Sonic Innovations SNCI Q2 report

Here is the results from PR NewsWire. To summarize:

Net sales from continuing operations for the second quarter 2007 of $30.4 million were up 16.4% over the $26.1 million for the second quarter of 2006.

North American sales of $11.8 million in the second quarter 2007 increased 8.2% from 2006. European sales of $12.8 million in the second quarter 2007 increased 33.1% from the second quarter 2006. Rest-of-world sales of $5.8 million in the second quarter 2007 were up 3.9% from 2006.

I am listening to its conference call, it seems the Q3 and 2007 outlook are good.

On a separate matter, Ninetowns (NINE), the stock I traded a few times, dropped to $3 level as its operation continued to deteriorate, and its CEO and main shareholder (appears) cashing money at the expense of small shareholders. I’m glad I no longer have that. In my mind, management integrity is as important as management competence, if not more.

Lots of conference call

I need to listen to the following calls because I hold those stocks.

Today: CROX, I don’t want to speculate on this one…too much buzz lately.

Next week
07/31: SNIC, have no idea.

08/01: SBUX, the expecation is more reasonable this time, I don’t expect block buster quarter but I think they should be OK (better than PNRA, maybe?)

08/02: GSIT, they blew up their very first quarter since IPO last time, hope they don’t disappoint this time. Their biggest customer, Cisco, has been strong lately.

The week after:
08/06: MR, I expect solid growth in the US sales; I have no idea about China.

08/07: HLYS, street expectation is low; they blew last CC because of the secondary offering thing. I expect some upside surprise.

Sonic Innovations SNCI

Bought a little SNCI today. It’s a company makes hearing aids. I read it from Kiplinger’s Personal Finance August Issue in the weekend. Did a little research including reading its annual report. This is my speculative play, I put my bet on it because I think some of the positives include:

1) The company sold its unprofitable unit (Tympany) recently. Meanwhile, it’s trying to expand distribution and retail channel.

2) US baby boomers (people born from 1946 to 1964) are near retiring age. As we know, older people are big customers of hearing aids.

3) There are lots of consolidations in this industry lately.

I don’t take this is a China play, although on my flight from PVG to ORD in the May, I met an engineer who works for an OEM supplier for hearing aids (in Suzhou). It seems hearing aids market is at infancy stage in China.

I also sold the NINE (Ninetowns) today: took my second loss this year, the first is XFML.