Apple iPOD Camera Phone coming out and a Cell Phone
Apple is set to unleash the biggest GADGET ever made and ever announced……….a cell phone video camera mp3………..will it be an OmniVision (OVTI) camera using Wave Front coding for a clear picture????
Just for tommie to help in his BUY Decision:::::::
OmniVision underrated?
Our first disappointment this week is OmniVision Technologies (Nasdaq: OVTI), a maker of digital camera sensor chips. The company reported quarterly sales of $137 million and pro forma earnings of $0.39 per diluted share — lagging estimates on both counts. The analyst community had hoped for $152 million in gross revenues and earnings at $0.44 per share. That’s 42.7% sales growth year-over-year, but only 10.4% growth on the bottom line.
OmniVision is a heavily shorted stock, to the tune of more than a quarter of all shares outstanding. It doesn’t look like an overvaluation situation, since the P/E ratio of just 9.6 is well below the industry average among camera chip makers, which stands at roughly 27 times trailing earnings. One might be tempted to think of this one as a bargain.
As for business opportunities, OmniVision mostly caters to cameraphones and consumer-level digital cameras, and I don’t see those markets cooling down anytime soon. It’s true that OmniVision is competing in a crowded market, with rivals ranging from tiny Pixelplus to giants like Samsung and Matsushita (NYSE: MC). However, a promising new product scheduled for debut this month could make a real difference in this highly commoditized industry.
Dubbed OmniFocus, the chip results from a $30 million acquisition finalized in the spring of 2005. It promises to replace the mechanical autofocus functions of today’s cameras with digital image processing techniques performed by the sensor chipset. Fewer moving parts should lead to cost savings and more reliable end products, and the technology is unique to this company. If OmniVision does indeed deliver on its promises, it should end up with all the customers it can handle.
OmniVision isn’t even on the list of tech companies under investigation for stock option problems. I have to say that I’m mystified by the low valuation here. It might be fair to drop the price a bit with a missed earnings target, but not when the shares were so inexpensive to begin with. OmniVision goes on my watch list for further investigation.