06 Jan 4 Stocks to Buy for Higher Returns!
Technology Industry has been focused on minimizing the impact of COVID-19 and marching ahead with its innovations and breakthroughs, be it critical components for semiconductors, cutting-edge data analytics or programmatic advertising.
We take a look at some tech companies that are impervious to the scare and offer a very attractive upside in the long run. These companies not only have an excellent potential for growth and returns but have major upcoming catalysts such as contract awards, new products and services, growing client base or even global expansion plans lined up for the future.
Cerus Corporation (NASDAQ: CERS)
Market Cap: $1.07B; Current Share Price: 6.22 USD
Data by YCharts
Cerus aims to become the preeminent global blood products company through its proprietary INTERCEPT Blood System. The Company is developing and supplying cutting-edge technologies and pathogen-protected blood components, to hospitals and blood suppliers worldwide. Cerus offers its products and services in the United States, Canada, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Africa and Latin America.
The Company’s Products consist of the Intercept Blood System – Platelets, which has been commercialized in the U.S as well as other major geographies. The Company is refiling for a CE mark under the Medical Device Regulation commencing in 2021. In addition, a post- post-approval haemovigilance study is currently enrolling patients in the U.S.
Cerus was granted an FDA approval of the premarket approval supplement (PMA) to produce PRCFC for its INTERCEPT Blood System—Plasma. The Company is currently engaged in two crucial Phase 3 clinical trials, known as the RedeS and ReCePI studies and is enrolling patients in the U.S. There are plans to initiate additional studies in the U.S, besides preparing a submission for its INTERCEPT Blood System—Red Blood Cells in Europe in 2021. Furthermore, the Company received an FDA approval for INTERCEPT Blood System—Cryoprecipitation in November 2020, which was introduced through a limited launch in the U.S in 2021, with plans of a national commercialization in 2022.
In May 2021, Cerus landed a contract with Canadian Blood Services, one of the two blood operators in the country, which caters to all provinces and territories except Quebec, for provision of pathogen inactivated platelets in Canada. The services were to be gradually implemented in the Ottawa region in Fall 2021, based on approval from Health Canada for extension of pathogen reduced platelets’ shelf life from five days to seven, after which the company is looking at broader implementation.
The Company reported a 44 % growth in total revenue for Q3,2021 at $42.1 million as compared to $29.1 million for the same quarter the previous year. Product revenue stood at $36.1 Million, an increase of 53%, when compared to $26.6 million in Q3,2020. The figures led to an upward revision of Full-Year 2021 Product Revenue Guidance to $127-129 Million from an earlier guidance of $118 million to $122 million, denoting over 38% to 40% increase over full year 2020 reported product revenue.
The Company is buoyed by the increased adoption of INTERCEPT Blood System for platelets and plasma, which have surpassed 10 million in cumulative sales globally since their commercial launch. The Company seeks to capitalize on the FDA’s guidance document on bacterial risk control strategies for platelet collection and transfusion that calls for FDA-approved pathogen reduction as a means of compliance.
iRobot Corporation (NASDAQ: IRBT)
Market Cap: $1.78B; Current Share Price: 66.19 USD
Data by YCharts
iRobot is a leading consumer robotic manufacturer that designs and develops robots for home use such as its award –winning Roomba® Vacuuming Robot and the Braava® family of mopping robots. In addition, the Company is also developing technologies for human-robot interaction and mapping and navigation. The Company was formed in 1990 by MIT roboticists Colin Angle, Helen Greiner and Rodney Brooks and launched their iRobot Packbot in 2001, for use in disaster response and life-saving missions.
The Company’s flagship product Roomba® Vacuuming Robot was launched in 2001, followed by the launch of the Roomba 980 vacuuming robot and the Braava® jet mopping robot in 2015-2016. The root educational coding robot was added to its product line in 2019 and is part of a multi-faceted educational outreach initiative namely iRobot Stem that offers educational robots, coupled with online resources and classroom demonstrations. In August 2020, the Company unveiled its iRobot Genius™ Home Intelligence platform that offers customers greater control of their robots along with a wide range of personalized cleaning features.
iRobot Ventures, supports early-stage companies that are developing products that fit in with its strategic interests, such as consumer technology, cloud services and infrastructure, localization and mapping and artificial intelligence, by providing access to engineering, operational and networking resources.
Furthermore, the Company introduced the Roomba® j7+ Robot Vacuum with Genius™ 3.0 Home Intelligence in September 2021, which is powered by the iRobot Genius 3.0 and features PrecisionVision Navigation. iRobot has also extended its subscription-based iRobot Select membership program to include the recent additions to its product line. The Company also registered a 60% increase in customers who opted-in for its digital communications in Q3,2021, as compared to Q3,2020.
Image Source: Company
As per its Q3,2021 financial results, the Company’s revenue grew by 7% to $440.7 million as compared to $413.1 million in the third quarter of 2020, led by 15% growth in EMEA, 5% growth in the U.S., and 2% in Japan over the prior year period. Mid-tier and premium robots registered a growth of 14 percent and accounted for nearly 87 percent of the total quarterly robot sales. In addition, the revenue through e-commerce rose by 8% over the third quarter of 2020 and represented 60% of third-quarter 2021 revenue. The Company also witnessed a growth of 13% in direct-to-consumer (DTC) revenue, which stood at $40 million.
However, iRobot is likely to experience continuing challenges in the supply-chain environment such as chip shortage, shipping delays and logistical issues that have negatively impacted its ability to fulfill orders and increased its costs.
Pubmatic, Inc (NASDAQ: PUBM)
Market Cap: $1.49B; Current Share Price: 28.94 USD
Data by YCharts
The Company is emerging as a strong player in the digital advertising business and generates over 134 billion daily ad impressions and more than 1.1 trillion advertiser bids per day by using a differentiated approach to delivering monetization and greater ROI for its clients. PubMatic develops and creates omnichannel monetization opportunities through purpose-built solutions that leverage proprietary algorithms and valuable insights across devices and ad formats.
PubMatic’s programmatic advertising solutions for Publishers include enterprise management tools for header bidding, private marketplace management solutions, real-time bidding technologies and ad-quality monitoring that are customizable according to customer requirements. The Company is emerging as a front runner for digital media buying strategies through a plethora of solutions such invalid traffic vetting, setting up targeted and controlled campaigns ensuring high match rates and improved ROI on advertising.
The growth of digital advertising has revolutionized the scale and reach of marketing, compelling publishers and ad-developers to seek advanced solutions for reaching their target audience and maximizing monetization opportunities. PubMatic understands this need and offers support in the form of PMP and PMP-G, troubleshooting and optimization strategies.
As per its Q3,2021 financial results, the Company reported record revenues of $58.1 million, which rose by 54% over $37.8 million in Q3,2020. In addition, GAAP net income stood at $13.5 million or $0.24 per diluted share as compared to $6.2 million, or $0.10 per diluted share in Q3,2020. Moreover, revenue from mobile and omnichannel video, including CTV, increased by 64% year-over-year and constituted 65% of total revenue. Revenue from CTV alone grew more than seven times over Q3,2020 and the Company was able to programmatically monetize CTV inventory from 154 publishers as against 114 publishers in the second quarter of 2021.
The Company has revised its financial outlook for Q4,2021 and now expects revenues to be in the range of $74 million to $76 million, while the full year 2021 revenues are likely to be $225 million to $227 million as compared to earlier estimates of $205 million to $209 million, denoting a 51% to 53% Y-o-Y growth.
On the Product front, the Company’s OPENWRAP: PREBID As Service is pre-integrated with Identity Hub and is one of PubMatic’s leading ID management tools being used by more than 100 clients globally. PubMatic is seeking to revolutionize OTT, through its programmatic OTT solutions, which can maximize yield, optimize advertising and deliver TV-like experience by reducing latency and buffering. OpenWrap SDK, a header-bidding solution is lightweight and supports Prebid. One SDK can help integrate with demand partners, is scalable, runs auctions in under 200 ms and most importantly use cloud-based User interface to manage demand partners.
The Company’s Audience Encore is a data platform that brings together first-party data publishers and advertisers. The data is uploaded by data providers on the platform, using a deal id and can transact programmatically in private or open marketplaces.
PubMatic is experiencing significant tailwinds in the form of rising global digital ad spends, which are likely to grow from $325 billion in 2019 to $526 billion in 2024, at a 10 percent CAGR (Source: eMarketer, Magna Global report commissioned by PubMatic). Two main factors driving this growth are an increasing number of customers who are joining the digital bandwagon and the rising amount of time spent on their devices. The report also shows that the global mobile programmatic ad spend will increase from $102 billion in 2019 to $175 Billion in 2025, registering a 11 percent CAGR.
The Company believes that the burgeoning demand for programmatic header bidding, the growing popularity of OTT/CTV and rising concerns over consumer data privacy will drive its growth. Furthermore, PubMatic uses cloud-based infrastructure for all its digital advertising solutions and has adopted a transparent business model with utmost importance to security and privacy. The Company has emerged as a leader in buyer ad spend consolidation based on its attributes such as superior monetization and omnichannel platform.
Connected TV(CTV) spend is estimated to be worth over 14 billion USD by 2023 as per Statista. CTV advertising spend is gradually increasing, with CTV now viewed as the future of digital advertising. Pubmatic is staking its claim with an increased focus on differentiated products that cater specifically to this market.
PROS Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: PRO)
Market Cap: $1.45B; Current Share Price: 32.59 USD
Data by YCharts
PROS Holdings provides software applications that simplify and optimize the sales and customer experience in the digital economy. The Company leverages cutting-edge AI solutions to address the needs of omnichannel buyers by providing an integrated platform that encompasses over 30 years of data science experience.
The Company has more than 20 patented Algorithms that help design solutions for enhancing every shopping and selling experience. PROS has a presence in over 60 countries across the U.S, Europe and other regions.
According to a report by IDC, the worldwide spending on digital transformation products and services is likely to reach $2.3 trillion in 2023, growing at a CAGR of 17.1% from 2019 to 2023.
Companies are now using data analytics, to generate actionable insights that will lead to better customer understanding, improved engagement and loyalty. The evolution of technology is also contributing to the rising popularity of digitization, with Artificial Intelligence, Machine learning, IoT and blockchain simplifying the complexities of Digital Transformation.
Data Analytics is bringing about exciting new changes in numerous fields such as agriculture, manufacturing, retail and healthcare to name a few. Many fields stand to gain from the application of meaningful insights provided by machine driven analysis of complex disparate data, available through various sources.
The implementation of machine learning and artificial intelligence is making skimming through large information sources even easier. The evolution of this technology enables companies to use this information for crucial decision-making involving stakeholders, employees and customers.
An increasing number of organizations are now focusing on their digital customer experience which has opened up numerous avenues for marketing communication and customer engagement. However, the most crucial component of any such marketing strategy is the availability of customer data and critical insights into consumption and usage patterns. This information is a literal goldmine and can act as the foundation for a company’s marketing and customer outreach efforts, it can propel cross-channel marketing campaigns, used for customizing mobile solutions and offerings to customer groups and most importantly to promote engagement and loyalty.
The PROS platform integrates multiple facets of the selling process including development, management and pricing, for consumption by internal systems of an organization, leading to personalized and expedited delivery of products and services through the customer’s preferred sales channels.
The Company is aiming to capitalize on the exponential growth in eCommerce due to the Covid-19 pandemic, which in turn has put pressure on organizations to deliver a uniform customer experience through digital and conventional channels. PROS is aiding companies in making a recovery from the negative effect of the pandemic in numerous fields such as Airlines, Automotive, B2B services, Healthcare, Technology and Retail among others. PROS is serving some of the leading organizations of the world such as Siemens, Airbus, AVIS, Nestle, Merck, Adobe and Lufthansa to name a few.
The total addressable market that the Company is targeting is worth over $30 billion and encompasses industries such as Automotive & Industrial, Food & Consumables, Healthcare and Travel. Most recently PROS acquired EveryMundo, a tech-vendor that makes software for airlines, in a deal worth $80 million in cash. The acquisition is expected to contribute over $14.5 mm to the annual recurring revenue (ARR) of PROS. The Company had previously acquired Vayant and Travelaer in the airline space.
Disclosure: I/we have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours.
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References
https://innodata.com/innodata-expands-ai-capabilities-to-support-robotics-initiatives/
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