Tech Today: Snow in Barcelona, Fitbit Crashes, Samsung Galaxy Chip Scrutinized

Here are some things going on today in your world of tech:

Barcelona continues to be quite chilly for this time of year, 35 degrees Fahrenheit, colder than New York, and a short while ago, very light flakes of snow started coming down. Snowing in Barcelona! Attendees here seem baffled but also delighted.

Qualcomm pressed amidst presser

Today’s show featured a press conference by Qualcomm (QCOM), which yesterday engaged in some intense back and forth with Broadcom (AVGO) concerning the latter’s attempt at a hostile takeover of Qualcomm.

This morning took another move, albeit indirectly, with Qualcomm president Cristiano Amontelling attendees that Qualcomm has advanced its efforts in so-called filter chips to a point where they are on parity with traditional filters, an product line where Broadcom has a large business in smartphones.

Qualcomm shares today are up slightly at $66.90, in early trading. Broadcom is also up slightly, at $254.49.

Sprint discloses 5G plan

Here are the show, people have wondered when Sprint (S) would talk about its plans for 5G networking, given that so many other carriers have been talking it up. This morning, the company disclosed it will light up Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles and Washington D.C., with devices available to subscribers “in the first half of 2019.” The company is working with Qualcomm on those handset technologies.

Sprint shares are relatively little changed at $5.40 in the pre-market.

Problem with Samsung chip

Samsung Electronics (005930KS) only just unveiled its newest flagship smartphone, the “Galaxy S9” on Sunday, and already there is some controversy. Andrei Frumusanu used a demo unit of the device to run some benchmark tests and found that the company’s claims about its “Exynos” chip in the thing doubling performance fall short of reality.

For example, in the “OS Webview” test, he finds the score for the chip is barely distinguishable from its predecessor, and well below the performance for the latest processor, the “Snapdragon 845.” “Something is very wrong,” though it’s not clear if it’s just the particular unit, he writes. The testing overall “opened up more questions than it managed to answer,” he concludes.

Fitbit, Veritone crash 

Among last night’s earnings losers are Fitbit (FIT), down about 12% at $4.86, and Veritone (VERI), down about 15% at $15.37.

Fit’s Q4 results missed expectations, and its outlook, even worse, as it acknowledged that smartwatches are taking over from the fitness tracker category, pressuring its sales.

R. W. Baird analyst William Power, who has a Neutral rating on the shares, cuts his price target by a buck, to $5, writing that "Apple Watch success and slowing lower-end fitness tracker interest could remain headwinds and are maintaining our Neutral rating."

Veritone's Q4 revenue and profit handily missed analysts’ expectations, though the company was upbeat about what it had accomplished during the quarter.

B. Riley's Sameet Sinha, reiterating a Sell rating, and cutting his price target to $10 from $15, writes that the business is "seeing increased variability and we believe visibility is also declining with reduced acquisition opportunities."

He thinks that "cash burn issues need to be addressed or else another capital raise will be needed in 3-4 quarters."

Sendgrid

Another name from last night is email distribution service provider Sendgrid (SEND), its shares little changed this morning at $26, despite the company reporting Q4 revenue and adjusted profit that beat analysts' expectations in its first public quarterly report, and despite a higher year outlook as well.

A high place for Palo Alto

Among the happier stories from yesterday, shares of security technology vendor Palo Alto Networks (PANW) are up $10.68, or over 6%, at $180, after the company's fiscal Q2 revenue topped analysts’ expectations, and it forecast the quarter and the year above consensus by a wide margin.

Salesforce earnings on tap

Coming up this afternoon, after the closing bell, is Salesforce (CRM). Salesforce stock this morning is up 85 cents at $116.65.

A shot of the action on the floor of Mobile World:

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