I’m not quite sure that there really are tech bellwethers anymore. Our ‘Diversity of Performance’ theme of the last 5+ years has shot that to pieces. For example, Nokia was the smartphone ‘bellwether’ back in 2005. Apple’s latest results (see Apple – Lost for Superlatives) means, we understand, that Apple is now close to overtaking Nokia in its share of the global smartphone market. Apple didn’t even have a smartphone until 2007!
In the smartphone bellwether stakes, Qualcomm is emerging as a good one as its fortunes are pretty much directly linked to smartphone adoption (from whatever stable) as a driver for its clients buying its products. Qualcomm reported revenues up 34% in the quarter to 30th June 11. Profits were up 61%.
But Intel is still a bellwether for the PC market. Afterall “Intel processors power four out of every five PCs”. Intel’s results last night were pretty good with a 23% growth in revenues reported in the first half of 2011. But PC-related chip growth was all coming from what we used to refer to as “Emerging Markets” rather than the US and Europe which reported "continued softness". That is the story across much of the conventional PC industry.
Conversely Intel reported a 38% increase in chips used in Cloud-based storage system servers.