Itron
ITRI
recently expanded its long-standing association with
Microsoft
MSFT
to enable utility and smart cities industries to speed up cloud migration and implement advanced consumer and grid edge solutions.
By collaborating with Microsoft, Itron is also working on extending its Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI), data management and analytics solutions to the cloud in all major markets across the world.
The partnership will focus on developing joint solutions for utility companies and help them tackle pressing concerns like carbon tracking, emissions, zero-carbon goals, clean energy matching and data accessibility. It will also aid the companies in the Utility sector to gain operational insights like asset management, network visibility, outage management and insights into Electric Vehicle (EV) and distributed energy resource loads for enabling a decarbonized grid, added Itron.
The joint cloud-powered solutions so developed will also aid the companies gain access to additional value and data from their smart grid implementations for new use cases like location awareness, intelligent voltage monitoring, and real-time transformer load monitoring, among others.
The cloud-powered solutions will aid the companies in achieving scalability and enable faster deployment while containing costs and improving security.
Headquartered in Liberty Lake, WA, Itron is one of the prominent suppliers of a wide array of standard, advanced and smart meters and meter communication systems, including networks and communication modules, sensors, data analytics and services and software devices globally.
Itron has been consistently working toward expanding its global presence. The company collaborates with technology innovators, consultants, service providers and channel partners to deliver meaningful outcomes for smart utilities and cities.
The company is facing component shortages that are offsetting robust customer demand. Sluggishness in the Device Solutions and Networked Solutions segment was a major concern. In the last reported quarter, revenues of $475.3 million declined 9% year over year.
Itron currently has a Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell). Shares of ITRI have lost 44.7% against the
industry’s
decline of 16.9% in the past year.
Key Picks
A few better-ranked stocks from the broader technology sector worth consideration are
InterDigital
IDCC
and
Flex
FLEX
. InterDigital and Flex sport a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see
the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Flex’s fiscal 2023 earnings is pegged at $2.16 per share, up 6.9% in the past 60 days. The long-term earnings growth rate is pegged at 14.9%.
Flex’s earnings beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate all last four quarters, with the average being 21.1%. Shares of FLEX have declined 10.6% in the past year.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for InterDigital 2022 earnings is pegged at $3.28 per share, up 5.1% in the past 60 days. IDCC’s long-term earnings growth rate is pegged at 15%.
InterDigital’s earnings beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate in all the preceding four quarters, with the average being 141.1%. Shares of IDCC have lost 15.2% of their value in the past year.
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