CHICAGO, June 13, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Zacks.com announces
the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the
Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events
impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently
featured in the blog include: Hewlett Packard Company (NYSE:
HPQ), Apple Inc (Nasdaq: AAPL), AT&T Inc.
(NYSE: T), Microsoft Corp (Nasdaq: MSFT), and Dell
Inc (Nasdaq: DELL).
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Here are highlights from Friday's Analyst Blog:
HP to Roll Out TouchPad Tablet
The leading PC manufacturer Hewlett Packard Company
(NYSE: HPQ) is set to roll out its TouchPad tablet, which is touted
to be the company's answer to Apple Inc's (Nasdaq: AAPL)
iPad. TouchPad will debut in the
United States on July 1 in two
versions, with price tags of $500 and
$600, respectively.
After the news of the product launch broke, Hewlett-Packard
shares moved up by 10 cents to
$35.46 during the evening trading
session in the New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The
shares have dropped 16.0% this year.
The company is offering the product at a competitive price,
which matches the price of iPad. The two versions come with 16 and
32 gigabytes of memory and connect to the Internet only through
Wi-Fi. Moreover, this is the first tablet, which will run on the
webOS operating system, which HP acquired along with Palm Inc for
$1.8 billion last year.
The PC major had previously introduced tablets based on Windows,
but the new TouchPad is powered by webOS, which is basically a
mobile phone operating system, giving the new device a level
playing field with iPad.
The company announced that the introductory version of the
TouchPad will come with Wi-Fi technology for accessing the Internet
through wireless hotspots. Moreover, the upcoming versions of the
device will connect through AT&T Inc.'s (NYSE: T)
wireless network.
There is desperation among PC makers to get on the tablet
bandwagon as consumers are interested in buying the smaller touch
screen devices, thereby hurting the demand for traditional PCs.
This is evident from the fact that the research firm IDC lowered
its estimate for growth in PC shipments this year to 4.2% from 7.1%
in February, citing competition from tablets and smartphones as
well as a sluggish economy.
Hewlett-Packard is the market leader in the PC business with
19.4% market share, ahead of Dell and Acer. It also holds the #1
position in the Server segment with 39.0% market share. The company
is also the largest seller of printers. Moreover, the company has
deployed additional sales resources to capture incremental
opportunities in the enterprise and mid-markets, which has resulted
in a diverse global customer base.
HP's broad product portfolio is aligned with growth areas of the
market, so its sales efforts have proved highly effective.
Presently, the company is targeting the tablet PC segment in a big
way, where Apple has a strong foothold. We have seen this kind of
strategic moves earlier as well, when HP had challenged other tech
majors in their respective domains.
Despite the company's market position and compelling product
line, we remain cautious about future growth, especially as
competition from other big technology players, such as Apple, Acer,
Microsoft Corp (Nasdaq: MSFT), and Dell Inc (Nasdaq:
DELL) heats up. The increasing competition is expected to impact
pricing in the market, thus moderating profitability to some
extent.
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