Technology
Asymmetric Advisors has turned bearish on Fujikura, having recently closed their long position after what they call a “crazy rerating”. They were “beating the drum” when the stock traded around 15x earnings, but it now sits near 30x FY27, a level they see as unjustified for what remains a largely commodity cable supplier. While earnings surged in recent years on strong demand for its Spider Web Ribbon fibre cables used in AI data centres, capacity constraints and intensifying competition from Corning to Ciena to Furukawa and Sumitomo Electric are likely to cap further upside. Asymmetric now views Fujikura as a suitable short hedge against more attractive technology names in their portfolio.
Edition: 222
- 17 October, 2025
Tech: AI innovations, market disruptions and emerging opportunities
Technology
The themes SPR will be focusing on in 2025 include 1) AI related: (a) AI applications move to the edge - benefitting the likes of Ciena, Arista and Crown Castle. (b) AI networking transition to ethernet vs. InfiniBand, benefitting Arista, Cisco, Juniper and Extreme. (c) AI use cases that are delivering strong ROI vs. others that are not, despite strong sales efforts by vendors - impacting renewals for Salesforce, ServiceNow, and others. 2) In cyber security, areas of growing priority include SOC automation and Next Generation SIEM. 3) More vendors bypass distribution and sell via the CSP marketplace or direct, negatively impacting large distributors. 4) BEAD - despite delays, this program will drive meaningful revenue. 5) Vendors benefitting from the rapid growth in DevOps / DevSecOp.
Edition: 202
- 10 January, 2025
Technology
Latest channel checks reveal: 1) Demand from telcos remains weak. 2) Demand from hyperscalers and Tier 2 CSPs is reasonably strong. 3) Federal and Enterprise are “OK” but not seeing acceleration. 4) Subsea - CIEN is very well positioned and should see a ramp over the next few quarters. Looking further out industry contacts remain enthusiastic about CIEN’s technology lead and believe they are best positioned to benefit from catalysts that include: 1) Continued growth in bandwidth demand. 2) AI driving higher bandwidth requirements between data centres vs. today’s focus on clusters within data centres. 3) Adoption of 800G and beyond. 4) Ramp in edge computing for AI and other applications. 5) Ramp of BEAD funding.
Edition: 194
- 06 September, 2024
Technology
Gradient’s main short-term concern is potential top-line disappointments driven by a host of demand-related factors, including elevated inventory levels at major customer, Ciena (among others), lower levels of data-centre Capex spend, lower demand for smartphone 3D sensing products and softer sales of Commercial Lasers products. A relative spike in AR exacerbates their concern and unusual growth in prepayments and other current assets adds another margin headwind in coming quarters. Additionally, disproportionate inventory growth appears to predate the NeoPhotonics merger and current inventory levels appear disconnected from near-term demand.
Edition: 166
- 04 August, 2023
Connectivity, speed & scale combine to blow up IT as we know it
Technology
In John Harrington’s latest Tech Trends report, he looks at several factors that have combined to change IT development and sales dynamics. These include how the accelerating deployment of speedier wired and wireless connectivity to the cloud, very fast computing platforms being built at scale within the clouds, the accelerating development of quantum computing as a viable commercial business, and the development of serious AI capabilities are affecting the global digital landscape. As IT increasingly transitions from in-house networking to the cloud, some new areas of IT will benefit, while others face an uncertain future.
Positive: Advanced Micro Devices, Alphabet, Apple, Amazon, Broadcom, Ciena, Dycom, Intel, IonQ, Microsoft, Nvidia, Rigetti.
Negative: C3.ai, Cisco, Dell, Qualcomm, Salesforce.
Edition: 162
- 09 June, 2023
IT Spending & Cyber Security
Technology
As always, SPR will be tracking the trajectory of IT spending, changing priorities and competitive dynamics for the segments and vendors they follow. Key questions / themes for 2023 include: IT Spending: 1) Which vendors are seeing more than anticipated pressure from reduction in seats and end user efforts to contain costs? 2) Vendors benefitting from the rapid growth in DevOps / DevSecOps. Cyber Security: 3) Which vendors are executing well with XDR solutions, capturing share and potentially disrupting existing vendors? 4) Maturing of the End Point Protection market. 5) Growth for Zero Trust Network Architectures. Additional Themes: 6) Vendors successfully leveraging AI / ML. 7) M&A speculation.
Positive views include: Palo Alto, Cyberark, Five9, Snowflake, Ciena, Datadog. Cautious: ServiceNow, Salesforce, Tenable.
Edition: 151
- 06 January, 2023
Technology
On track to win a higher percentage of the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) than many expect - CIEN is winning the largest of these deals because of their broad product portfolio and cutting-edge DSP technology. Feedback from Sales Pulse’s industry contacts suggest recent management comments re. supply chain concerns may be too conservative and that the company is not seeing extended lead times. The other drivers of CIEN’s business, including the ramp of investment in optical transport for 5G, data center interconnect, upgrade to 800G and the transition to next generation pluggables remain intact.
Edition: 120
- 01 October, 2021