OT - Carrier spending set to
improve and with it a new Routing cycle
OT - This should help all in sector,
specially ALU since its Switching and Rounting is gaining
share. This article below is for a JNPR upgrade but I believe
it should apply to ALU as well. Juniper Jumps 9%:
RBC Ups to Buy on Diversification; Routing Cycle Coming
Around By Tiernan RayShares of networker Juniper Networks
(JNPR) are up $2.09, or almost 9%, at $26.09, after the company
yesterday afternoon beat Q1 expectations and forecast this quarter
higher as well.The stock has gotten at least one upgrade this
morning, from RBC Capital’s Mark Sue, who raised his rating
to Outperform from Sector Perform, and raised his price target to
$29 from $22, writing that “the period of negative
earnings revisions are now behind us,” and that there is
“stabilization in the top- line” and “encouraging
early signs of improving telco spend.”Juniper’s been
able to diversify away from the weak telco market, he writes:Telco
capex remains back-end load, yet diversification to data centers
and cable is helping stabilize the business. Cloud providers are
becoming meaningful of JNPR. Regionally despite FX, EMA/APAC seem
to be firming as well. Deferred revenues (+9% QoQ) and book-to-bill
(>1.0x) were also encouraging. Beyond the back-half, we expect
new product cycles in routing, switching and security to begin
contributing to growth.And the routing “cycle” is
finally coming around:Routing (47% of sales, higher margin) is
seeing improvements in demand at US carriers, cable and cloud
providers, while Europe demand is returning, traction in APAC is
improving and enterprise routing demand is solid as well,
particularly in govt. Routing’s a cyclical business and we
believe the routing product cycle is now turning; likely bottomed
in 4Q14. Juniper expects routing revenues to grow 3-5% YoY over the
next few years. It remains to be seen how share gains play out as
Cisco intensifies vs. Juniper’s PTX and NorthStar.One obvious
question is what happens with the company’s partnership with
Nokia (NOK), which just last week said it will buy Alcatel-Lucent
(ALU), which has its own IP routing and switching assets.Sue is not
overly concerned:The Nokia reseller arrangement contributes
$190M/yr (~10%) so strip it out and CY15 EPS of $1.65 may decline
to $1.55. Yet the timing of deal close (1H16) may provide some time
for Juniper to refill the funnel. We’re less concerned near
term given relationships with other equipment vendors, meaningful
carrier relationships and a solid installed base.
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