of 86 cents edging past the Zacks Consensus Estimates of 85 cents while increasing 22.6% from the year-ago earnings per ADS of 70 cents. Net profit surged 50.6% year over year to 18.7 billion pesos (US$1.4 billion) or 0.57 pesos per share. This healthy growth was fuelled by higher revenue and lower financing costs which fell 82.5% year over year due to gains stemming from favorable exchange rate swings.  Revenue & EBITDA Latin America’s largest wireless carrier continues to register a double-digit revenue growth as evident from the 16.9% year over year increase in consolidated revenue in the quarter to 99.8 billion pesos (US$7.5 billion), driven by 19.5% growth in service revenue. Revenue growth was supported by healthy business momentum across 3G wireless and broadband Internet businesses.  Consolidated EBITDA for the quarter was 40.4 ...

After the market close on July 21, 2009, Latin America’s largest wireless carrier America Movil (AMX) reported financial results for the second quarter of 2009. Net profit overflowed both consensus and our expectations surging 27.5% year-over-year to 22.5 billion pesos (US$1.7 billion) or 0.69 pesos (US$1.03) per share. This healthy growth was fuelled by higher revenue, lower subscriber retention costs and foreign exchange gains of 4.8 billion pesos (US$360 million) stemming from the appreciation of Mexican peso against the US dollar.  America Movil continues to register double-digit revenue growth as evident from the 11% year-over-year increase in consolidated revenue in the second quarter to 94 billion pesos (US$7 billion), backed by 15.9% growth in service revenue.  The company’s largest market Mexico posted 2.9% year-over-year growth in revenues to 34.9 billion pesos (US$2.6 billion). Mexican ARPU (average revenue per user) declined from the year-ago quarter while reported ...

The Lebanese Telecom industry is set for a shake up with the expiry of MTC Touch and Alfa's license. Orascom Telecom Holding, France Telecom and Kuwait's Zain have all submitted offers their cellular networks. br /br /Unusually, the Lebanese contracts are for one year and are subject to renewal only once. Lebanon currently has 1.3m mobile subscribers.