The Blackberry Bold smartphone, Samsung Galaxy Note phablet
and Apple iPad 2 tablet are displayed in Hong Kong. Photo
by Reuters.
United States technology stock prices were on the move
yesterday, with interest in Facebook's announcement today
pushing the price above $US32 ($NZ38.02) for the first time
since July.
Facebook will today host its first major press event at its
Menlo Park, California, headquarters since its troubled
initial public offering in May.
The invitation to media triggered a guessing game among
technology observers and online blogs about what it could
reveal - everything from a smartphone to a search engine.
Jeffries & Co analyst Brian Pitz believed the
announcement was advertisement-platform related. Facebook
founder Mark Zuckerberg had previously said making a
smartphone would be the ''wrong strategy'' for the company.
Shares of Dell Inc soared 13% to a near eight-month high of
$US12.83 after Bloomberg reported the world's third-largest
PC maker was in talks with at least two private equity firms
about going private.
The discussions between the PC maker, which had steadily
ceded market share to larger rivals Hewlett Packard and
China's Lenovo, and private equity were preliminary and
financing had not been secured, Bloomberg reported. Dell said
it did not comment on rumours or speculation.
BlackBerry maker Research in Motion (RIM) saw its shares rise
10.3% in anticipation of a product launch scheduled at the
end of the month. Its stock rose as high as $C15.08
($NZ18.22) in early Nasdaq trading. Some analysts said a
dearth of any major smartphone news at the Consumer
Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week boded well for RIM as
it moved closer towards unveiling the make-or-break new line.
''The lack of new smartphone buzz could be seen as positive,
given it clears the road for the BlackBerry 10 device
announcement January 30,'' TD Securities analyst Scott Penner
said in a note to clients.
The lack of news was expected. Even so, Mr Penner wrote, it
reassured investors that the BlackBerry 10 would be
competitive with the best that Apple, Samsung Electronics,
Nokia and other rivals had on offer.
The stock also got a boost from media reports that Aircel and
Vodafone Group were gearing up to market the new BlackBerry
in India. RIM has long counted India for strong growth.
Sharemarket ''darling'' Apple was hit on reports it was
slowing production of its iPhone 5, increasing worries the
appeal of some of its products was waning. The stock was down
3.3% at $US503.35. Apple slashed its original target to order
65 million iPhone 5 displays this quarter by about half,
Nikkei reported from an unidentified source.
Samsung announced yesterday it had sold 100 million Galaxy S
smartphones, which include the original Galaxy, Galaxy SII
and Galaxy SIII. It took Samsung two years and seven months
to reach the same milestone it took Apple nearly four years
to meet.
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