Merrill sees strong Q4 for top PC cos, online ads
NEW YORK, Jan 7 (Reuters) - The top-tier personal computer companies enjoyed continued strong growth and Internet search services could produce earnings surprises in the fourth quarter, Merrill Lynch analysts said Wednesday.
Merrill's technology analysts, who spoke in a conference call to discuss the fourth-quarter outlook, also predicted semiconductor equipment companies may not feel the full brunt of Asia's economic problems in the quarter but as a group are more likely to miss estimates than exceed them.
Among the Internet companies, Merrill analyst Bruce Smith mentioned names such as Yahoo Inc (Nasdaq:YHOO - news), Infoseek Corp (Nasdaq:SEEK - news) and Excite (Nasdaq:XCIT - news) as examples of a group ''across the board seeing very, very strong'' quarters.
However, he warned, the companies benefitted from a highly seasonal boost in advertising revenues that would not extend into the first quarter, and managements at the companies would likely offer conservative guidance for the coming period.
On the personal computer group, analyst Lucianne Painter said Compaq Computer Corp (NYSE:CPQ - news), Dell Computer Corp (Nasdaq:DELL - news) and Hewlett-Packard Co (NYSE:HWP - news) likely would remain the primary beneficiaries of a consolidation in market share that has pushed the three farther ahead of rivals. She said it was still too early to gauge overall unit growth.
Of Apple Computer Inc's (Nasdaq:AAPL - news) surprise forecast of a firt-quarter profit, Painter cautioned that the extra income appeared to come from cost-cutting, rather than increased revenue, and that revenue growth ''should be the biggest focus in understanding the viability'' of Apple.
Merrill analyst Steven Milunovich predicted International Business Machines Corp (NYSE:IBM - news) should manage to meet or slightly exceed consensus estimates but that its PC business was likely to suffer somewhat due to its exposure in Japan.
Hewlett-Packard appeared to be off to a ''mixed start'' in the quarter -- its fiscal first -- in part because of only a ''muted'' bounceback in its printer business, he said.
Analyst Rob Stern, commenting on the semiconductor equipment companies, said results at the group, which is highly exposed to Asia, did not appear to deteriorate severely until December, very late in the quarter.
While that may bode relatively well for near-term results, he said, ''We expect the deterioration to continue at least for the next several months.
''I would expect the guidance going forward, to be somewhat negative,'' he said. |
