Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : WDC/Sandisk Corporation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Steve Lee who wrote (13982)	8/16/2000 8:49:20 PM
From: puborectalis	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 60323

SanDisk: MP3 Music Maker By Roben Farzad THE MP3 CONTROVERSY is just so spectator-scrumptious that you'd think it was an outtake from a botched episode of "Judge Judy." In one corner is the free-music crusade, composed of tech-heads and MTV communalists like Prince, the Offspring and Chuck D. Warming up across the ring are the likes of Lars Ulrich from Metallica, Dr. Dre and a tribunal of audaciously pony-tailed record-industry execs cracking their jeweled knuckles in anticipation of their next courtroom brawl with those pesky Napster punks. While the tension is soap-opera thick, we doubt that this motley crew of personalities would be inclined to duke it out much longer if presented with a nonconfrontational means of actually making money off the free-for-all over digital-music downloads. Enter SanDisk (SNDK), the world's largest supplier of flash-memory data-storage products. Flash memory allows a chip to retain lots of data regardless of whether the power to a device is off or on. Naturally, there are many applications for the booming technology, from calculators to cell phones. What makes SanDisk unique, however, is its focus on digital appliances — especially portable music devices like MP3 players. If ever a company was well-positioned to take advantage of the digital-music craze, this is it. Download this: MP3-file sharing is no longer the exclusive fixation of outlaw undergrads. Instead, Napster — which saw its traffic nearly double when a judge temporarily shut it down in late July — has evolved into what techies call a "killer app." It's one of those gotta-have-it applications that, like Netscape's Navigator in its heyday, prompts a whole new round of consumer enthusiasm and hardware upgrades. Regardless of who wins in the courtroom, all agree that digital downloads are here to stay. Indeed, a flood of hand-held MP3 players are hitting the market, each promising an abundance of bells and whistles. From Sony's (SNE) mozzarella stick-inspired VAIO Music Clip to HanGo's Personal Nomad Jukebox, portable digital-audio players are all the rage this year. Their sales are expected to double — if not triple or quadruple — as folks catch on to the Napster miracle. More good news for SanDisk investors: More music requires more memory. A standard 64 megabyte chip, for instance, maxes out at two hours of play time — hardly enough to archive your entire Styx collection. Predicting this flash grab early on, Promethean SanDisk has focused on churning out modular multimedia cards, or MMCs, double-density flash plug-ins that portable MP3 enthusiasts will need once their players run out of song room. In early May, SanDisk struck a $700 million joint venture with Toshiba to produce especially dense flash-memory units. These cards will hold at least four times the capacity of currently available plug-ins and will directly appeal to owners of flash-thirsty PALM units, digital camcorders and MP3 players alike. SanDisk's concentration on MMC has paid off big. The company's most recent MMC revenues were up a dazzling 81% quarter-over-quarter amid a 155% year-over-year surge in overall product revenues. The entire flash-memory market has irrefutably hit the big time. While it grew admirably from $2.5 billion in 1998 to $4.5 billion last year, it's expected to explode to $10 billion in 2000, according to CNET. Salivating at this market opportunity, SanDisk will burn the midnight oil to produce 15 million units this year — three times its 1999 output. That might explain why this relatively unknown company is expected to see its 2000 earnings per share skyrocket 154% to $1.09 from last year's 43 cents. And so far this year earnings haven't been too shabby. On July 19, the company walloped the Street by reporting a second-quarter profit of 33 cents, compared with a consensus estimate of 22 cents. All four analysts who follow SanDisk rate it at least a Buy and say the company simply can't ship out its flash cards fast enough. (For comparison, recall the 8Mb chip stampede that accompanied the release of Windows 95.) According to Mark Edelstone of Morgan Stanley, the flash-card frenzy "won't taper off much at all," especially as we near the holiday shopping season. Edelstone forecasts that the confluence of surging demand and supply constraints will keep flash prices higher for the foreseeable future, a major reason he rates SanDisk an Outperform with a $200 price target. The deal with Toshiba was the first time SanDisk has ventured to produce its own chips. Usually the company hires manufactures like Samsung and Hitachi (HIT) to make and market its chips. That strategy has paid off. In this year's second quarter, SanDisk posted royalty revenue nearly 78% higher than what analysts had expected. What's more, SanDisk recently picked up a major endorsement from Nike (NKE). On Monday, the company was selected to supply flash-memory MultiMediaCards for Nike's new PSA Play 120 portable digital-audio player, which will include a slot for a flash-memory MMC. While this move is unlikely to bring SanDisk the name-brand cache won by the Intel Inside campaign, it will drive home the company's digital-appliance dominance and increase its profile. Still, despite owning such a prime piece of real estate in the white-hot MP3 components market, SanDisk's stock is off 64% from its 52-week high of $169.63. On top of getting its clock cleaned in the April tech famine, SanDisk has also taken its lumps amid Napster's legal entanglements and growing uncertainty over the fate of digital-audio downloads. At $61, its stock trades at an attractive 46 times the First Call/Thomson Financial consensus mean for 2001 — not bad for a cutting-edge market leader growing upwards of 30%. Just think: Had you bought Intel (INTC) just as Windows 95 hit the shelves, you'd be up a dapper 782%. A similar technology product-cycle shift might very well be under way. So what does this all mean for Metallica and its pony-tailed surrogates? Well, it only follows logically that Lars & Co. could cut back on legal fees and plunk a couple of million into SanDisk stock. Call it a hedge on the band's Napster revenue drain. And while this plan might not be immediately worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize, it sure beats trying to convince the likes of Dr. Dre to show up at Camp David.