The mobile device market is starting look like a two-tier affair. Last week we saw the world's biggest mobile chip-maker - Qualcomm - announce above-expectation quarterly earnings. At the same time, two of the biggest mobile device-makers delivered less impressive results of their own.
There are three companies on our list that make mobile chips: Qualcomm NVIDIA and Apple, and all of them had good equity weeks. Nokia didn't, and Motorola's newly independent mobile company saw its stock devalue by around 15 percent over the course of the week.
If this is part of a general underlying trend - and it must be noted that Apple also makes phones, of course - then we think it's illustrative of the savage competition in the mobile device market.
Leaving aside Apple which, as ever, is a law unto itself, we have a large number of device-makers competing, but struggling to set themselves apart. Android is currently the other mobile OS of choice, but there are five major OEMs jostling for that market. However it's hard to argue they're wrong to persist with Android, as all the other alternative mobile OSs are struggling.
But chip-makers don't care who makes the phone or what OS it runs as long as their components are inside it. The mobile device market is in an exponential growth phase and that's got to be good news for chip-makers, which is why they seem a safer investment bet.
| Company | Listing | Share price 10/1/11 | Share price 17/1/11 | Share price 24/1/11 | Share price 31/1/11 | 7-day change | Market cap (bn) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AMD | AMD | 8.83 | 8.20 | 7.54 | 7.49 | -0.7% | 5.11 |
| Apple | AAPL | 336.12 | 348.48 | 326.72 | 336.05 | 2.9% | 309.60 |
| ARM | ARMH | 22.18 | 25.97 | 24.84 | 24.78 | -0.2% | 10.92 |
| Avnet | AVT | 32.85 | 33.96 | 34.98 | 35.01 | 0.1% | 5.32 |
| Cisco | CSCO | 20.97 | 21.21 | 20.73 | 20.93 | 1.0% | 116.01 |
| Dell | DELL | 13.98 | 14.05 | 13.47 | 13.15 | -2.4% | 25.38 |
| GOOG | 616.44 | 624.18 | 611.83 | 600.99 | -1.8% | 192.18 | |
| HP | HPQ | 45.09 | 46.25 | 47.23 | 45.51 | -3.6% | 99.69 |
| IBM | IBM | 147.93 | 150.00 | 155.50 | 159.21 | 2.4% | 197.80 |
| Ingram Micro | IM | 19.00 | 19.25 | 19.40 | 19.26 | -0.7% | 3.02 |
| Intel | INTC | 20.66 | 21.08 | 20.82 | 21.46 | 3.1% | 119.70 |
| Microsoft | MSFT | 28.60 | 28.30 | 28.02 | 27.75 | -1.0% | 237.42 |
| Nokia | NOK | 10.51 | 10.99 | 10.78 | 10.57 | -1.9% | 39.58 |
| Nvidia | NVDA | 19.87 | 23.59 | 22.22 | 23.76 | 6.9% | 13.80 |
| Oracle | ORCL | 31.03 | 31.25 | 32.51 | 32.00 | -1.6% | 161.68 |
| Qualcomm | QCOM | 51.73 | 52.04 | 51.24 | 53.72 | 4.8% | 88.15 |
| Tech Data | TECD | 44.10 | 46.68 | 46.27 | 46.40 | 0.3% | 2.16 |
| Dow | .DJI | 11674.76 | 11787.38 | 11871.84 | 11823.70 | -0.4% | N/A |
| FTSE 100 | .FTSE | 5984.33 | 6002.07 | 5896.25 | 5881.37 | -0.3% | N/A |
| NASDAQ | .IXIC | 2703.17 | 2755.30 | 2689.54 | 2686.89 | -0.1% | N/A |
