Cisco Plans To Invest $1 Billion In UK Technology Sector

Cisco will invest in United Kingdom, China, and France in the coming years.

Cisco Systems is all set to invest a massive $1 billion in the technology sector of the United Kingdom. The company wants to invest and do wonders in the booming Internet of Things market. The company announced on Thursday regarding its plans to invest in the country’s sector over the next 3 to 5 years that will actually help in boosting the information technology sector of the United Kingdom. This is the first and new investment after four long years where the networking giant vowed to spend $500 million for the same cause in UK.

According to Fortune, “Cisco will use part of its new investment to scout for potential acquisitions in the UK and has experience in purchasing UK-based companies. In 2013 it bought out Ubiquisys, a maker of a type of cellular technology known as a small cell, for $310 million.” Furthermore, the company also invested $5 billion in 2012 in a British company named NDS Group. NDS Group specialized in software for cable television.

The company sees the technology sector of UK as of high potential and hence wants to invest in it without any further ado. It is believed that the startups based in the United Kingdom, which will be working on technology and Internet of Things, will prove to be beneficial for Cisco in the coming times as it vows to spend $150 million in them to fasten growth.

Sources suggests, “The company was vague on what types of Internet-of-things companies or specific technologies it wants to target in the region, but it did mention that ‘smart city development’ is an area it wants to invest in.”

This will also enhance and push the business of Cisco as more and more municipalities will be buying the products of Cisco branded Internet of Things in software and hardware, which faces fierce competition from Oracle, IBM, and HP in the market.

The $1 billion investment plans come immediately after it announced plans to expand its investment in China. The China investment plans were of $10 million and it took Cisco only one month to go for new plans and invest in United Kingdom’s technology sector.

However, these two are not the only countries that the company will be investing in, in the coming times. The company said earlier this week that it also has plans to give $100 million to the France based startups. Cisco is all set to penetrate in the Internet of Things market, which seems to be the future.

JP Morgan All Set to Report Second Quarter Earnings Today

The article discusses the earnings whispers for JP Morgan, as the firm prepares to release its second-quarter results before the opening bell today.

JP Morgan Chase & Co. is scheduled to report its second quarter earnings for fiscal year 2015 today. Both the top line and bottom line estimates look positive for the bank, as it most likely to surpass the consensus forecasts for both these figures in this quarter.                                 

According to Earningswhispers.com says JP Morgan is most likely to post earnings of $1.50 per share for the quarter, surpassing the Street estimates by almost 0.05%. On the other hand, Estimize.com estimates average revenue of approximately $24.67 billion for the period, expecting the company to report more than the Street estimate of $241 million. The Street believes the bank to report a year over year decline of 8.98% in earnings and 3.63% year over year decline in sales for the second quarter.               

JP Morgan Chase & Co. reported earnings of $1.60 per share for first quarter of fiscal year 2015, beating the analysts’ expectation by nearly $309 million. During the last eight quarters, the bank was able to beat the Streets estimates seven times, and has surpassed the top line forecasts 5 times.

Majority of analysts are bullish on the stock of JP Morgan. Out of 40 analysts having coverage on JP Morgan stock, 29 gave it a Buy, while the remaining assigned a Hold. The analysts gave an average twelve month stock price target of $71.91, demonstrating an upside potential of 5.61% over the latest closing price.

According to some analysts, the company is expected to report earnings of $1.45 per share, a decline of 7.4% year over year. Earnings per share in the previous quarter were reported at $1.58. On the other hand, revenue is most likely to arrive t $24.42 billion, a decrease of almost 100 basis points. In the previous quarter, it was recorded at $24.06 billion. In the meantime, operating income is forecasted to be $9.02 billion.

JP Morgan’s consumer and community banking segment is most likely to generate robust results this period, however the investment banking segment is most likely to see revenue decline.

With an optimistic sentiment in the stock market, JP Morgan Chase & Co. stock was up 1.42% to $69.06 at market close on Tuesday July 14. As per Bloomberg terminal, 40 analysts covered the bank stock, out of which 29 suggested a Buy. The investment bank has 52 week low and high of $67.76 and $69.10, respectively. The company has $248.90 billion of market capitalization.

Analysts Look At Apple Music In A Positive Manner

The software giant has decided to launch a new music service and analysts are looking at it in a positive manner.

Apple has launched a new updated Apple Music service which has attracted quite a lot of attention of the analysts in the industry. This new video streaming service has been launched on Tuesday and analysts believe this is not going to work too much for the tech giant in the initial stages, if that is what the investors are expecting. The iPhone making firm has been working on this project for some time now and before the release, the analysts showed many bearish signs as to why they thoughts this service is not going to be very profitable for the company. However, a recent analysis has shown that this service might not turn out to be so bad after all and it is very much expected that in near future, the stock value of the company increases with the help of the popularity and usage of this streaming service.

Apple is clearly not the first company to be stepping into the video streaming business. Two main giants in the industry are none other than Pandora and Spotify who have been maintaining high position in the video viewing industry for quite some time now. These companies are no exactly similar as Pandora is famous for providing free radio services through the process of streaming to the users and the main source of income for the firm is through adverts while on the other hand, Spotify works through providing video streaming services but by following subscription plans.

Pandora currently has a user base of around 79.2 users as per the reports that emerged after the first financial quarter of the current year. It was seen through the reports that the firm managed to secure around 10 percent of the total radio listeners in the United States which was noted down as a huge achievement. As for Spotify, the same cannot be said it has around 75 million users and around 20 million of those users are paying $9.99 every month as subscription fees.

Analysts who have been comparing all the three companies for a better inside look on the kind of competition being stirred up are of the opinion that Apple Music going to turn out to be a dangerous threat Spotify as the software company has decided to offer its monthly subscription plan for a price tag of $9.99 too, just like its rival in the industry. The MAC producers will also be offering a huge number of 30 million tracks to the users which might take away much of the users from Spotify.

                                                                                                                  

Cisco Reports Jump in South African Internet Traffic

South Africa is expected to see a massive jump in Internet traffic as more people switch to smartphones and other smart devices.

Cisco Systems Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) has reported a jump in Internet traffic from South Africa, as the public there switches to smartphone devices. This was stated by a report from Cisco Visual Networking Index 2015, which predicts that the number of smartphone users will jump from the current 15 million to around less than 30 million by 2019. Whereas, Internet traffic from that side is expected to grow at an annual rate of 44%.

The IP based networking products maker predicts that by 2019, around 43 billion minutes of video content will be downloaded. It is an indication that businesses and consumers alike are taking advantage of growing access of social media to connect to one another. Meanwhile, mobile video traffic growth is expected at around 73%, as many South Africans also stream video content from their smartphones.

The facts provided by Cisco reinforce the views of many researchers who have highlighted how smartphones are going to play a very critical role for the development of South Africa, especially when the infrastructure, despite well-developed, is showing signs of creaking due to pressure from population. Public is becoming more aggressive of being close to those managing the business, in order to demand better goods and services.

According to a study commissioned by the by Orange Horizons on the provision of Wi-Fi in Mitchell’s Plain and Khayelitsha near Cape Town, it was revealed that nearly 9% of the respondents used Internet on their smartphone. These respondents were granted 3GB data free during the day, but around half of them stated that the speed and access were not enough and wanted more.

In fact, according to the same Cisco research, smartphones will cement their position by 2019 as the most primary tool to have access to the Internet, at around 30% for all networked devices, a rise from 2% last year. Demand for video is likely to serve as a driving force for new internet video services that is expected to eat up less than 80% of IP traffic.

Finally, Cisco also predicts that by 2019, the average broadband speed will rise from the current 3.5 Mbit/s to around 10 Mbit/s, which will likely result in the growth of smart TVs and machine-to-machine communications. Overall, it is a very bullish outlook for the South African IT industry. The next age is regarded as the age of smart devices.

Cisco stock price ended the day at $28.28, a decline of 0.42% from the previous day.