Hard disk manufacturing company, SanDisk Corporation (SNDK) recently rolled out a new product to strengthen its position in the MP3 market. The company introduced Sansa Clip Zip MP3 player, the latest addition to the popular SansaClip family of products. Sansa Clip Zip MP3 player is a user-friendly, feature-rich music player with attractive pricing and is expected to gain massive popularity amongst music lovers.
The Sansa Clip Zip MP3 player offers rich sound quality and is compatible with all major music formats, including the AAC codec (DRM-free iTunes compatible). Moreover, the product comes with a new 1.1-inch LCD color screen, which offers 83.0% more viewing area than previous models. Its updated graphical interface displays album art and makes it easier for users to navigate songs.
This new MP3 player features a microSDHC card slot, which lets the users instantly expand the player’s storage capacity, up to 32 gigabytes. The device is compatible with all major music, audio book and podcast formats, including MP3, WMA, WAV, FLAC, Ogg Vorbis, AAC and Audible files. It is also provided with Rhapsody, eMusic and Napster music services.
SanDisk’s products cater to a variety of customers. The company recently inked a deal with ASUS TeK. As per the terms of the deal, ASUS will use SanDisk’s recently launched U100 solid state drive (SSD) in its upcoming UX Series ultra-thin notebook.
The newly launched U100 SSD is the advanced iteration of SanDisk’s P4 modular SSD series. The new drive has a SATA III interface and can transfer data to and from the PC at roughly double the speed of P4 drives. The U100 SSD is targeted at ultra-thin laptops and will be available in capacities from 8GB to 256GB. The latest drive to introduce user friendly products is intended to win additional customers and retain their existing customers.
SanDisk posted decent second quarter 2011 results surpassing the Zacks Consensus Estimate. Both the OEM and retail businesses grew on the back of solid product revenue. Though the company provided decent revenue guidance, margin guidance was disappointing, as SanDisk continued to witness memory price declines and currency headwinds.
We believe that demand for flash memory could grow in the coming years, due to the popularity of devices such as smartphones and tablets, particularly Apple Inc.'s (AAPL) iPad. But we expect the cannibalization of PCs to hurt the demand for SanDisk’s memory products and rationalize revenue growth going forward. Also, customer concentration risk, competitive pressure and European weakness are concerns for the company.
Currently, SanDisk holds a Zacks #3 Rank, implying a short-term Hold rating.
APPLE INC (AAPL): Free Stock Analysis Report
SANDISK CORP (SNDK): Free Stock Analysis Report
Get all Zacks Research Reports and be alerted to fast-breaking buy and sell opportunities every trading day.
Be the first to comment