Piper Jaffray Maintains Neutral Rating For Brightpoint (CELL)

Piper Jaffray analysts T. Michael Walkley, Charles John, Christopher M. Larsen, Joseph A. Mastrogiovanni and Bradley W. Korch maintained their Neutral rating for shares of Brightpoint Inc CELL. The analysts said that although they feel that improving handset macro trends and recovering distribution sales will lead to strong earnings growth for Brightpoint Inc, the company's near-term margin growth will be limited by operating expenses. The Piper Jaffray analysts wrote, "Our industry checks indicate continued lean inventory levels globally with a seasonally weak month of sales in May. Further, our checks indicate several new device launches in June such as the myTouch Slide at T-Mobile (June 2nd launch) and the HTC EVO at Sprint (June 4th launch) and potentially a new iPhone in June. This is consistent with recent Brightpoint commentary indicating weak May sales and expectations of Q210 up 0-5% sequentially. While investors have been concerned with the recent debt crisis in Europe, our checks indicate slight caution by operators but no real change in consumer demand trends."