Kvaal cut his overall handset unit shipment forecast for last quarter and for this year and next year, based on his expectation that feature phones are in the process of a long-term decline at the hands of smartphones, and to account for lower sales of Nokia‘s (NOK) older phones based on “Symbian” and lower sales by Research in Motion (RIMM).

Kvaal’s overall handset forecast this quarter falls to 436 milion units from 443 million, while this year is cut to 1.7 billion units from 1.75 billion, and next year’s is cut to 1.84 billion from 1.88 billion. His smartphone estimate this quarter rises to 155 million units from 151 million, while his estimate for the year goes to 660 million from 669 million and his 2013 view goes to 862 million from 845 million.

The feature phone market peaked at 1.14 billion units shipped in 2010, dropping to 1.11 billion last year. He thinks it’ll drop another 6% in 2012.

As for smartphones, the middle of that product category in terms of price is rising: ‘While the overall unit volume of the market is close to expectations, the mix has shifted materially. Smartphones represented 35% of the market in 4Q11, up from 22% in 4Q10. This increase is primarily a function of growth in the mid tier smartphone market. Nokia shipped nearly 90 million Symbian phones in 2011 – few if any of which sell for more than $300. The year also saw the emergence of Huawei and ZTE as meaningful players in the smartphone market. This was aided partially, though not exclusively, by strength in the China smartphone market. The Chinese carriers are increasing the amount of handset subsidies they are offering to the benefit of Chinese brands and the detriment of Nokia, among others. Huawei and ZTE’s success, however, is broader than their domestic markets.

Wireless chip vendor Qualcomm (QCOM) is doing well because average selling prices are holding firm or even rising, he writes. Qualcomm could deliver EPS of $4.10 to $4.20 this calendar year. That would be well above the $2.79 cents the street is modeling for the four quarters of 2012.

Nokia, on which Kvaal has an Overweight rating and an $8 price target, is being valued based on further downside, with investors failing to value the recovery.  “We continue to see Nokia working through its difficult transition and expect estimates to bottom in early 2012 before improving later in the year.”

But the overall trend, as Kvaal outlines it, is Apple (AAPL)  and Samsung Electronics (SSNLF) gaining share and everyone else trying to cope with that:

The clear conclusion from 4Q results was that Apple and Samsung continue to extend their lead at the head of the smartphone charts. Even recently strong challengers such as HTC faded in 4Q, while Nokia, RIM, LG and Sony Ericsson are struggling to mount recoveries.  Huawei and ZTE grew rapidly last year, primarily in their home market but exports also grew strongly. We continue to expect that Apple and Samsung lead the way, particularly at the high-end, but can any challenger emerge? We think the combination of Nokia and Microsoft is beginning to gain momentum and expect Windows Phone volumes to build steadily through 2012, although we only forecast that Nokia garners 10% smartphone share, well below its prior peak. We look for updates from the myriad players in the Android camp at Mobile World Congress in two weeks, in particular around Ice Cream Sandwich/Android 4.0. Finally, we believe the delay until RIM launches BB10 leaves it with a sizable hole in its portfolio.

The company said revenue declined quarter-to-quarter because of floods that hampered drive production for PCs last year, and crimped PC sales, affecting graphics processor unit shipments. The company’s sales of mobile processors, its “Tegra” line, were held back as vendors awaited the newest model, Tegra 3.

All of that was pretty much known already last month when the company cut its outlook for the quarter’s revenue. Management reiterated the matter on tonight’s call:

After five consecutive quarters of sequential revenue growth, fourth quarter revenue was negatively impacted by the global shortage caused by the flooding in Thailand which affected the mainstream GPU segment more than anticipated. Shipments by some PC OEMs were reduced, and higher prices con trained the PC OEMs in their assistance. The mobile business declined more rapidly than expected ahead of devices based on the Tegra 3 processor ramping into production in 2012.

Nvidia’s consumer business line saw revenue fall 45.2%, quarter over quarter, to $109.8 million, in large part because of a sharper-than-expected decline in Tegra 2 revenue. For the full fiscal year, consumer revenue was up 200%.

Update: During a phone call following the conference call, CEO Jen-Hsun Huang took a moment to discuss with me the results and outlook. Asked about how far the disruption in drives would proceed, he remarked, “My guess is it will last through Q2″ and be pretty much taken care of by Q3. The company’s forecast tonight for Q1 was below the consensus estimate. I asked Huang if he thought there would be a “snap-back” in sales of PCs in Q3, and he said likely so, in his view.

Asked about the shortfall in Tegra 2 sales, I asked Huang if he was surprised by how much some customers decided to hold off until Tegra 3 became available. “Sure,” he said, but Huang added that “In the midst of a business that is still very young, having customers holding off on purchases will have a strong effect.” Huang said the situation would be improved with Tegra 3 with a larger customer base for the processor than was the case for Tegra 2.

Huang said Q3 would also be exciting, in his view, given that it will (presumably) see the introduction of Windows 8 from Microsoft (MSFT).

I asked Huang whether he thought the company had adequately articulated the value of the quad-core Tegra 3, including the ways in which it can improve performance in the most powerful smartphones and tablets.

“People don’t buy Tegra 3, they buy phones with Tegra 3 in it,” Huang responded. “If we get it in as many wonderful phones and tablets, people will get the benefit of enjoying it. And there, we have done quite a fine job. You’re going to find quite a few Tegra 3 quad-core processors in the marketplace.”

Nvidia shares are down 78 cents, or almost 5%, at $15.39 in late trading.

Revenue in the three months ended in December rose 24%, year over year, to $99.8 million, yielding EPS of 12 cents a share, excluding some costs, compared to a net loss of 2 cents a year earlier. Analysts had been modeling $99.9 million and a projected loss of 5 cents per share.

Note that the 5 cents is a GAAP estimate. There is a non-GAAP estimate available from FactSet that was for 4 cents per share, which some investors may have been using as the basis for comparison. On that basis, the company still beat, albeit by a smaller margin.

For the current quarter, the company projects revenue in a range of $102 million to $104 million, ahead of the average $102 million estimate.

For the year, the company projects revenue in a range of $435 million to $450 millon, below the average $452 million estimate.

CEO Zorik Gordon remarked that the company was poised to benefit from more small and medium businesses looking to advertise online. He said 2012 would be a year of increased investment. The company projects adjusted Ebitda this year of $17 million to $21 million, which would be up from the $15.9 million recorded last year. CFO Ross Landsbaum said that “Our 2011 revenue and Adjusted EBITDA performance demonstrates the continued scaling of our business.”

Update: In the late session, the shares are actually back to an unchanged level at $8.34. It appears the surge of 15% was an errant trade or two around quarter of 4 pm, Eastern.

Update 2: The shares continued to move around quite a bit in late trading, and the latest quote has the stock back up again by $1, or 12%, at $9.34.

Update 3: CEO Gordon was kind enough to talk with me following the company’s conference call. Gordon said that the focus of investment this year will be on hiring sales staff, especially in overseas market where the company saw a 72% rise in revenue and where there’s less competition so far for local advertising dollars. Putting more people in place in markets such as the U.K., Australia, and elsewhere overseas can have a meaningful impact on productivity, he said.

Another big focus this year will be R&D on products. Among them will be mobile versions of the user interface for the company’s service. That would allow, say, a local HVAC vendor to control their use of ReachLocal’s advertising platform from a smartphone or tablet computer. The time frame for that big push into mobile is early this year, he said.

Revenue in the three months ended in December rose 9% to $39 million, yielding a net loss per share of 69 cents.

Analysts had been expecting $37.4 million and a net loss of 63 cents.

Quarterly revenue was boosted by sales of the company’s “Roadster” model, whose worldwide shipments to date reached 2,150 in the quarter, the company said, with sales of 150 Roadsters in the quarter. Declining powertrain component sales partially offset the gain from auto sales.

For this year, the company expects revenue in a range of $550 million to $600 million, ahead of the consensus $530 million. Only 10% of that revenue will be in the first two quarters of the year, the other 90% in the second half.

The company said it initiated a development program with Daimler to make a Mercedes-Benz with a “full Tesla powertrain.”  The conversion from existing powertrain supply agreements with Daimler, and with Toyota Motor (TM), is the main cause that revenue will fall in the first half of the year from Q4′s level, along with the effect of diminished Roadster sales.

Tesla expects revenue growth to return in the latter half of the year as its “Model S” goes on sale.

Fin.

Revenue in the three months ended in January rose 7.5%, year over year, to $953 million, yielding EPS of 26 cents a share, excluding some items.

Analysts had been modeling $951 million and 19 cents a share.

CEO Jen-Hsun Huang said the company expects “continued growth ahead” based on sales of the company’s “Tegra 3” processor for smartphones and tablets, and based on “Kepler,” the company’s new graphics chip architecture.

For the current quarter, the company sees revenue in a range of $900 million to $930 million, below the average $945 million estimate.

Nvidia expects non-GAAP gross margin to fall from last quarter’s 52.5% to a range of 48.5% to 50.5%.

An expanded commentary on the quarter’s results is available in the CFO commentary document on Nvidia’s Web site.

Nvidia will host a conference call with analysts at 5 pm, Eastern time, and you can catch the webcast of it here.

Nvidia shares are down 49 cents, or 3%, at $15.68.

Fin.

Revenue in the three months ended in January rose to $1.57 billion, yielding EPS of 58 cents.

Analysts had been modeling $1.56 billion and 58 cents.

For the current quarter, the company sees revenue in a range of $1.65 billion to $1.73 billion and EPS in a range of 60 cents to 65 cents. That is ahead of the consensus $1.68 billion and 63 cents.

NetApp management will host a conference call with analysts at 5 pm, Eastern time, and you can catch the webcast of the conference call here.

Fin.

Burrows writes that Zabitsky, who runs ACI Research in Toronto, has made the argument for over a year now that competition from Samsung Electronics (SSNLF) and others will hurt profit margins, for instance, suggesting that iPhone profit margin might be cut in half to 25%. Zabitsky has a $270 price target on Apple shares.

Then again, Zabitsky has Sell ratings on most of the stocks he covers, data show, including Cisco Systems (CSCO), Marvell Technology Group (MRVL), and Juniper Networks (JNPR). He has a Hold rating on shares of Brocade Communications (BRCD), and a Strong Buy rating on shares of Emcore (EMKR.)

Shares of Apple today are down $7.58, or 1.5%, at $501.88.

Fin.

Although management continues to paint a bright future in its “engineered systems” strategy, highlighted by ongoing impressive data from its Exa product lines, these results do little to increase our confidence in what we once viewed as a potentially powerful strategy for a mega-cap name like ORCL [...] Although management has done a masterful job of restoring profitability to Sun Micro, its revenues continue to contract at a painful pace (-12% y/y in its most recent quarter, against a relatively easy comparison). While we anticipated some protracted weakness and believe the current macro-environment hasn’t helped, it is a long road to where we thought ORCL would be by now from a revenue per- spective, a trend that may not decisively turn any time soon.

Moreover, Oracle’s traditional software sales, up just 2.5% last quarter, suggest the company is losing share to SAP AG (SAP), which saw 17% revenue growth in its most quarter, he writes. Other competitors such as NetSuite (N) and International Business Machines (IBM) are also showing better software sales growth, he writes.

Fin.

Chris Davies of SlashGear writes that Amazon removed the iPad 2 from its China listings after a Chinese court ruled in favor of Proview, a Taiwanese contract manufacturer that claims rights to the trademark for the term “iPad.”

However, Davies updated the post later, writing that Apple had requested the listing pulled, though reasons were unclear:

According to Sina Tech, the decision to pull the iPad 2 from sale on the two sites was at Apple’s own request. The company apparently told the retailers that the changes were necessary “according to their sales strategy” though did not specify whether it was down to the Proview case. As for Proview’s lawyer, he claims the company has not approached online retailers about freezing iPad 2 sales, and “does not understand” Apple’s motivations for the move.

Update: Several other threads are floating around that may have prompted the dip this afternoon. An article by The Wall Street Journal’s Jonathan Cheng and Brendan Intindola today about how market strategists are in some cases cutting Apple out of their market reports because the company’s success “clouds” the assessment of the rest of the tech market. That may have prompted some rumors this afternoon that Apple’s shares could be removed from the Nasdaq 100 index.

In addition, as The Gaurdian‘s Charles Arthur reports, U.S. congressmen Henry Waxman and G.K. Butterfield, sent a letter today to Apple CEO Tim Cook requesting information about how some apps on Apple’s iOS operating system may transmit address book data without the permission of users. AllThingsD‘s John Paczkowski this afternoon reported that Apple has said it will change its terms with developers for iOS to prevent their automatically gaining access to address book data, citing remarks from an Apple spokesperson.

Apple shares have slipped back down again and are now down $6.61, or 1%, at $502.85.

Update 2: In a note to clients this afternoon, Citigroup portfolio strategist Parin Ghandi wrote to say he thinks it unlikely Apple will be removed from the Nasdaq 100, writing, “the market capitalization of AAPL is still within the published NDX methodology rules which is not likely to warrant a rebalance.” My colleague Brendan Conway has more on the whole index story here. Apple shares are down $10.58, or 2%, at $498.88.

Update 3: The stock is rallying after hours, currently up 32 cents at $498.08.

As The Wall Street Journal’s Juro Osawa writes, the shares at one point hit their lowest level ever, down 21% at ¥294. Osawa relates that Elpida had been in talks with Japan’s economic ministry and other entities about ways to address a March 22nd deadline to redeem ¥15 billion in bonds and another ¥77 billion due April. The company has ¥97 billion in cash.

Raymond James’s Hans Mosesmann, who has a “Strong Buy” rating on shares of Micron Technology (MU), writes that with Elpida accounting for 12% to 14% of the entire DRAM market, the news might be good for Micron.

It’s becoming increasingly likely in our view that Elpida (if it survives) will be at a significantly diminished capacity as a DRAM supplier, which has meaningful implications for the DRAM market (and Micron Technology specifically) going forward […] We have long argued that the current DRAM supply environment is not sustainable given that pricing is below cash cost for second tier Asian suppliers. The Elpida news supports that view, and it looks as though 2012 should be a year of positive catalysts for the DRAM supply/pricing dynamic.

Micron shares today are up 15 cents, or 2%, at $8.49.

Fin.

Checks from our colleagues in Asia indicate RIM’s supply chain orders slid 45% m/m in Jan and are expected to be flat in Feb, implying CQ1 units could be down 30% q/q as sell-through is weak. We have picked up mounting anecdotal evidence that RIM continues to lose momentum given its lack of major new phone launches until BB10 devices come out in “latter 2012,” while news flow indicates enterprises from Halliburton to U.S. agencies are adopting alternative devices.

Gelblum thinks that implies shipments of 9.6 million units, down from his prior forecast of 11.5 million units, and below the company forecast of 11 million to 12 million.

Gelblum cut this quarter’s estimate to $4.13 billion in revenue and 70 cents a share in net profit from a prior $4.72 billion and 87 cents. Consensus stands at $4.6 billion and 83 cents.

Gelblum gives the stock a “base case” price target of $15, down from a prior $18, a forward P/E of 5.5 times.

RIM shares today are up 47 cents, or 3%, at $15.04.

fin.

While Verizon “sounds normal” with respect to capes, and Sprint’s spending this year may “pick up meaningfully” as it rides the “learning curve” of its Network Vision project to renovate its network, the key actually appears to be AT&T’s passage of its budget.

Based on our conversations, we expect that vendors will shortly see a major acceleration in business with the RBOC. The Q4 baseline, of course, is very low. AT&T’s issue is that it’s 2012 capex budget hasn’t been ratified internally and passed down to the different areas of the business. Vendors aren’t allowed to ship against their orders books until the budget is passed (expected to be “any day now”).

Investors probably aren’t fully appreciating the lift equipment vendors may get as a result:

Our sense is that current investor expectations are quite low with respect to the possibility of a significant ramp in North American capital spending anytime soon […] The December quarter was so brutal with the RBOC and there’s still uncertainty around when they pass the capex budget and start spending in Q1. As such, we think there’s a significant gap between perception and reality on capital spending in North America right now. Moreover, we see a strong likelihood of upward Q1/Q2 earnings revisions for vendors with major exposures to AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint. Vendors with the largest exposures to these carriers include Alcatel-Lucent, Adtran, Ciena, Juniper, and Tellabs. Our favorite play is Juniper.

Juniper is the only stock among the equipment makers that Notter rates a Buy, assigning the others mentioned an Underperform rating.

Fin.

The takeaway is that Cook’s remarks on the prospect of a dividend — he didn’t commit to anything but indicated a willingness to consider all options — and his discussion of the AppleTV product, are tantalizing hints at future actions.

For his part, Shope, who has a Buy rating on Apple shares and a $600 price target, in a note to clients this morning, writes, “We viewed the presentation as a positive catalyst for the stock […] The company appeared remarkably confident in its incremental growth opportunities, and management seemed increasingly willing to explore a dividend or buyback.”

Shope went through each of the points brought up in the discussion:

• “Product innovation remans the core strategy and the company remains focused on making a select few products”
• Mr. Cook noted that supplier relationships and employee working conditions remain an area that the company will continue to aggressively monitor, and the company will remain transparent about any violations it uncovers
• With only a 24% share of the smartphone market and less than 9% of the handset market (in a peak seasonal quarter), Apple stressed that the size of the mobility market can field far more growth.
• Emerging market growth is taking off beyond the iPhone because of the “halo effect” from the iPhone, driving Mac and iPad sales.
• Mr. Cook continues to believe that the tablet market will ultimately exceed the size of the PC market.
• Siri and iCloud are “profound platform enhancements” and “Siri has proven to be a significant factor in driving adoption of the new iPhone 4S.”
• “Pointing to the company’s historic judicious and deliberate use of cash, Mr. Cook asked for investor patience as the company decides on what is in the best interest of shareholders.”

Regarding the discussion of AppleTV, Shope reiterated his own view that Apple “may be preparing to introduce a television in late 2012, early 2013″ given that “Mr. Cook hinted that they would need something more to go after this market more aggressively.”

R.W. Baird’s William Power, who has an Outperform rating on Apple, raised his price target to $600 from $550, “on what we continue to view as an attractive valuation and, in our view, the increased likelihood of a dividend.”

Apple’s CEO Tim Cook indicated that the board of directors continues to focus more time on the use of cash, which seems to increase the likelihood of a dividend and/or stock buyback. We continue to believe that even a conservative 2% dividend yield could help attract an additional wave of investors.

Jefferies & Co.’s Peter Misek, who has a Buy rating on Apple shares and a $599 price target, writes that “Tim Cook hinted that a bigger successor to the Apple TV is coming.”

“Also, he noted that capital allocation plans are actively being discussed. We continue to expect a dividend announcement later this year.”

Regarding the dividend, Misek elaborates:

On the dividend front Cook asked for time as the company likes to approach its capital allocation decisions “judiciously.” We believe it confirms our suspicion that a dividend is coming in H2:CY12.

Update: In a Bloomberg Television segment today, Robert Doll, chief strategist with BlackRock, was asked about a dividend prospect at Apple. He said “there is no dividend, positive free cash flow, lots of cash, so they can give us a dividend, raise it over time. With Apple, probably it’s just a few months.”

“We believe investor sentiment on DELL shares has gotten too positive and arguably complacent,” writes Wu

We believe DELL remains in a tough competitive position sandwiched between lower-cost players (Lenovo and Acer) and AAPL encroaching more in its core PC business as Macs and iPads gain share […] In addition, we see HPQ, IBM, and CSCO competing more in its core market in small-medium business (SMB) and servers. We view DELL as a company in transition that needs to take more aggressive steps. A key risk to our rating is if the equity market continues to be favorable, causing a further upside bias in shares.

Wu notes that with estimates for this calendar year projecting a 4% EPS decline for Dell, the company’s numbers don’t look as good as peers such as International Business Machines (IBM) or Apple (AAPL) or Cisco Systems (CSCO).

Dell shares today are up 6 cents at $18.10.

Fin.

Greenlight added a 3-milion-share position in Yahoo (YHOO) and a 2.9-million share position in Research in Motion Limited (RIMM). He also bought 14 million shares of Dell (DELL). His position in Microsoft (MSFT) was basically unchanged, but he added to his Apple (AAPL) position, ending the quarter with about 1.5 million shares, up from 1.3 million.

Fin.

Revenue in the three months ended in December rose almost 60% to $311 million, yielding EPS of 5 cents a share.

Analysts had been modeling $301 million and 3 cents a share.

For the full year, the company projects bookings in a range of $1.36 billion to $1.45 billion, up from last year’s $1.16 billion.

The company sees EPS in a range of 24 cents to 28 cents, which is above the average 23-cent estimate.

Fin.

Cook remarked that Apple’s revenue from greater Asia, India, Africa and other emerging market territories had expanded from $1.4 billion to $22 billion.

Shope asked Cook what prompted explosive growth in the iPad.

“This 55-million is something no one would have guessed,” said Cook, referring to the total shipment volume to date in just under two years.

It took 22 years to sell 55 million Macs, it took us three years to sell that many iPhones. The product is absolutely incredible, and the pace of innovation on the product has been incredible. And the ecosystem. There are 170,000 apps optimized for iPad. But the reason that it’s so large in my view is that the iPad has stood on the shoulders of everything that came before it. The App Store was already in play. People were trained on the iPhone, so they were already familiar with multi-touch. It’s amazing how the product has captured so many people … You’re using one! My mother is using one. I go to the gym and my trainer is using one. It’s the fastest adoption across a wide range that I’ve ever seen before. It quickly became 80% to 90% of my work was done on the iPad. Many of us thought at Apple that the tablet market would become larger than the PC market, and it was just a matter of time before that occurred. I see the incredible rate and pace of innovation among developers. If you invited everyone today to come to this room to discuss the coolest PC apps today, you might not have anyone in the meeting! This is where the innovation is. I love the Mac, and the Mac can still grow, but I strongly believe that the tablet market will surpass the unit sales of the PC market, and it’s just a matter of the rate and speed with which that happens. It’s too much of a change for it not to.

Asked about pricing as a factor, Cook responded that tablets might sell units on price, but that the experience upon taking the product home would be despair. You feel good taking your wallet out to pay for it. But when you get it home and you use it, you don’t remember, Oh! I got a good deal! Because you hate it.

Amazon.com (AMZN), said Cook, is a “different kind of competitor.”

I think they’ll sell a lot of units. I think they have and they will, but I think the customers we’re designing for are not going to be satisfied with a limited-function product. I think the catalyst in the tablet market will be innovation, and going to the next frontier. As long as people invent their own stuff, I love competition.

Cook said iPad has cannibalized some Mac sales. “I don’t predict the demise of the PC industry. I don’t subscribe to that. I do believe it’s cannibalizing more Windows PCs, there’s many more of them to cannibalize. I think tablets in general will cannibalize PCs.”

“Maybe, i think politicians do this, it forces you to sharpen your message and say who you are. It will be good for the PC market because it will force them to innovate. Out of that I think there will be a strong PC industry. I just think in units the tablet market will be larger than the PC market.

Shope asked Cook why the company is using its cash “sparingly.”

Cook took exception to that phrasing.

We’ve spent billions on acquisitions, including the acquisition of IP. We’ve spent billions on retail. We’ve spent billions on infrastructure for the App Store and such. But, yes, we still have a lot. I guess I would say we’ve been judicious. We spend money like it’s our last penny. I think shareholders want us to do that. I don’t think they want us to act like our rich. And we’ve never felt that way.

“I’m not religious about holding it. We’re in very active discussions at the board level about what to do. We’re not going to go have a toga party and do something outlandish. People don’t have to worry it’s going to burn a hole in our pocket.”

When shop asked Cook if the cash balance was “inefficient,” he conceded Apple has more cash than needed to run the business. “I only ask for a little patience.”

Shope asked about the AppleTV product and what Cook’s intentions are for the product and the market, and why it is still a “hobby.”

We don’t want to send a message to you and our other shareholders that we think it is as big as our other markets. We don’t want to send a signal we think the leg of that stool is of equal length as the other [product categories at Apple.]

Although Apple has sold 3 million units of the product, and Cook notes satisfaction is “off the charts,” he said the company has thought it would need something “more main market” to have the product be at a larger volume.

When Shope asked Cook about iCloud and Siri, Cook said iCloud followed the “media hub” idea of the last decade for the Mac, but “iCloud turns that on its head.”

You and I live off of multiple devices. It’s no longer a great customer experience to have to sync your iPad to your Mac, and then sync to your iPhone, and then resync your iPad because there’s something you forgot. All of a sudden your life has gotten so much easier. We now have 100 million users of iCloud. There’s obviously more we can do with it. For years, you used a physical keyboard and you used a mouse for input. You did that for a long, long time. There wasn’t a great deal of revolution. All of a sudden Apple comes out with multi-touch on the Mac Pros. Then extended that in phones and tablets. Well, Siri is another profound change in input. It’s something we’ve always dreamed of. It’s sort of like having a video call with FaceTime. Ah ha! It can work. These are not things where we run separate P&Ls because we don’t believe in that. We’ve always run just one P&L and don’t worry about it. We just want people to have a great experience. But I think these are things you will look back on and talk with your grandkids about that are profound.

When Shope asked Cook what his role as CEO is about, Cook reflected on Apple’s culture, which he said he did not want to change,

Steve drilled in all of us over many years that the company should revolve around great products. We should stay extremely focused on a few things rather than that we do so many that we don’t do them well. And we should only go into markets where we can do good for society, not just sell a lot of products. These are the things that I focus on. We’re always focused on the future. We don’t sit and think about how great things were yesterday. Those are the things I’m holding onto. It’s a privilege to be a part of it.

The authors, citing anonymous sources, write that Amazon hopes to reach 7 million to 10 million in the next 12 months.

Prime gives subscribers benefits such as free shipping and all-you-can eat video rentals.

fin.

Swisher, citing anonymous sources close to discussions, writes that “Teams from all sides were just in Hong Kong this week in the latest round of discussions, which seems to have spurred the new issues, which include over valuation.”

Sources tell Swisher the discussions have “completely stopped” and blame Yahoo! for “suddenly shifting course on what they want from the arrangement,” with the sticking point being Yahoo!’s desire to avoid onerous taxes with a “cash-rich split-off.”

The Benchmark Company’s Clay Moran, who has a Hold rating on Yahoo! shares and a $17 price target, writes this afternoon that the deal value mentioned by Swisher of $17 billion is below expectations till now of perhaps $18 billion.

He doesn’t hold out much hope, and sees the tax-free aspect of a deal being the main appeal for Yahoo! shareholders:

We believe the tax savings are the main source of potential upside in Yahoo’s stock. It is certainly possible that this is a temporary impasse. But we remain with a Hold rating as the complex nature of this deal and the past performance of Yahoo’s Board both limit our confidence.

Fin.

In a companion note, Chandra laid out his view of the industry today. He thinks recent reports by his competitors misrepresent the state of the industry as either too good or too bad to be true:

We find Street talk of “junk rally” in stocks as well as “100% capacity utilization” to be nonsensical. Reality is the solar PV industry is hanging on to survival economics (trading on x TBV), and is on a recovery mode despite on- going market challenges in Germany, U.S., China, and the lag effect of cost elasticity in catching up to the dynamics of price elasticity. Given the state of flux, stocks will continue to trade manically – rips/pull backs are to be expected.

Chandra was alluding to a report by Deutsche Bank’s Vishal Shah, last week, who was upbeat on manufacturers’ capacity utilization, and a prior skeptical report by Jefferies & Co.’s Jesse Pichel, who has called the run-up in solar stocks this year a “junk rally.”

In actuality, writes Chandra, solar energy demand is responding “strongly” to “lower pricing as projects returns become attractive.”

But costs of producers have yet to catch up with falling selling prices, meaning that “we do not expect profits for most c-Si players until Q4 2012,” he writes.

As for Yingli, it’s better positioned than others, but it needs to attend to its finances, he thinks:

Industry profit dynamic will be no different on Yingli Green, but its cost structure guidance at $0.75/Wp to $0.80/Wp by 2H12 (similar to Trina Solar) positions it well, and if delivered makes it a key beneficiary in a cost catch up and/or a price stabilization scenario. […] While Yingli Green will likely deliver on the cost gains, its balance sheet needs repair to position itself competitively. With debt/capital at ~60% vs. Trina Solar at ~45%, Yingli Green may have to exit polysilicon business to emerge as a strong survivor/competitor in improved demand/industry consolidation scenarios.