Top Supermarket Companies To Own For 2015

Top Supermarket Companies To Own For 2015: Applied Materials Inc.(AMAT)

Applied Materials, Inc. provides manufacturing equipment, services, and software to the semiconductor, flat panel display, solar photovoltaic (PV), and related industries worldwide. The company?s Silicon Systems Group segment offers a range of manufacturing equipment used to fabricate semiconductor chips or integrated circuits. This segment provides systems that perform primary processes used in chip fabrication, including atomic layer deposition, chemical vapor deposition, physical vapor deposition, electrochemical deposition, rapid thermal processing, chemical mechanical planarization, wet cleaning, and wafer metrology and inspection, as well as systems that etch or inspect circuit patterns on masks used in the photolithography process. Its Applied Global Services segment offers products and services designed to enhance the performance and productivity, and reduce the environmental impact of the fab operations of semiconductor, liquid crystal displays (LCDs), and solar P V manufacturers. The company?s Display segment provides products for manufacturing thin film transistor LCDs for televisions, personal computers (PCs), tablet PCs, smartphones, and other consumer-oriented electronic applications. Its Energy and Environmental Solutions segment offers manufacturing systems for the generation and conservation of energy, as well as manufacturing solutions for wafer-based crystalline silicon applications. This segment also provides roll-to-roll vacuum Web coating systems for deposition of a range of films on flexible substrates for functional, aesthetic, or optical properties; and roll-to-roll machine for depositing ultra-thin aluminum films for flexible packaging applications. The company serves manufacturers of semiconductor wafers and chips, flat panel LCDs, solar PV cells and modules, and other electronic devices. Applied Materi! als, Inc.. was founded in 1967 and is headquartered in Santa Clara, California.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Sue Chang and Ben Eisen]

  Applied Materials Inc. (AMAT)  shares rose 3%. Analysts at Jefferies initiated the stock at a buy with a price target of $28.

• [By Steven Russolillo]

  Applied Materials(AMAT) reported it swung to a second-quarter profit of $262 million, or 21 cents a share, from a loss of $129 million, or 11 cents a share, a year ago. On an adjusted basis, AMAT earned 28 cents a share. AMAT shares gained 3.3% in extended trading.

• [By Erin McCarthy]

  Applied Materials Inc.(AMAT) on Thursday reported a 19% jump in second-quarter sales, while swinging to a profit and posting its best operating margin in nearly three years. Applied predicted that sales in the current quarter would rise another 13% to 19% from the year-earlier period.

• [By Vanina Egea] ican corporation, based in Santa Clara, Calif., in the famous Silicon Valley. It provides chipmakers with the latest equipment, and tools to make state-of-the-art chips for our everyday mobile devices (processors, flash memories, computers memories, etc.) and to improve semiconductor factory efficiency. It also produces equipment for the manufacturing of flat panel displays and solar energy (solar cells and energy efficient glass) equipment.

  It has four divisions. Silicon Systems Group, handles the designs, manufacturing, and sales of equipment used to fabricate semiconductor chips. Applied Global Services maintains, services and optimizes customers' display, semiconductors and solar fabs. The Displays division designs, manufactures and sells equipment used in flat panel display fabrication. And finally, Energy and Environmental Solutions designs, manufactures and handles the sales on equipment necessary in the fabrication of solar cell! s, modules! and flexible electronics.

  The company provides the manufacturers it sells its equipment to with services to improve the fabrication process, helping them become more efficient.

  Advantages and Moat on AMAT

  The thing is, Applied Materials doesn't specialize in one sector or portion of the production line like most its competitors do. The company has everything a chipmaker needs to fabricate a chip from scratch, like a Home Depot (HD) for chipmakers, competing in nearly every segment of the market. And as the chip industry continues to grow, the company continuously develops more and more complex equipment to meet the needs of a still flourishing market.

  Applied Materials should start to benefit from the adoption of new mobile devices. In the words of the company's new CEO, Gary Dickerson (former president of Varian, a well-known chip equipment company acquired by Applied on 2012), tablets and smartphones nowadays generate more revenue than all the other semiconductors' electronics combine

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