Hard drive manufacturer Western Digital‘s shares surged more than 18% after Chief Executive John Coyne predicted the company will be able to jack fiscal 2013 earnings up to $10 a share, far ahead of the consensus analyst estimate of $6.39.

Coyne’s comments from the conference call:

In formulating our outlook for fiscal 2013, which we will share with you today, we considered many factors. We took into account several broad trends such as the soft macro economic environment, the growing use of tablets and smart phones, and a modest expectation for the initial acceptance of Windows 8 and UltraBooks. Consequently, our planning assumption for unit growth in hard drive demand is 5%. We considered several Western Digital specific factors. First, due to the regulatory requirements to operate WD and HGST as separate subsidiaries for at least two years, we do not expect any significant OpEx synergies in that timeframe. Second, our experience since completing the HGST acquisition has demonstrated customers continued appreciation of the respective strengths of our WD and HGST subsidiaries. Third, following four months of  experience, we have confirmed the robustness and predictability of HGST’s business operations, processes and controls. Fourth, each subsidiary has multiple opportunities to further improve its cost structure by ramping newer aerial density platforms throughout the fiscal year and by making continued progress on cost optimization and recovery from flood related cost issues. Taking all this into account,we believe that Western Digital can deliver non-GAAP earnings-per-share of $10 in fiscal ’13.

The comments came after Western Digital posted better than expected earnings and revenues for the quarter ending June 29 as it recovers from a series of floods that devastated its Thai factories late last year.

The hard drive manufacturer reported adjusted earnings of $872 million, or $3.35 per share, compared to adjusted earnings of $193 million, or $0.81 during the year-ago quarter. Revenues rose to a record $4.8 billion for the quarter, from $2.4 billion during the year-ago period.

The results come after Western Digital closed its acquisition of Hitachi’s hard-drive business in March, helping fuel record revenues for the Irvine, Calif.-based company. For the quarter, the company shipped 71.0 million hard drives, compared to shipments of 53.8 million drives during the year-ago period.

The pickup in sales comes as the global economy is stumbling and after rival Seagate, which picked up new business in the wake of 2011’s floods in Thailand, cut its projections for its fiscal fourth quarter.

In late trading Western Digital shares were up $5.93, or 18.26%, to $38.40.

Rumors and speculation. Two reasons Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook and Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer gave for Apple’s weaker than expected earnings Tuesday.

“We’re reading the same rumors and speculation that you are about the new iPhone,” Oppenheimer said on a conference call with investors. “And we think this has caused some pause in customers purchasing.”

The problem: the rumors and speculation Apple keeps talking about are neither. Apple customers were right to wait until Apple introduced new MacBooks, in June, built around Intel’s latest ‘Ivy Bridge,’ processors. The latest entry level MacBook Air offers better performance, at the same price as Apple’s older model. No one at Intel said a word about Apple’s plans. Intel’s product road map is well known.

And Apple’s customers are right to wait now for a better iPhone. No one at Apple is talking. And no one at Apple chip supplier Qualcomm is either. But Qualcomm’s product road map is well known. The chips Apple needs to make a phone that supports the latest 4G LTE networks in a relatively thin form facdor — Qualcomm’s MDM9615 — are now being cranked out in quantity. And so customers who want an iPhone are waiting.

That’s not the fault of rumor-mongers in the media, Apple short-sellers, or Apple employees or partners. When the smart thing to do is to wait, Apple’s customers wait. And Cook knows it. “I’m glad that people want the next thing,” Cook said. “I’m super happy about it.”

Apple might want to hurry up with that new iPhone.

Sagging demand for liquid-crystal displays drove Corning’s second-quarter earnings down 39% from the year-ago quarter.

Excluding one-time items, the Corning, New York-based glass and ceramics manufacturer posted second-quarter earnings Wednesday of $465 million, or $0.31 per share, compared to $758 million, or $0.48 during the year-ago quarter.

Revenues fell 5% to $1.91 billion from $2.00 billion during the year-ago quarter.

On a  call with Forbes, Corning corporate controller Tony Tripeny said the company has succeeded in slowing price declines in its LCD glass business and grown its other businesses.

The company is pushing to grow new product lines, such as the durable ‘Gorilla Glass,’ now used in many smartphones. Future markets for the scratch-resistant, super-strong glass include automotive and even architectural applications.

Corning is also pushing new glass products such as Willow Glass, a super-thin, flexible glass, and Lotus Glass, for use in organic light-emitting diode (OLED) and next-generation LCD displays.

The challenge now: a broadly weaker economy that is hurting everything from sales of fiber-optic glass to the filter technology Corning manufactures for diesel automobiles, a business hurt by the popularity of diesel engines in Europe.   continue »

Propelled by surging sales of smartphones and tablets based on its designs, UK-based processor designer ARM Holdings reported a 23% rise in adjusted pre-tax profits Wednesday.

Excluding taxes and extraordinary items, ARM’s earnings for the quarter ending in June grew to £66.5 million compared to £54.2 million pounds during the year-ago period. Revenues for the quarter ending in June grew by 15% to £135.5 million compared to £117.8 million pounds.

Overall, ARM reported that 2 billion ARM-based chips were shipped during the second quarter, up 9% compared to the year-ago period.

ARM’s mobile processor designs are licensed by Apple, Qualcomm, Nvidia, Samsung, and Texas Instruments – among others. Last year, smartphones outsold personal computers for the first time, turning ARM’s licensees into a growing threat to the Intel, whose processors dominate the PC and server businesses.

In U.S. dollars, ARM reported second-quarter revenues rose 12% to $213.0 million over the year-ago period. License revenues grew 12% to $78.6 million over the year-ago period; royalty revenues — which are recognized one quarter in arrears — grew 15% to $110.0 million; sales of development systems fell 4% to $13.3 million; and service revenues rose 6% to 11.1 million.

While ARM’s business is outperforming the broader processor market, on a call with Forbes, ARM Chief Commercial Officer Mike Inglis sounded a cautious note about the broader global economy.

“As we look to the fourth quarter there is more uncertainty around the economies than we expected right now, both in Europe and in China,” Inglis said. He added that if fewer units are built during the third quarter for the holiday season than normal “we think we’ll cover it by licensing” allowing ARM to hit consensus estimates.

Meanwhile, Inglis said ARM is scooping up more licenses from its customers. For example Samsung has three ARM licenses for its Galaxy S III smartphone: one for the processor, another for graphics, and a third for physical IP. “We’re seeing more cross selling in the same product,” Inglis said.

Inglis also said ARM continues to push into new markets, getting into networking with Texas Instruments, LSI Logic, and Freescale; pushing into the Windows ecosystem with Microsoft readying an ARM-friendly version of its Windows operating system, Windows RT, along with a Windows RT tablet of its own; and companies such as Dell beginning to push ARM-based servers.

Last year, ARM unveiled a new processor architecture, ARMv8, that will be able to gulp down 64-bits of data at a time, a key trick in the server processor market, which is now dominated by Intel’s 64-bit processors.

Demand for its latest products helped push networking gear vendor Juniper past second-quarter earnings and revenue estimates Tuesday, sending its shares up more than 5% in late trading.

The Sunnyvale, Calif.-company reported adjusted earnings of 19 cents per share, compared to the consensus analyst estimate of 16 cents per share reported by Thomson Reuters.

Second quarter revenues were $1.07 billion, also ahead of the consensus estimate of $1.05 billion.

Citing  ”continued near-term macro uncertainty,’ however, the company offered subdued guidance for the current quarter.

The company estimated third-quarter adjusted earnings per share of between $0.15 and $0.18 on revenues of between $1.040 to and $1.075 billion.

Analysts were expecting third-quarter adjusted earnings of $113.3 million, or 21 cents per share, on revenues of $1.1 billion.

“The go-forward macro environment is mixed, but we are focused on what is in our control,” Juniper Chief Executive Kevin Johnson said on a conference call with investors.

While Juniper beat analyst expectations Tuesday, its un-adjusted net income is down more than 50% from the year-ago quarter.

Net income fell to $57.7 million, or 11 cents a share, for the quarter from $115.6, or 22 cents a share during the year-ago period.

Revenues were down, slightly, from $1.12 billion during the year-ago quarter.

Both Juniper and its larger rival, Cisco, have struggled with sagging demand in developed markets this year.

On Monday, Cisco said it would cut 1,300 workers, or 2% of its workforce.

Juniper’s shares have fallen by more than 25% this year.

For the quarter:

• sales of routing products fell to $506.0 million from $615.3 million during the-year ago period;
• sales from switching products fell to $139.89 million from  $117.14 million during the year-ago period;
• sales from ‘security/other,’ fell to $158.8 million from $159.0 million;
• sales from services rose to $269.1 million from $229.1 million.

In late trading Tuesday, Juniper shares rose $0.80, or 5.37%, to $15.61.