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Audience -- >>> Audience Looks to Get Past Apple Debacle with Huawei, Others



By Tiernan Ray

Jan 8, 2013




http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2013/01/08/audience-looks-to-get-past-apple-debacle-with-huawei-others/?mod=yahoobarrons




Audience's booth at Monday night's Digital Experience event at the Consumer Electronics Show.

You may recall the drama that was Audience (ADNC), the boutique maker of audio chips that used to supply noise-filtering circuitry for Apple's (AAPL) iPhone.

Back on September 6th, Audience said that Apple decided not to use its chips for the then-newly-released iPhone 5 after having been a customer for the iPhone 4 and 4S. The stock promptly plunged by more than half the day it announced, and went on to drop by 71% in the days that followed.

Lately, however, Audience's shares have been on the rebound, more than doubling from their 52-week low of $5.51.

Last night I met up with the company at the “Digital Experience” preview event for journalists attending the Consumer Electronics Show, at the MGM Grand hotel in Las Vegas. Audience is eager to tell the story of how they are in lots of other devices, including the two smartphones introduced here yesterday by China's Huawei, the “Ascend Mate” 6.1-inch screen phablet and the “Ascend D2” 5-inch smartphone.

Huawei's Ascend D2 smartphone.

Both of those machines feature home-made “Emotion” microprocessors designed by Huawei but use Audience's chips to suppress background noise in order to improve call clarity. Huawei has not indicated when the two will be coming to the U.S., but Audience gave me the impression they think Huawei are aggressively pursuing the market here and so we may yet hear something positive.

Huawei's Ascend Mate phablet uses Audience noise-cancellation circuitry.

Audience expressed a certain shrug of the shoulders when I inquired about the Apple matter. Apple is apt to go their own way without explaining, seemed to be the perspective of this one-time supplier. They were eager to point out that Samsung Electronics's (005930KS) Galaxy S III, which does use Audience's chips, has gotten high marks from some reviewers for having better call quality.

I expect to check in with Audience later this week for more perspective on where the company is headed.

Audience shares today are down 16 cents, or 1.14%, at $11.16.

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