Margins Quotations | Page 4

For Kodak, 2006 remains challenging, with apparently higher-than-expected (film sales) declines, which will pressure margins and earnings.

For low-priced, commodity-type products, automation is the most realistic venue as profit margins dictate that companies deploy LTC (lowest total cost of ownership) options, which are typically voice-automated, Web self-service, or offshore. For higher-priced products or consultative services such as furniture or retail financial services, the right balance between automation and live agent becomes more complex.

It's one of what they call the category killers, ... Their parking lots are full. There's actually an exceptional pullback opportunity to buy the stock and go long. I think Home Depot is the leader in their industry. Their margins are higher than all other competitors. It's a buy short-term and it's a hold for long term. I don't see anything interrupting their growth rate.

It's the narrowest of margins over there. It's difficult to get things out of the Senate. It would be very unfortunate if that happens, but I'm going to wait and see.

It looks like each underlying division was very strong, especially the closely watched imaging division, which is the key to the valuation of the company. In addition, overall margins were better.

It's going to push some people who are at the margins of being able to afford it into the consumer category.

It's overall a mixed bag. The margins on the earnings were better than expected. The top line was worse than expected.

Conditions for manufacturers are getting increasingly tough as costs continue their seemingly inexorable rise but weak demand keeps prices down, squeezing already thin profit margins even further.

That means profit margins of the foreign brands in China is even higher than what they have in the global market.

That may be the right time for you to say, 'OK I might need to move production to someone who is quite frankly better at manufacturing lower cost and make room for my next development drug to come through, and I'll move the product whose margins have now been eroded to a contract manufacturer.

That puts a spotlight on how thin margins are for farmers. Input costs keep increasing, especially for fuel and natural gas. Yet we have sub $2 (per bushel) corn prices. The $2 billion may be a daunting number, but it shows the farm program works in years of depressed farm prices. That's how it's designed to work.

Everyone has bought BP for its U.S. exposure. It's delivered on that to an extent, but not as much as people had hoped, and now the U.S. environment is easing; refining margins are coming back, gas prices are easing off.

The banking industry got pinched with short-term rates in 2005. But now that it appears the (Federal Reserve's) rate tightening is coming to an end, net interest margins should stay stable as banks get more visibility on how to price loans.

The aftermath of the Hurricane Katrina illustrated to me that the poor and destitute Americans on the margins of our society looked poorer than people in Third World countries, and that was amazing to me. It's just a sad illustration of the economic strata of American life.

Sure, earnings will be slower than they were in the fourth quarter, but margins can't expand forever. But on a risk/reward basis, stocks are still attractive.

Nokia will have a tough time boosting its margins in the future given the tough competitive climate.

It's very much a sensitivity model; you don't know what your business looks like a month out. If it rains tomorrow, or it rains for the next week, then you're missing your entire month or quarter. It's a thin business as far as margins are concerned.

It's very important to get gross margins moving in the right direction.

The world is a difficult place for phone companies. The margins and profits for companies like Telstra in earlier years were based on an environment that no longer exists.

The U.S. and European markets have become mature, profit margins are lower, and equipment isn't so new. Because profits are relatively low, it limits the willingness of companies to invest in newer equipment.

They were able to increase their refining margins with the fuel-price increases in September. That's the main reason for the huge profit increase.

They were pretty much as expected in North America. Where they made gains was in better operating margins in Europe. Given that the market-share numbers in Europe are available and pretty unimpressive, it must be on the cost side.

They were pretty much as expected in North America, ... Where they made gains was in better operating margins in Europe. Given that the market-share numbers in Europe are available and pretty unimpressive, it must be on the cost side.

They will be facing head winds of (component) pricing going up, but they've done a good job of managing margins last several quarters.

They'll look to see where they can enhance margins with acquisitions. Will they ever get it up to the corporate average? It's hard to say.

They have very slim margins already and I find it hard to believe that they're not going to have to step up and do more in terms of health care and that's going to affect their margins, and therefore their earnings.

It was great that he went after fees. I have no doubt that at the margins those settlements placed downward pressure on fees.

They've got the widest margins in hardware production. And as a result they've been able to drive down the price of hardware -- an important competitive advantage in a weak environment.

There's such vitriol and backlash out of consumers to price increases that you want to get it over all at once. If you have to use a hammer to hit your thumb, would you rather five small taps or one hit? That's essentially what's going on. On the way down, there's nervousness about whether the commodity markets are going to spin around and take all your margins again.

This is a very good report, as expected. It's clearly a very strong quarter, and they're executing very well to get gross margins to the high end of their expected range.

The new orders index was better, profits are going to be up a little, interest rates are at a record low, there have been so many layoffs that that may start to dry up, there will be rising productivity and higher profit margins -- all these things combined could give some support,

Service margins declined due to lower sales of upgrades for older legacy systems, higher training and field service activity and a special compensation-related charge. While we are disappointed with the absence of a noticeable improvement in profit margins in 2005, the factors that adversely affected them resulted primarily from deliberate strategic decisions we have made for long-term gain, and we expect to see additional margin improvements going forward.

That's a huge challenge. The margins are falling in printer and printing supply business.

Around A$800 million would be a good price to achieve for Myer, given its recent disappointing sales data and the expectation that margins have also been squeezed.

The last calendar year that Exxon Mobil was the top-performing stock in the peer group was 1998, when crude oil, natural gas and refining margins all declined vs. the previous year.

Their third-quarter profit was supported by a really solid quarter at Sam's Club. This shows again why Sam's matters so much to Wal-Mart's consolidated profitability, ... Smoother performance at Sam's has been a big plus recently, and it has to hold up in order to offset the rising influence of supermarket margins from the other division.

Their focus on the enterprise computing and global services segment produced 51 percent of total revenue and 90 percent of total profits in the fourth quarter. A continuing improvement in the mix is expected to drive gross margins to almost 25 percent next year from 23.5 percent this year.

I'm expecting the holidays to be a stimulating environment for (sales) growth, ... But the deeper discounts could also mean that profit margins will be off for some retailers.

In FY05, statewide average total and operating margins reached their highest levels since FY94, when PHC4 began publicly reporting these measures for all hospitals. The growth in FY05 financial margins was driven by a 90 percent increase in operating income.

Increasingly, firms have been adding expensive technology supports and perhaps haven't seen the real benefit of it, ... In the face of perhaps a slower revenue growth in the future, (profit) margins could become strained.

Improved performance in our Pennsylvania delivery and international delivery business segments more than offset the tighter margins in our supply business segment.

Impact 360 transforms the speed at which companies can make informed decisions with unmatched visibility into customer service processes, workforce performance and customer intelligence across the enterprise. Companies need to unify workforce optimization functions under a single architecture to maximize information flow and minimize total cost of ownership. They also need experienced professional services to drive a complete view of customer service performance and to ensure ongoing success. By improving the balance between effectiveness and efficiency, businesses can drive customer loyalty, top line revenue, customer service operating margins and compliance through continuous performance improvement.

If I were chairman of the board, I would turn to Mark and tell him to do exactly what you have been doing a while longer. Improve margins further, keep establishing your credibility on Wall Street, and go get more market share now that Dell is on the run.

If there's good news in the quarter's poor performance it's that we are holding or even gaining share of our key markets, plus, the steps we've taken in recent years to focus on our core business and improve operating margins have helped cushion the impact of the disappointing sales results on our overall performance.

If there's any drawback, it would be in terms of how higher prices would affect the margins in their refining operations -- but that's not an issue now because of capacity constraints we have here in the United States.

If you look back, analysts were feeling that margins were going to decline. That hasn't happened, and instead the margins continue to go up.

If you look at Halliburton's history and financial statements, the oilfield services business has materially higher margins than does the engineering and construction side, and this would be a small chunk of the engineering and construction business.

In the handset market, until we see capacity falling by the removal of players such as Alcatel, Siemens and Philips in Europe and some Asian companies, margins will remain depressed.

In the game of chicken between retailers and consumers, with one looking to improve profit margins and the other holding out for discounts, it would appear that the consumer blinked. The initial read on the fourth quarter is that profits should come in better than anticipated.

Intel's gross margins tie into the chip cycle. When the cycle starts to peak, margins at Intel peak.

Intel hit everything in its report but said inventories are rising and profit margins are falling. And that's all she wrote.

Input price pressures are abating and this should reduce uncertainty and pressure on profit margins in coming months.

Investors have become a lot gloomier about the prospects for economic growth, corporate profits and margins -- certainly compared with two months ago,

I think all of us on Wall Street were misled not only by the company's first quarter guidance, but also by fact back in the fourth quarter, their North American margins were disappointing and terrible. I think there's real strength here, but a lot of good things were concentrated in the first quarter.

I realize that the margins are being squeezed, ... We have a plan for that.

Clearly their future is with smart phones, and as that mix moves toward the higher ASP, it will give them better gross margins and improve their financial picture.

Clearly the Iran situation is the key focus at the moment, our view is that eventually it will settle down, but it's expected to rumble on for a while and so maybe at the margins slightly supportive of the safe-haven currencies like the Swiss Franc.

High margins are an inducement to invest more aggressively.

Chipset sales declined 26 percent to $269 million, and operating margins dropped to 24 percent from 39 percent. Qualcomm shipped only 11 million chipsets in the quarter, down from 15 million in the preceding quarter and 13.5 million a year ago. This disappointing performance partially reflected continued weak demand in Korea.

Capacity additions in India pose a threat to future refining margins. If the products don't go west, then they will head to the Asian market and margins will be affected.

How do you do better than that? ... And if next step is down, do you want to own the stock? Their challenge is trying to convince investors and analysts that there is no reason for margins to deteriorate. To some degree they are a victim of their own success.

Check Point is highly profitable, which is good in this kind of market, and they're only getting more profitable, so they can't really invest in their business at levels that keep up with the revenue growth. It's a big plus that you're taking about a company that has 45 percent operating margins and investors can actually see real earnings.

By the early part of next year, with everything else being equal, Intel should be ahead in the dual-processor side. Intel has bigger (fabrication plants where the chips are made), better margins and a better balance sheet. David beat Goliath, but that was a couple thousand years ago. That happens only once. In the real world, that doesn't happen. A one-year lead is not good enough.

Your margin is my opportunity.

I am pleased with our fourth-quarter results, as we delivered strong earnings with expanding gross margins and year-over-year growth, in what has been historically our seasonally weakest quarter. After improving gross margins further and introducing several new products during the past quarter, we believe that we have strengthened our foundation for continuing profit and free cash flow expansion.

You could expect there is a sharp rebound in unit sales and margins in the first quarter.

The marketing and refining margins were pretty dismal. The production growth number certainly means there is a lot of catch-up needed in the second half...

The life insurers are finding that some of the new products they sell are not making anywhere near the margins their older products used to make.

The margins story is better than expected. Things are getting better for manufacturers.

The margins on the mini are far higher than the shuffle, so if the mini steals sales, it's to Apple's benefit.

The margins of our groups continue to move towards their target ranges specified in Operation 2003.

The margins (for meeting power demands) are not quite as robust as we would like them to be. We saw that earlier this summer, in July, when we were in emergency conditions for a few hours on a couple of days.

The margins continue to be the problem and will always be the problem. Plain old e-commerce is a difficult business with razor-thin margins.

The margins are positive, but sales are eroding,

The key question for investors now is whether they think Nokia's mobile margins are sustainable or not, ... I don't think they are, because this is a commodity-like market in the long term, and Nokia will face much stiffer competition.

The key is growth margins went in the right direction, unit volume increased quarter on quarter, and expenses came down. We threw off over $300 million in cash. All of those were in the right direction. So I think we're on our way.

The infrastructure market has collapsed and margins have fallen from 20 percent to 4 percent,

The UK now offers the lowest margins in the world.

This has nothing to do with government policy, this has nothing to do with regulation, this is technology, ... The reason why Australia is so late in actually changing to lower margins is because of the fact that there hasn't been any competition.

This is all about competition. Everybody has had margins squeezed, everybody has global pressures and as a result they have to be much more efficient, much more exacting.

This is a company that's beaten consensus estimates for a number of quarters in a row. This time it just hit the consensus with margins a little lower softer than expected.

The hope is they (Cerberus) can improve sales and improve margins to actually make it a better deal for us.

The fixed-income franchise continued to show extremely strong results at a time when most other major sectors in the industry were experiencing persistent weakness, ... The steps taken during fiscal 2001 to reduce operating costs and increase margins have had a positive effect on the current period's earnings.

The margin between success and drama is fractional.

The handheld device manufacturers have been seeing their revenue and profit margins get squeezed, so they are looking for new opportunities.

The high margins meant selling cars was one of the most glamorous businesses to be in during the 1950s and '60s,

The impact of lean initiative has been our operating margins have improved ... and defects have gone down.

The industry's profit margins have widened considerably despite the strength of the rand against the dollar. The benefits of restructuring and consolidation are now coming through. I just hope the industry doesn't let costs slip again.

The increasing strength of our balance sheet and improving fundamentals in sales and margins are allowing us to stay on strategy this year as we did last year and invest for the future as we continue to seek out new sources of growth and opportunity,

The difference is that we have wide swings in Alberta on revenue on royalties. We can pretty well predict on the tax side within pretty close margins what our income is going to be. But you would not want us to budget on $60 oil, so we use the best information we have from the best analysts we have." ()

Although Circuit City's first-quarter sales slightly exceeded expectations, we anticipate that the merchandise sales mix will result in lower overall gross profit margins than we initially estimated.

You will see more wage growth. The productivity numbers have been so good and the margins have been so good we can easily afford more wages.

You've got mass merchants who are expanding their toy space and using it to drive total store volume. These discounters are not worried about the margins they make on toys. How can you compete against that?

All the while the company's done a good job of maintaining strong gross margins in a tough reimbursement market like the U.S.. That means they're controlling costs well on the manufacturing side, which isn't an easy thing to do.

The earnings were a huge positive surprise, and I think it was an okay quarter. I would like to have seen stronger service bookings and more strength on software, but the core brands within software did well. And gross margins were pretty damn good.

(The earnings) represent real progress, ... The key is growth margins went in the right direction, unit volume increased quarter on quarter, and expenses came down. We threw off over $300 million in cash. All of those were in the right direction. So I think we're on our way.

The fourth quarter was particularly back-end loaded and a significant amount of business closed in the last week on terms less favorable than expected. The resulting sales shortfall and compressed margins became apparent after the end of the quarter.

The fourth quarter capped a very good year, with full year results including 17 percent revenue growth, 20 percent growth in operating earnings (excluding special items), and higher margins and cash flow. The year's performance reflects the strength of our portfolio and attractiveness of our core businesses.

The curves have crossed, and (profit) margins have improved. Only by improving margins do people have enough to invest in new facilities.

The first quarter results were in line with our plan for the quarter, although gross margins were somewhat stronger than planned.