A new thread for Cambridge Silicon Radio, a bluetooth play for 2004.

Cambridge Silicon Radio Holdings Ltd, the Bluetooth technology group that is about to list on the London Stock Exchange, said its offering will be priced at 160-200 pence a share.

The indicative price range corresponds to an offer size of 54-68 mln stg and a market capitalisation for the company of 192-239 mln stg after flotation.

CSR designs and manufactures single-chip radio devices - focusing initially on solutions for the 2.4GHz Bluetooth personal area networking standard. The background and experience of our development team give CSR a unique advantage to help OEMs exploit the new wave of wireless networking, allowing us to offer the most highly integrated single-chip Bluetooth solutions, which are based on commodity CMOS technology with all its inherent advantages.

www.csr.com

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CSR, which has secured over 70 mln usd of funding from a number of investors including Compaq Corp, Philips Electronics NV, Sony Corp, Intel Corp and 3i Group PLC, was founded in 1998.

The company claims on its Website to be the world's leading provider of Bluetooth, accounting for 60 pct of all Bluetooth end-products.

Bluetooth is a low-cost, short-range radio link between mobile PCs, mobile phones and other devices, enabling users to connect a wide range of devices easily and simply, without the need for cables.

CSR profits warning is rude awakening for investors in chip-making companies


By Eric Culp In Frankfurt
24 September 2006 (The Business)

INVESTING in semiconductor companies is seldom for the faint-hearted. Roller-coaster chip demand and selling prices see to that.

So a second-half revenue warning from Bluetooth chipmaker CSR within weeks of a buoyant second-quarter statement and well ahead of post-Christmas stocktaking, is mildly shocking, if not surprising.

For one thing, US rival Broadcom warned recently that orders from one of its biggest customers, Motorola, were slowing. CSR isnt overly exposed to Motorola, counting Nokia and Samsung among its top customers.

But Mondays warning is still a rude wakening for CSRs management and investors.

Slowing sales momentum comes at a time when the company needs all the R&D dollars it can get to broaden its portfolio by focusing on more integrated products those that offer memory, signal processing, radio frequency on one chipset.

CSR will have to continue offering side products, too, including those that dont belong to Bluetooth family, like FM Radio and WiFi. For the latter, it may even look to some small acquisitions.

But the sales outlook doesnt look good near-term. At CSR, management has scaled back a forecast for fourth-quarter revenue growth to being less than 5% of the previous three months. That leaves CSR headed for 2006 sales of around $730m rather than the $800m analysts had anticipated.

The slowdown comes at a critical time. The CSR is in the middle of an R&D push to bring new Bluetooth products to market. Headcount rose 13% to 810 in the second quarter.

Curbing spending in this area isnt an option given the pace of competition. Infineon, STMicro and Texas Instruments have been doing beauty parades among some top OEMs, and reporting some wins.

Assuming earnings-revenues ratios remain constant, the consensus estimated EPS for 2006 should fall below 50p a share. Discounting the current consensus by higher relevant expenses, including marketing and R&D spending, and CSRs 2006 earnings might come in between 45p and 48p. That leaves shares trading at roughly a 19X price-to-earnings multiple.

This is still cheaper than 21X that of Broadcom and 25X of Atheros Communications, a specialist in WiFi, an area CSR is getting into.

If the company or any of its OEM vendors dont come up with further negative news between now and Christmas, todays valuation could even attract a big-budget bidder.

Sony cuts price of delayed PlayStation 3 console

Justin McCurry in Tokyo
Saturday September 23, 2006
The Guardian


Sony said yesterday it would cut the price of the long-awaited PlayStation 3 game console by 20% in Japan when it goes on sale in November.

The company feared the original price of 62,790 (284) would push gamers towards cheaper rivals made by Microsoft and Nintendo in the battle for supremacy in the console market. The cheaper PS3, with a 20GB hard drive, will now cost 49,980, the firm said.

Ken Kutaragi, head of Sony's game unit, said: "What is important is that we get more consoles sold to make up for the price cut, and get more game makers and chip makers in our camp."

The Times
October 03, 2006
Stock Markets

Danish customer's profit warning spells further trouble for CSR
By Nick Hasell

CSR fell a further 3 per cent yesterday after a profit warning from a Danish customer stoked fears that last months trading alert from the Cambridge-based developer of semiconductors may not be its last.

The trading update from GN Store Nord was overshadowed by the sale of its ReSound business to Phonak, the Swiss hearing aid maker, for $2.63 billion (1.4 billion), but analysts who scrutinised GNs statement were unsettled by the weakness of its flagship mobile headset operation, which it said would make a loss this year after a 42 per cent fall in quarterly sales.

Dresdner Kleinwort said that performance exceeded its worst fears and suggested that further problems could lie ahead in the headset market, which accounts for around one third of CSRs revenues. With the German broker also suggesting that GN may start to source semiconductors from Broadcom, of the United States, as well as from CSR, it repeated its sell advice and 770p target. CSR dropped 29p to 814p.

Down 111p at 669p


CSR warns of weakness ahead - MoneyAM

CSR, the bluetooth microchip designer, said third-quarter revenue rose 32%.

However it warned its second-half results would be weaker than expected due to a shift in the mobile phone market.

The Cambridge-based company, whose radio chips are used in mobile phones, portable digital assistants and laptops for swapping data over a short range, said revenue for the three months to September 29th rose to $214.1m versus $162.5m in the same period a year earlier.

Pretax profit rose 15% to $52.3m from $45.5m.

However CSR warned that fourth-quarter revenue was likely to be between $160m-$180m, lower than originally expected, due to the growing number of cheaper mobile phones that do not incorporate bluetooth technology.

'Whilst it is disappointing that our second half 2006 will not be as strong as anticipated, the Board is confident that further significant growth will be achieved in 2007,' CSR CEO, John Scarisbrick, said in a statement.

Diluted earnings per share rose to $0.28 vs $0.24, while CSR said its Bluetooth unit market share for the third quarter was more than 50%.

CSR said it expects the Bluetooth market worldwide to grow by between 60% and 70% in 2006, driven by mobile phones and headsets.

Is there another bus due shortly or is that the third one?

2nd

Closed down 135p at 645p.

time to bring this back to watch



red = 25 dma
green = 50 dma

good break out and looks right ..... have just bought for myself

It is interesting to note that the company has decided to try something new like the GPS market on the mobile phones prior to the result announcement next month. I have a feeling the results are not going to be all that spectacular like it usually is.
However, the potential of GPS on mobile phone can be pretty massive. Just think you could possibly locate the phone when its stolen (possible reduction of crime theft) or keep track on your own children etc.
Just imagine how popular it will be, like it has been with Bluetooth in the pass years plus the popularity of the tom tom etc. I think we should watch this company in the near future especially after the results and see what they have to say for future developments

I am in for the bull ride! I hope am right :0)

well through 25 and 50 dma .... 200 dma is at 950+

Q4 results tomorrow. Good luck longs, unfortunately my average is about 880+ so long way off to even out but hope it doesn't fall back to 600 again.

oh good .... hadn't realised that ..... bought back in a week or two back, so fingers crossed

sold some stuff prematurely this week, even though at a profit, and also called DOM's sp move quite badly wrong despite ace figures ..... but glad i kept faith with CSR ..... sp has rocketed +70+ .... am still trying to find out how far ahead of consensus expectaions the figures were ..... trading statement is pretty bullish

chart below show 50 and 200 dma.
rsi getting towards overbought

HELP someone, who is better at interpreting figures or something!!

I would guess 900 is the obvious resistance, being about the bottom when price slumped in September, and will also be just about where 200 dma when/if it gets there .... i suppose!

taken my profits! ..... 118p profit per share in 5 weeks will do very nicely thank you!! ..... which i could always call them that well!! ....... may well get back in again in due course, as have a liking for this company

time to dust this one down again after a couple of pretty dull or even dire months ..... sp has been tracking along 25 dma line and has now suddenly perked up ..... worth considering perhaps

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so i considered and did!

don't know what happened there, but sp has bolted since i bought (725.5)! .... hope it holds