Gamble of the week: A cutting-edge smartphone tech stock

Profit from the development of internet services with this patent-rich maker of smartphone technology, says Paul Hill.

To compete with Apple and Google, Nokia announced last April that it would move all its smartphones on to the Windows software platform. That's good news for Microsoft, but not for firms that supply the Nokia Symbian handsets, which are now heading for the scrap heap.

ST Microelectronics has been one of the victims, as the world's seventh-biggest semiconductor manufacturer. It has a 50:50 joint venture with Ericsson, which itself suffered a 30% fall in revenues to $1.55bn in 2011 and posted an operating loss of $812m. Yet this masked a creditable performance from the remaining 84% of the group. Here EBITA came in at $934m (an 11.4% margin) on turnover up 1% to $8,183m.

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Paul gained a degree in electrical engineering and went on to qualify as a chartered management accountant. He has extensive corporate finance and investment experience and is a member of the Securities Institute.

Over the past 16 years Paul has held top-level financial management and M&A roles for blue-chip companies such as O2, GKN and Unilever. He is now director of his own capital investment and consultancy firm, PMH Capital Limited.

Paul is an expert at analysing companies in new, fast-growing markets, and is an extremely shrewd stock-picker.