Media Sector: Viacom, NYT

Time to take a look at the Media sector, and how things are going there.

Viacom (VIA) has made some smart moves in the past that are now enabling the company to perform better than media industry peers. In its recently announced results, Viacom reported flat Q4 revenues of $4.24 billion. For the year, revenue grew 9% to $14.63 billion. >>>

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HP Succumbs, But Likely to Acquire

Hewlett Packard Co (NYSE:HPQ), the leader in the PC market with annual revenue of $118.4 billion, had been reporting strong quarters till now and had seemed to be recession-proof. Not any more. Yesterday, the company reported a mixed first quarter, missing revenue estimates but meeting earnings estimates. It experienced growth only in the Services segment, which was helped by the EDS acquisition. Its outlook was also disappointing. >>>

Semi Infrastructure: KLA, Novellus, Amkor

Let’s do a quick roundup of the semiconductor infrastructure sector.

KLA-Tencor, (NASDAQ: KLAC) the world leader in yield management and process control solutions for semiconductor manufacturing and related industries, announced Q2 results on January 29. Though they managed to exceed the Street’s expectations on revenue, they fell short in their EPS figures. >>>

Struggles at Seagate, SanDisk

Seagate and SanDisk, both storage solutions companies, are having a hard time in this economic environment. Both are leaders in their markets, but need massive restructurings to stay afloat.

On January 21, Seagate Technology (NASDAQ: STX), the leader in hard disk drives and storage solutions with annual revenue of $12.7 billion, reported dismal results for the second quarter that missed analyst earnings estimates by huge margins. >>>

ADP Reports Layoff Details

On February 4, Automatic Data Processing, Inc. (NASDAQ: ADP) reported in its latest ADP employment report a loss of 522,000 jobs in the private sector. Later, on February 6, the US Labor Department reported that nonfarm payrolls plunged 598,000 in January, the largest drop in 34 years. About 3.6 million US jobs have been lost since the recession began in December 2007, with the last three months showing the greatest declines: payroll losses were 577,000 in December and 597,000 in November. The unemployment rate has reached 7.6%, the highest since September 1992. Despite the worsening economy, ADP did reasonably well in its second quarter. Let’s take a closer look. >>>

Good News From Netflix

Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) does not seem to be affected by the recession, at least going by its Q4 results announced on January 26. The company’s stock rose 16% to $34.82 after the results announcement. It had crashed to a record low of $17.90 in October. >>>

Amazon’s Impressive Trajectory

In a season where so many companies are reporting disappointing results, Amazon managed to surpass the Street’s expectations in their recently announced Q4 results. And this week, it has launched the new Kindle, part of an effort to scale the long-stalling e-Books reader market, after kicking it open during the holiday season in November 2007. I really enjoy the way Jeff Bezos does things! >>>

NVIDIA Struggles Without Losing Focus on Innovation

Yesterday, NVIDIA, the leading graphics chip maker, reported its results for the fourth quarter 2009 and fiscal year 2009. As we saw with Intel and AMD last month, demand has been weak in the chip sector, and NVIDIA has been hit hard by it, with a wider-than-expected loss and a 60% slump in sales. >>>

More SaaS: SuccessFactors Steady, Concur Cautious

Yesterday we saw how the SaaS sector is doing well, with RightNow achieving profitability and Omniture going strong. Today, we’ll analyze the results of SuccessFactors and Concur. >>>

SaaS: Omniture Grows, RightNow Profits

Despite the worsening recession, the SaaS sector is doing pretty well. Omniture reported growth of more than 100%, and RightNow achieved profitability. Let’s take a closer look at their results as well as those of Citrix, not a pureplay SaaS company, which explains its more shaky results. SaaS business models have immense predictability buried in them, so mostly, if they miss forecasts, it isn’t by that much. >>>