People familiar with the matter who work for AMD said the company’s latest microprocessors are expected to be included in 109 mainstream laptop models in the coming months, the company’s best showing during the crucial back-to-school sales season. Last year, AMD’s chips were available in 40 laptop models.

“This is the first time we’ve seen this much attention to our notebooks,” the source said, referencing the company’s laptop chips.

And while shifts in market share are yet to be seen, “typically more design wins dictates more sales,” the source said, adding the company’s offerings are growing steadily across the major PC manufacturers.

The perennial second-fiddle to market giant Intel Corp has struggled to gain market share within laptop PCs, which have outpaced the growth of desktop PCs in recent years.

AMD’s stock has underperformed Intel since the beginning of the year, losing 14.57 percent of its value, where Intel has gained 5.44 percent.

However, AMD’s stock more than doubled off its 52-week low of $3.22 to close Thursday’s session at $8.27 on the New York Stock Exchange.

GROWTH AND RECOGNITION

Early signs are that the new range of chips to be unveiled next week are getting positive responses from top PC makers due to AMD’s attempts to simplify its numerous offerings under its new “Vision” brand, as well as improved battery life and performance across the line, according to one of the sources.

In the first quarter of 2010, AMD represented 12.1 percent of worldwide mobile chip sales, according to IDC. Intel’s market share was 87.8 percent.

While AMD has been slowly gaining market share over the past year for both desktops and notebooks, its strength slipped in the lucrative server market, ending 2009 with 10.1 percent share compared to 13.4 percent in 2008.

Now, AMD says it’s focusing on the consumer segment, which is expected to fuel PC growth.

Latest figures from industry watcher iSuppli peg notebook PC shipments growing 25.5 percent in 2010, to 209.5 million units from last year’s 166.9 million.

The sources also told Reuters that all of the microprocessors in the forthcoming laptops will be matched with AMD’s chipsets — collections of chips that connect the microprocessing brain to other parts of the computer.

That means AMD can collect more revenue for each laptop sold than it can when its microprocessors are paired with chipsets from other companies like Nvidia Corp.

The PC makers expected to feature AMD’s new chips as early as June include Hewlett-Packard Co, Lenovo, Acer Inc, and Dell Inc, the sources said.

(Reporting by Ian Sherr; editing by Carol Bishopric)

Have you ever looked at your hard drive and said “I wish it could do more”?

Seagate thinks it has the answer.

With its new “GoFlex” external hard drives for consumers, Seagate said it is hoping to expand appeal by simplifying how their products connnect to computers.

Housed externally, rather than inside of a laptop computer, Seagate said the new drives will feature attachments to connect to the internet and a television.

Each attachment will be sold separately, but the idea is not unlike the strategy offered by Apple for iPhones, iPads and iPods that connect to various different docks to connect to stereo systems, GPS devices and car stereos.

Seagate said it hopes the GoFlex connectors will catch on enough that other companies will want to design their own types of attachments for various uses, such as connecting directly into a computer instead of through a cord.

One area the company thinks it can succeed is backup. Currently, consumers use CDs and thumb flash drives to back up documents and photos. Now, Seagate says, it hopes the draw of a new attachment ecosystem will lure customers to use their products.

There have been attempts by other companies to expand the appeal of storage drives. One notable example was Iomega’s Zip Drives which, at the time, could hold many more documents and photos than the competing floppy disks of the time. But thumb flash drives and CD’s became much more popular, and by the turn of the millennium, Zip was zapped.

Whether Seagate’s approach will catch on or whether it will be viewed as a mere gimmick is yet to be seen, but the company says it’s been working on the product for the past year and hopes it will find mass appeal.

(Images courtesy of Seagate)

The world’s largest maker of memory chips and flatscreen
TVs also warned that the low-end DRAM memory chip market may go
into oversupply by the year’s end. Local newspaper Korea
Economic Daily cited chip gear suppliers as saying Samsung was
preparing to invest as much as $17.3 billion to increase
semiconductor capacity in the period leading up to 2011.

Samsung said in a statement it had not reached a decision
on that, and would not disclose further information for another
six months. [ID:nLDE63T01G]

Analysts say investors cashed out on Friday of shares such
as Intel Corp <INTC.O> and memory chip maker Micron Technology
Inc <MU.O> after the South Korea’s Samsung said that inventory
could grow in the second half of the year. [ID:nTOE63S005]

“Samsung said they are pushing up capital spending and
could see oversupply by the back half of the year,” said
Broadpoint Amtech analyst Doug Freedman.

“Some of the inventory data coming out of some of the
semiconductor supply chain companies is concerning people,” he
added. Investors were “taking profits.”

Analysts have quizzed every major chip manufacturer during
the quarterly earnings season about the possibility that
companies will over-build, swelling inventories again.

“The evidence is piling up,” said Auriga analyst Daniel
Berenbaum. “Over the course of this earnings season, you see
large OEMs, end manufacturers, contract manufacturers and
distributors building inventory.”

WHITHER STOCKS?

Freedman pointed to WPG Holdings <3702.TW>, a chip and
electronics distributor based in Asia, as the latest signal
that inventories may be building up rapidly in the supply
chain. In its earnings release, WPG said inventory for its
first quarter had grown 31 percent from the previous quarter.

“It’s all the signs that the cycle is weakening,” said
Wedbush Morgan analyst Patrick Wang.

Stock in graphics chip maker Nvidia Corp <NVDA.O> was also
hit by inventory concerns, which Raymond James analyst Hans
Mosesmann said were unfounded.

“Today it is unlikely that there is a glut of notebook
discrete GPUs,” he said in a note to investors, referring to
Nvidia’s graphics chips for desktop and notebook computers.

The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index <.SOXX> closed down
4.5 percent. Shares of Micron fell 8.4 percent to $9.35, while
shares of Intel fell 2.8 percent to $22.84. Advanced Micro
Devices Inc <AMD.N> shares fell 6.8 percent to $9.06. Nvidia
ended down 5.7 percent at $15.71.

The Semiconductor Index has gained 3.3 percent since Intel
unveiled stellar quarterly results on April 13, outpacing the
Nasdaq’s 1.9 percent climb over the same period.
(Editing by Edwin Chan, Bernard Orr)

Along with Varian Semiconductor [ID:nSGE63S0NJ], which saw
its revenue triple, the results show the industry’s willingness
to increase production capacity as demand for computers,
smartphones and storage drives picks up.

KLA-Tencor, which competes with Applied Materials Inc
<AMAT.O> to provide systems that monitor and analyze chip
products, reported net income of $57.02 million, or 33 cents a
share, in its fiscal third quarter ended March 31, compared to
a loss of $82.83 million, or 49 cents a share in the year-ago
period.

The company forecast revenues for the current quarter of
$530 million to $570 million, with earnings of 54 cents to 62
cents, excluding items.

“What we see is that there’s strong demand out there,”
Chief Executive Richard Wallace said in a conference call with
analysts.

Although manufacturing facilities are coming on line, and
the June quarter was looking “very good,” he wasn’t ready to
make predictions about the second half of the year.

“I don’t think it’s as much about seasonality as it is just
increased confidence in our customers that now is the time for
them to invest,” he said.

Excluding items, KLA-Tencor earned 41 cents a share,
beating the average analyst estimate of 35 cents a share,
according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Revenue rose to $478.3 million, slightly higher than the
Wall Street target of $472.36 million.

KLA-Tencor shares closed up 3.24 percent at $34.69 on
Nasdaq and rose to $35.40 in extended trading.
(Reporting by Ian Sherr; Editing by Phil Berlowitz, Leslie
Gevirtz)

The company, whose chips are used in hard drives and
networking hardware, said on Wednesday that it expects roughly
seasonable growth in the second quarter as it works to grow
past pre-recession levels.

“I’ll take normal seasonality any day of the week in this
environment — normal is good,” said Raymond James analyst Hans
Mosesmann.

He added that the first quarter was higher than seasonal,
and any growth off of that will be good.

LSI Chief Executive Abhi Talwalkar told Reuters in an
interview that he is already seeing increased spending on
servers and memory equipment.

“I’m fairly confident we’ll see growth in the second half
because the overall environment continues to be positive,” he
said.

LSI derives roughly 80 percent of its revenue from business
spending.

Talwalkar also said that the company saw 12 percent gains
in operating income performance in what is typically the
company’s weakest quarter.

The company said net income rose to $22.52 million, or 3
cents a share, in its fiscal first quarter, ended April 4.
That compares with a loss of $103.55 million, or 16 cents a
share, in the year-ago period.

Excluding items, LSI earned 14 cents a share, ahead of the
average analyst estimate of 9 cents a share, according to
Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Revenue rose 32 percent to $637.18 million from $482.28
million the previous year and above the Wall Street target of
$629.77 million.

LSI forecast earnings for the current quarter of 8 cents to
14 cents a share, excluding items, on revenue of $635 million
to $665 million.

Analysts are expecting earnings of 9.5 cents per share and
revenue of $642.83.

The shares of Milpitas, California-based LSI closed at
$6.39 on the New York Stock Exchange and dipped to $6.23 in
extended trading.
(Reporting by Ian Sherr; Editing by Andre Grenon and Steve
Orlofsky)

The forecasts for the current quarter and full year disappointed investors who had hoped that economic recovery in the United States and Europe would stabilize prices for Qualcomm’s chips and shore up royalties on patents.

Analysts had feared competition from the likes of ST-Ericsson and Infineon <IFXGn.DE> would pressure margins.

The world’s biggest maker of cellphone chips forecast on Wednesday current-quarter revenue of $2.5 billion to $2.7 billion, down from $2.74 billion in the year-ago period. Analysts on average had been expecting $2.66 billion.

“They’re feeling the recovery in emerging markets, but they’re not feeling it strong enough in developed markets,” said Broadpoint AmTech analyst Mark McKechnie.

For its second fiscal quarter ended March 28, Qualcomm said its profit was $774 million, or 46 cents per share, compared with a loss of $289 million, or 18 cents per share, in the year-ago quarter when it paid a hefty legal settlement to Broadcom Corp.

The company also said it earned 59 cents per share, excluding items, compared with Wall Street expectations of 56.5 cents per share.

Qualcomm said revenue rose to $2.66 billion from $2.46 billion in the year-ago quarter.

This compares with analysts’ average expectations for $2.63 billion according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

On March 25, Qualcomm had raised its earnings per share guidance for the quarter to a range of 56 cents to 58 cents per share, citing strength in licensing revenue and a favorable product mix for chips sold in the quarter.

The company also estimated fiscal 2010 revenue of $10.40 billion to $11 billion. Analysts are expecting $10.77 billion.

Shares of the chipmaker fell to $39.50 in extended trade after closing at $42.63 on Nasdaq.

(Reporting by Ian Sherr; Editing by Richard Chang)

Seagate, which on Tuesday reported a better-than-expected third-quarter profit after it shipped a record 50.3 million disk drives, said market demand is the highest it has ever been as consumers and companies continue to snap up disk drives to store movies, music and photos.

“We’re bringing on capacity,” Chief Financial Officer Patrick O’Malley told Reuters.

He expects total market demand to grow 10 percent to 12 percent to 200 million units in the December quarter of 2011 from roughly 180 million units at the end of the 2010 December quarter.

After aggressive cost-cutting during the recession, the company posted a gross margin of 29.6 percent in its fiscal third quarter. Analysts had been expecting around 26.5 percent.

Chief Executive Stephen Luczo said he expects the company to operate above its stated target gross margin of 22 percent to 26 percent in 2010.

Seagate’s shares shot up 3.5 percent in after-hours trading on Tuesday after having gained 5.2 percent since Intel Corp’s <INTC.O> stellar results last week. The company is more reliant on corporate IT spending than its more consumer-oriented foe, Western Digital <WDC.N>.

Seagate said the company’s customers are buying higher-end products, which is helping push average selling prices and margins higher.

Analysts expect sales of both personal computers and higher-powered servers to continue growing throughout the year as corporations, after two years of belt-tightening, begin to upgrade outmoded equipment and target efficiencies.

“Storage and data growth has proven to be especially recession-resilient, because all that data needs to find a home,” said Needham & Co analyst Richard Kugele. “The silly YouTube videos and Tweets are all stored — often multiple times — and it needs to find a place to go.”

The world’s largest maker of disk drives said net income rose to $518 million, or $1 a share, in its fiscal third quarter ended April 2, compared with a loss of $275 million, or 56 cents a share, a year ago.

Excluding items, Seagate earned $1.03 a share, ahead of the average analyst estimate of 94 cents a share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Revenue rose to $3.05 billion, from $2.15 billion the previous year, and just above the Wall Street target of $3.03 billion.

The company estimated revenue in the June quarter of about $2.9 billion to $3.1 billion, and earnings per share, including items, of 88 cents to 92 cents. Analysts on average are expecting revenue of $2.94 billion.

Seagate, based in Scotts Valley, California, normally forecasts earnings on its conference call instead of in its quarterly earnings press releases.

Seagate’s shares rose to $20 in extended trading, after closing at $19.33 on Nasdaq.

(Reporting by Ian Sherr; Editing by Matthew Lewis and Richard Chang)

For the past three years, we have been forced to wait impatiently for Steve Jobs to pull the latest redesign of the company’s smartphone from his jeans pocket.

In 2007, we met the original iPhone. In 2008, Steve Jobs pulled out a new design, called the 3G, with GPS and a faster internet connection. In 2009, the 3GS had a faster brain, a compass and voice control.

Each time, the release was systematic and controlled.

This time, it’s been unveiled in a bunch of blurry images followed by a full photo shoot, some videos, and a wild story.

“It was found lost in a bar in Redwood City, camouflaged to look like an iPhone 3GS. We got it.”

The circumstances of its discovery gave way to rampant speculation around the Internet that Gizmodo, the Gawker-owned tech blog, paid the person who found it for access to the device. Then, there was confirmation that they paid. But they can’t make the device work. And there are inconsistent reports about where it was found, and so on and so on, and at this point, people are counting the hours until Apple intervenes. Or maybe the company placed it there on purpose. Perhaps time travelers from the future may have accidentally left it there. Or it’s a Japanese knockoff. No, Chinese!

It could all be an elaborate hoax.

The whole thing reeks of a bad spy novel, fitting in with Apple’s notoriously secretive practice of chaining pre-release products to desks, keeping employees in the dark, and covering the devices with black cloaks in rooms filled with security cameras, until the fateful morning when Jobs graces the stage of some auditorium and convinces people to plunk down their lunch money and more for the company’s latest device.

And it’s not as if pre-release devices haven’t been seen in the wild before. There were mixed reports of original iPhones seen in the six months between the public unveiling and first sale date in 2007. Heck, even Jobs purportedly showed up to a kid’s softball game with one.

Certainly, Gizmodo’s revelations have taken the Internet by storm as people ogle the curves of the maybe-sort-of NO-it-has-to-be! new iPhone. But one thing’s pretty certain: as Andy Ihnatko, tech columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times, wrote in his blog:

“Gizmodo has a lot of explaining to do.”

Technology companies know better than to release a new product on the same day as Apple, a master at the art of dominating the news cycle.

Apparently, the same rule holds true for quarterly earnings reports as well.

With just a day to go until it’s slated to hold an earnings conference call with analysts, hard drive maker Seagate Technology is scrambling to get out of Apple’s way.

Company representatives emailed and called some members of the press on Monday morning to alert them of last-minute schedule changes. With basically the entire tech world eagerly anticipating a briefing on the latest sales data of iPhones, Macs and iPads at 2pm on Tuesday, Seagate apparently concluded that its own plan to discuss shipments of 3.5-inch hard drives at 2pm might not draw a big audience, particularly as 11 of the 25 analysts that cover Seagate also cover Apple.

Instead, the hard drive maker will hold its call at 3pm PST on Tuesday.

Earnings season is always a hectic time, with a barrage of press releases, overlapping conference calls and stock price swings.

And every once in a while, two companies with similar products and investors will schedule calls at the same time, until one blinks: Tobacco makers Philip Morris International and Reynolds American had conference calls scheduled for the same time last summer, until one finally rescheduled at the last minute.

But Apple, which has a whopping $220 billion market cap, is a force of its own.  The new rule seems to be that it’s best to stay out of the Mac maker’s way on earnings day — unless, perhaps, a company has some bad news that it hopes the market will miss amidst all the Apple hoopla.

UPDATE: A Seagate representative said the new conference call time was announced April 8.

(Hard drive-in-space image courtesy of Seagate, photo retouch by Ian Sherr)

Some investors also disliked Google’s decision that Chief Executive Eric Schmidt would no longer participate in earnings conference calls, even though a number of prominent chief executives, including Apple Inc’s, IBM Corp’s and Microsoft Corp’s_, are often absent from such calls.

A number of brokerages raised their price targets on Friday for Google’s shares, citing favorable prospects for Google’s core search business. But Barclays Capital analyst Douglas Anmuth decreased his, citing a lack of growth momentum beyond search and advertising.

“A significant revenue driver beyond core search has not materialized and it’s becoming tougher for the company to beat numbers,” Anmuth wrote in a research note.

Reducing his forecast to $650 from $675, Anmuth added that sequential revenue growth and margins were lighter than expected. But he kept his “overweight” rating.

Other analysts were less downbeat. In-Stat analyst Jim McGregor said Google could continue to lean heavily on its core search business because it still holds potential for growth.

“The advertising model for TV, print and stuff like that is tanking,” he said. “I don’t think there is any limit to the growth in terms of online advertising because everything is going online.”

Still, in the longer-term, concerns were increasing over whether Google can keep growing at a red-hot pace amid mounting regulatory and legal challenges and a partial withdrawal from China in a row over censorship.

The world’s No. 1 search engine is facing an increasing threat from Apple in the nascent mobile advertising business and questions about whether it can diversify successfully away from search, despite a series of initiatives.

MARGIN PRESSURE

On Thursday, Google posted a 23 percent increase in revenue as Internet advertising rebounded. But investors had grown accustomed to seeing blowout results, and investors took profit.

At least four brokerages, including BofA Merrill Lynch, raised their price targets on Google on Friday.

BofA Merrill Lynch analyst Justin Post expects share price gains to be driven by the emerging display network business, YouTube monetization.

“Google should begin to generate significant revenues from alternative sources beyond search this year, with display advertising and YouTube monetization the biggest near-term opportunities,” Post said. He raised his price target on Google to $685 from $670 and maintained a “buy” rating.

But other analysts highlighted short-term concerns over rising costs at Google, which said it would begin hiring aggressively and investing to sustain its pace of growth.

Kaufman Bros analyst Aaron Kessler said he expected costs to be more front-end-loaded this year, and that overall expense growth would moderate. Still, he cut his price target on the stock to $725 from $740, and lowered his 2010 and 2011 profit estimates. He maintained a “buy” rating on the stock.

Analysts also highlighted concerns about Thursday’s announcement that Schmidt will no longer address investors on quarterly earnings conference calls. In a research note, Stifel Nicolaus’s George Askew called Schmidt’s absence “troubling.”

“The investors think it’s significant, it generates another layer of speculation, puts another log on the fire for the bear case,” said BGC Financial analyst Colin Gillis. “People are concerned there’s something wrong.”

Chief Financial Officer Patrick Pichette, denying any internal rift, urged investors not to read beyond the fact the company was trying to “streamline” the process.

Google shares closed $45.15 lower at $550.14 on Friday.

(Reporting by Ian Sherr and Gabriel Madway in San Francisco and Manasi Phadke in Bangalore; editing by Mike Miller and Andre Grenon)