U.S. Cellular (USM), the wireless subsidiary of Telephone and Data Systems (TDS), reported disappointing third-quarter 2009 results with earnings per share of 41 cents, coming in below the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 57 cents. It also declined significantly from the year-ago EPS of $1.02. Net income plunged 60% year over year to $35.6 million as a result of decreased sales and higher operating costs.

Top-line Hit by Lower Roaming Revenue

The Chicago-based carrier reported operating revenue of $1,058 million, down 3% from $1,092 million a year ago. This decline is attributable to lower service revenue, which decreased 3% year over year to $984.9 million due to a 26% year over year reduction in inbound roaming revenues, primarily resulting from Verizon's (VZ) acquisition of Alltel.

Decline in roaming revenue was offset by healthy data revenue, which grew 34% over the prior-year quarter to $174.3 million, accounting for 18% of service

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Even during the worldwide recession it seems consumers continue to abandon ‘dumb’ phones when, for just a little bit more money, they can get a pocket-sized computer – a smartphone – instead. According to research firm Gartner, overall handset sales are expected to shrink by 4 percent this year compared to last year. Meanwhile, smartphone sales are forecast to grow by more than 20 percent.

Smartphones account for only 14 percent of the mobile phone market today, but this segment has doubled its share of the global mobile phone business over the past three years. More than 500 million smartphones are expected to be sold in 2012 when they are forecasted to make up half the market. Revenues from smartphones are expected to double to half the industry total by 2014.

With the smartphone market being really the only game in town, the intensity of the battle for the smartphone market is

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A drop in the number of newly laid-off workers and upbeat remarks from bellwether Cisco Systems injected confidence about an economic recovery ahead of this morning’s highly expected October jobs report, propelling the Dow average to its first close above 10,000 in two weeks. 

Cisco Systems’ (NASDAQ:CSCO) CEO John Chambers said he now sees a global economic recovery, fueling a rebound in the company’s sales this quarter.  The Dow average jumped 203 points, or 2%, while the tech-heavy NASDAQ, riding high on Cisco’s forecast, bolted up 50 points or about 2.4%. 

All ten S&P 500 industry groups ended in the green, with banking shares advancing 2.6% as analyst Dick Bove of Rochdale Securities noted the group will double by the end of 2010.  Technology shares advanced 2.2%.  Qualcomm Inc. (NASDAQ:QCOM) jumped 5.4% to $43.85 and Microchip Technology Inc. (NASDAQ:MCHP) gained 3.9% to $25.37 after it was raised to “buy"

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“Research In Motion Ltd. (RIMM) will spend up to $1.2 billion to buy back about 21 million of its shares, or 3.6% of its total shares outstanding. The buyback will start Nov. 9 and last for up to one year.”

That was the headline news today on Research in Motion symbol RIMM so I decided to look at the chart to see what was going on in the “real world”. When I got to the chart, one thing immediately jumped out at me and that was the negative action that this market has shown in the past several weeks. Looking at this market a little closer I was able to see that our “Trade Triangle” technology was 100% negative and that our monthly “Trade Triangle” indicator had turned negative on October 28th at $63.38. This is a major negative in my

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Palm Inc.’s (PALM) new smartphone called Pixi, a lighter and cheaper version of the Palm Pre will be available via Sprint Nextel Corp. (S) beginning Nov 15 for just $99.99. The phone will come with a two-year contract after a $50 instant rebate and a $100 mail-in rebate. The phone will also be available through Best Buy (BBY), RadioShack (RSH) and Wal-Mart (WMT) stores.   Palm’s Pixi runs on Palm's WebOS. The phone has many features including 8 gigabytes of built-in memory, an exposed QWERTY keyboard and personalization features. However, it does not support Wi-Fi capabilities.   Alhough Palm has priced the Pixi competitively to attract more customers, we remain unsure about the future of Pixi. Amazon (AMZN) currently sells the Pre with a two-year contract at just $99. Sprint started selling the Pre smart phone in June and currently sells it for ...

The battle for supremacy in the global smart-phone market is getting intense by the day. Now the matter has entered the courtroom. Yesterday, the largest smart-phone maker in the world, Nokia Corp. (NOK) filed a complaint against Apple Inc. (AAPL) with the Federal District Court in Delaware, alleging that Apple's legendary iPhone has violated as many as ten Nokia patents from 2007.   These ten patents related to technologies fundamental to making mobile handsets, which are compatible with one or more of the GSM (2G), UMTS/WCDMA (3G) and wireless LAN ( for Wi-Fi connectivity) standards. Technically these patents cover wireless data, speech coding, security and encryption for smart-phones. Nokia said that the company spent more than $60 billion in the last two decades to develop the wireless industry's strongest and broadest IPR portfolios, consisting of 10,000 patents. So far the company has entered into patent licensing agreements ...

For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – October 21, 2009 – Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: Apple Inc. (AAPL), China Unicom (CHU), Nokia (NOK), Research In Motion (RIMM) and Palm Inc. (PALM).

Get the most recent insight from Zacks Equity Research with the free Profit from the Pros newsletter: http://at.zacks.com/?id=5513

Here are highlights from Tuesday’s AnalystBlog:

Apple: 2nd Highest Growth Ever

Apple Inc. (AAPL) released Snow Leopard, the latest upgrade to the Apple Mac operating system in the quarter. In addition, Apple announced new upgrades to its iTunes and the iPod digital media players at a media event in Sep. The company plans to

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Fourth-Quarter Results Beat Apple Inc. (AAPL) fourth-quarter beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $1.43 in earnings per share and $9.19 billion in revenue. Earnings in the quarter were $1.82 per share, which also surpassed the company’s own guidance. This increased 44% from $1.26 per share reported in the year-ago period. Strong earnings were due to higher sales in the quarter, which increased 25% to $9.87 billion, representing the second highest revenue growth in the company’s history. The tremendous revenue growth was due to higher iPhone sales and increased Mac shipments in the quarter. Apple continues to gain market share in the three major hardware sectors – computers (with very significant gains in portables), music players and smartphones. Apple's revenue increased in every region, including the U.S. and Europe. The company is currently benefiting from a positive mix shift to the higher-margin iPhones/iPod business from its ...

US Cellular (USM), the wireless subsidiary of Telephone and Data Systems (TDS), is poised to market Research In Motion's (RIMM) latest CDMA smartphone BlackBerry Tour 9630. The company has already revealed detailed specification of the device on its product page and has also released the new operating system verision (BlackBerry Tour 9630 OS 4.7.1.57) on its website.  Although an official confirmation is yet to come from US Cellular, a potential launch of BlackBerry Tour will enable it to join the league of Tier-1 US carriers in offering top-notch smartphones. BlackBerry Tour is currently available in the US on Verizon (VZ) and Sprint Nextel’s (S) networks. Leading US carriers are currently selling high-end smartphones through long-term distribution arrangements with manufacturers, which has boosted wireless subscriber growth and revenue per user.  However, smaller regional operators (such as US Cellular) lags behind their superior counterparts ...

For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – October 16, 2009 – Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: Apple Inc. (AAPL), Microsoft (MSFT), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Research In Motion (RIMM) and Palm (PALM).

Get the most recent insight from Zacks Equity Research with the free Profit from the Pros newsletter: http://at.zacks.com/?id=5513

Here are highlights from Thursday’s Analyst Blog:

Raising Price Target on Apple

Apple Inc. (AAPL) sold 5.2 million iPhones in the June quarter, representing a 626.0% unit growth over the year-ago quarter. In the current quarter the company released Snow Leopard, the latest upgrade to Apple's OS X operating system. In addition, Apple announced new upgrades

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