Audience (ADNC, Financial) reported disappointing results in the recently reported fourth quarter. The company’s performance fell badly on every key metric. The share price has also fallen soon after the company reported a net loss which scared few investors away from the stock. If we look at the 5 year trend, the stock price has fallen and has never reached to the levels it reached in the initial years of its listing. This down trend might again lead investors to snatch their funds out of the stock. However, the management is making some good moves to regain its lost glory.Â
A strong performance
Audience’s quarterly revenue amountedv to $17.2 million, which is a decline by a big margin when compared to $33.1 million from the same quarter last year. The company had been underperforming and the investors’ expectations for a good performance felt shy when Audience’s net loss widened to $45.5 million. Looking at these loss trends, it will be tough for the company to see an uplift in the performance soon. But the recent new additions and association with other companies might give it some hope of a better performance in future.
There are some bright signs which are showing some positive growth for Audience in future. Audience has acquired Sensor Platforms and it thinks that it will be a good support to Audience in future. With this the company has become a pioneer in Multisensory processing company with best-in-class voice and motion processing capability. The company expects this to be a solid growth driver for it in 2015. Besides this, the company is also entering new markets which are showing good growth potential. Under this, Audience is seeing bright opportunities in TV and wearable segment.
New products
Audience is bringing in new products in the market to attract more investors to the stock which may lead it to better market share. The company has recently announced its first advanced voice software product. With this new product Audience is targeting mainly x86 PCs, tablets and all-in-one. This will ramp up the sales of these devices as it delivers improved voice over IP capability with intelligent key click removal, improved speech recognition performance and innovative new features like 360 voice. This is a good product by Audience and it is being evaluated by many OEMs for the upcoming devices which is a good sign for it and will definitely improve its market presence.
China is also one of the potential markets for Audience. It is seeing good business opportunities by leading Chinese OEMs such as ZTE Star 2, Coolpad Bodun and Meizu's MX4 Pro which are incorporating its eS704 always-on advanced voice processor with cutting edge voice key technology that instantly wakes up the phone when the user speaks a keyword.
In addition, Audience is also seeing significant demand for the strong price performance with eS754 Smart Codec in this market. With the formation of the Smart Voice Alliance in China, Audience along with ZTE, AutoNavi, Baidu and Nuance are working together to integrate and align existing voice technologies and resources. There is a key opportunity for Audience in this area as with this it can use its ability to implement more natural and compelling voice user experience across device, network and cloud.
