Qualcomm (QCOM) is positioned close to the eye of the macro storm. A heavy reliance on China and uncertainty concerning near-term smartphone supply and demand dynamics have contributed to a difficult 2020 for QCOM, with shares down 12% year-to-date. However, despite renewed tensions between the U.S. and China, Qualcomm could actually benefit from the worrying developments, so says Canaccord Genuity analyst Michael Walkley. The recent Department of Commerce ban on Huawei, preventing it from purchasing semiconductors from U.S. companies, has ignited fears of retaliatory moves against companies such as Apple and Qualcomm. That being said, Qualcomm’s management noted Huawei is not a significant customer. In fact, Walkley argues the move could be good for the chipmaker. “We view any Huawei smartphone share losses, which are likely with it not gaining access to Android software, as a benefit to Qualcomm as its leading QCT customers such as OPPO and Vivo are likely to gain market share from Huawei,” said the 5-star analyst. While there’s a risk of a Chinese retaliation, Walkley notes that a large number of Chinese OEMs are dependent on Qualcomm in order to compete with tech giant Huawei. And with ambitions to sell more global smartphones, Qualcomm is the “primary to only choice in certain markets for these OEMs to have working products.” Furthermore, Walkley believes Chinese semiconductor company HiSilicon (owned by Huawei) cannot currently sell its modems to Qualcomm’s Chinese OEM customer base. If trade tensions negatively impact Huawei’s HiSilicon business, Qualcomm could benefit as Huawei loses both market share and the “ability to eventually compete in the merchant market,” if HiSilicon is stopped from making innovative chipsets at TSMC. Walkley summarized, “While the escalating China and U.S. relations is a concern to monitor and likely adds to the delays for Qualcomm in reaching an agreement with Huawei, we believe Qualcomm could come out as a net beneficiary if Huawei is adversely impacted since Huawei doesn’t use material volumes of Qualcomm chipsets and does not pay royalties currently.” Bearing this in mind, the 5-star analyst rates QCOM a Buy and has a $102 price target on the shares. There’s upside of 31% should the target be met in the coming months. (To watch Walkley’s track record, click here) The analyst community remains cautiously optimistic when considering Qualcomm’s prospects. A Moderate Buy consensus rating is based on a mix of 8 Buys, 7 Holds and 2 Sells. The average price target hits $86.86 and implies possible gains in the shape of 11%. (See Qualcomm stock analysis on TipRanks)

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Chinese e-commerce and digital tech giant Alibaba delivered better than expected results for the financial year to March 2020. Revenue grew by 35% to $72 billion (RMB509 billion). Net profits grew 42% to $19.8 billion, or $18.7 billion when expressed in non-GAAP form. Alibaba's digital media and entertainment segment accounted for losses of $1.57 billion […]

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Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba (BABA) has reported strong earnings results, with Q4 Non-GAAP EPS of $1.30 easily beating consensus estimates by $0.44 and demonstrating 7% year-over-year growth. GAAP EPS of $0.16 beat Street expectations by $0.04.Revenue of $16.14B marked 22% year-over-year growth, topping estimates by $860M, due to the solid performance of BABA’s domestic retail businesses and robust cloud computing revenue growth.“Alibaba achieved the historic milestone of US$1 trillion in GMV [gross merchandise value] across our digital economy this fiscal year,” cheered Daniel Zhang, CEO of Alibaba. “Our overall business continued to experience strong growth, with a total annual active consumer base of 960 million globally, despite concluding the fiscal year with a quarter impacted by the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.”Meanwhile Maggie Wu, CFO of Alibaba gave a promising outlook for the months ahead, stating: “Although the pandemic negatively impacted most of our domestic core commerce businesses starting in late January, we have seen a steady recovery since March. Based on our current view of Chinese domestic consumption and enterprise digitization, we expect to generate over RMB650 billion in revenue in fiscal year 2021.”Indeed, annual active consumers on the company’s China retail marketplaces reached 726 million for the quarter ending March 31, an increase of 15 million from December 31, 2019.Net cash provided by operating activities was RMB2,164 million ($306 million), down from RMB18,553 million in the same quarter of 2019, due to the one-off AliExpress Payment Services Restructuring. Excluding this expense, non-GAAP free cash flow would have been an inflow of RMB1,977 million ($279 million), says BABA.All ten analysts covering Alibaba currently rate the stock a buy- giving it a firm Strong Buy consensus. The $252 average analyst price target indicates upside potential of 19%, with shares currently flat year-to-date. (See Alibaba stock analysis on TipRanks).“We view the full impact & duration of the Covid-19 outbreak as an unknowable. But we remain very positive on BABA’s long- term fundamental outlook and view valuation as reasonable” comments RBC Capital analyst Mark Mahaney. The analyst has a buy rating on Alibaba, and sees shares reaching $230.“We are struck by recent government data that details that China Online Retail sales reached ¥8.5T RMB ($1.2T) in 2019 (up 19.5% Y/Y) and amounted to approx. 27% of China’s total retail sales. This scale, growth, and especially penetration all remain impressively robust, and we believe BABA remains the best play on this” he adds.Related News: Alibaba to Invest $1.4 Billion into Tmall Genie AI Capabilities Baidu May Use Nasdaq Delisting To Boost Value – Report Apple To Reopen More Than 25 U.S. Stores  More recent articles from Smarter Analyst: * Amarin Down 10% in Pre-Market On Generic Approval * Foot Locker Earnings Miss On All Counts; Stock Down 6% In Pre-Market * Netflix Will Now Automatically Cancel Inactive Accounts * Nvidia Sinks Despite Stellar Earnings; Top Analyst Says Buy On Any Weakness

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