CSR ships a billion Bluetooth chips but fails to win stock market hearts
CSR plc (CSR.L) has shipped its billionth Bluetooth chip.
It is a Silicon Fen success story, but hasn’t managed to capture the hearts of the market. Its share price has risen a bit over 3% today. But the global Bluetooth leaders are now valued at around £460m, less than a third of their high watermark in mid 2006.
Its forward price earnings ratio for predicted 2008 financial results is around 7.6 and drops to 7.3 for the 2009 forecast. This is low for such a classy high tech firm with a track record of delivering good technical solutions.
In the past I have written about how I believe CSR is undervalued, but I keep being dumbfounded by the market. 14 watching analysts are equaly split between buy and neutral – only one is recommending selling. Yet the Cambridge based CSR cannot seem to get any sustained traction in the stock market.
Still, let’s not quibble about the finances. 1,000,000,000 is a lot of chips and a fine tribute to the technical team.
CSR justly says that number underlies its dominance in the market. Its BlueCore silicon is to be found in mobile phones from every single tier one mobile handset maker and its silicon has been used in market leading products from customers including Apple, Dell, NEC, Panasonic, Sony, TomTom and Toshiba. Its chips are designed-in around 60% of all Bluetooth qualified products.
Executive Director, Bluetooth SIG Michael Foley said: "This truly is a remarkable milestone for CSR and for the Bluetooth industry overall. Reaching the billionth-chip mark illustrates the popularity of CSR's Bluetooth technologies amongst manufacturers across a wide range of sectors. CSR develops products that address the key issues facing designers such as cost, size and performance and interoperability. The Bluetooth SIG congratulates CSR on reaching this landmark."
CSR CEO Joep van Beurden (pictured) said the popularity of Bluetooth technology had revolutionised the consumer electronics industry and “CSR has been on the forefront of design in making the adoption and integration of wireless technology easier for OEMs”.
(I don’t directly hold shares in this or any other Silicon Fen stock – maybe my pension fund does)
17 April 2008
