Top 5 Telecom Stocks To Watch For 2015

In 2014, the global tablet market is set to show its first signs of slowing down -- sprouting its first few gray hairs, so to speak.

On the surface this seems slightly absurd. How could a market that began less than five years ago with�Apple's (NASDAQ: AAPL  ) introduction of the iPad in 2010 be approaching mass-market saturation? Fast forward to today and both�Apple�and�Google (NASDAQ: GOOG  ) have carved out dominant portions of what's now become a truly global market.

But like it or not, that appears to be the case according to one firm's recent estimates.

Growing up fast
Research firm IDC�recently came out with data that implies both Apple and Google might need to search for a new growth driver -- and quick. According to IDC, the tablet market is set to expand a now-paltry 20% in CY 2014. This comes as another market both Apple and Google dominate, the global smartphone market, appears to be slowly maturing as well.

In the video below, tech-and-telecom analyst Andrew Tonner looks at the growth expectations for the tablet market going forward and the implications this industry-wide sea change could have on both Apple and Google.

Top 5 Telecom Stocks To Watch For 2015: Vivendi SA (VIVHY)

Vivendi SA (Vivendi), incorporated on December 18, 1987, is a communications and entertainment company. As of December 31, 2009, the Company had six business segments: Activision Blizzard, Universal Music Group, SFR, Maroc Telecom Group, GVT (Holding) S.A. (GVT) and Canal+ Group. Activision Blizzard develops, publishes and distributes interactive entertainment software, online or on other media (such as console and personal computer (PC)). Universal Music Group is engaged in the sale of recorded music (physical and digital media), exploitation of music publishing rights, as well as artist services and merchandising. SFR is engaged in the phone services (mobile, broadband Internet and fixed) in France. Maroc Telecom Group is a telecommunication operator (mobile, fixed and Internet) in Africa, principally in Morocco, as well as in Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Gabon and Mali. GVT is a Brazilian fixed and broadband operator. Canal+ Group is engaged in publishing and distribution of pay-television mainly in France, in both analog and digital (terrestrially, via satellite or ADSL), as well as film production in Europe. In July 2013, Vivendi SA and Universal Music Group announced the completion of the sale of Parlophone Label Group to Warner Music Group Corp.

On November 13, 2009, Vivendi acquired an aggregate of 29.9% of GVT�� outstanding voting shares from Swarth Investments LLC, Swarth Investments Holdings LLC and Global Village Telecom (Holland) BV. In addition, Vivendi acquired from third parties an additional 8% interest in GVT's outstanding shares. On December 28, 2009, Canal+ Group, Vivendi�� subsidiary, acquired TF1�� 9.9% interest in the capital of Canal+ France. On July 31, 2009, Maroc Telecom acquired 51% controlling interest in Sotelma. On August 27, 2009, CID, a company 40% owned by SFR and 60% by other financial investors, acquired the 62% interest in 5 sur 5.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Demitrios Kalogeropoulos]

  Activision Blizzard (NASDAQ: ATVI  ) is striking out on its own. The company reached a purchase agreement with Vivendi (NASDAQOTH: VIVHY  ) �to transfer enough shares so that it will become an independent company, one that's majority-owned by public investors rather than a single corporation.

Top 5 Telecom Stocks To Watch For 2015: IN Media Corp (IMDC)

IN Media Corporation, formerly Tres Estrellas Enterprises, Inc., incorporated on March 5, 2007, is a development-stage company. The Company focuses on providing integrated Internet protocol television (IPTV) services for platform providers for any device from large screen televisions to handheld mobile phones. It provides a combination of hardware, software, manufacturing and content services for platform providers to either complete their offerings or provide an all-in-one solution. On October 16, 2009, the Company executed an agreement between In-Media Corporation (In-Media) and the Company, subsequent to which In-Media was merged into the Company.

The Company�� partnerships with platform providers, such as Comcast, AT&T, DirecTV, provide an installed base of customers, as well as allowing platform providers to be the billing and service interface to customers. The Company is focusing on its first implementation in China through its Chinese distributor, which will include provision of set top boxes (STB)-related system support, reference platforms and technology, and access to over 4,000 titles of Hollywood and Bollywood movies.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Peter Graham]

  Small cap stocks IN Media Corp (OTCMKTS: IMDC), Epazz Inc (OTCMKTS: EPAZ) and Polaris International Holdings (OTCMKTS: PIHN) have been busy developing new devices/products or making acquisitions. Moreover, at least two of these small cap stocks have been the subject of paid promotions or investor relations types of activities. Keeping that in mind, will new devices/products or acquisitions help these small caps along with their investors or traders? Here is a closer look:

Best Up And Coming Companies To Invest In Right Now: China Teletech Holding Inc (CNCT)

China Teletech Holding, Inc., formerly Guangzhou Global Telecom, Inc., incorporated on March 29, 1999, is a distributor of pre-paid calling card and integrated mobile phone handsets and a provider of mobile handset value-added services. The Company serves as one of principal distributors of China Telecom, China Unicom, and China Mobile products in Guangzhou City. The Company is also developing an on-line refill platform with China Mobile to develop its on-line business in the Guangdong Province. On March 30, 2012, the Company acquired China Teletech Limited.

The Company operates its business through its subsidiaries in China: Guangzhou Renwoxing Telecom Co., Ltd., Guangzhou Global Telecommunication Co., Ltd., Guangzhou Rongxin Technology Co., Ltd., and Shenzhen Rongxin Investment Co., Ltd. The Company also engages in the business of wholesale and distribution of mineral water, as well as trading of wine in China. The Company has cooperative distribution relationships with Panasonic, Motorola, LG, GE, Bird, Samsung corporations for their mobile handsets.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By MARKETWATCH]

  HONG KONG (MarketWatch)-- Hong Kong stocks rose early Thursday, as China Mobile Ltd. shined on news of iPhone pre-orders hitting 1 million units. The Hang Seng Index (HK:HSI) added 0.6% to 23,032.09. Market heavyweight China Mobile (HK:941) (CHL) rallied 0.9%, as the world's largest mobile carrier said it has received more than 1 million pre-orders for the iPhone before it goes on sale in the carrier's stores on Friday, at a time when Apple Inc. (AAPL) Chief Executive Tim Cook visited Beijing for future cooperation between the two giants. Telecom equipment shares also advanced, with ZTE Corp. (HK:763) (ZTCOF) rising 1.2%. Meanwhile, China Mobile's smaller rivals slipped, as China Unicom (HK:762) (CHU) dropped 0.7%, and China Telecom (HK:738) (CNCT) fell 0.5%. China South City Holdings (HK:1668) , a developer of logistics and trade centers, surged 56%, after the company announced that Internet giant Tencent Holdings (HK:700) (TCTZF) would invest about 1.5 billion Hong Kong dollars ($195 million) for an almost 10% stake in the developer in order to expand their business online, including e-commerce and online payment services. Tencent Holdings (HK:700)

Top 5 Telecom Stocks To Watch For 2015: Neustar Inc (NSR)

NeuStar, Inc., incorporated on December 8, 1998, is a provider of real-time information and analysis. The Company operates in three segments: carrier services, enterprise services and information services. The Company combines data sets to develop algorithms, models, point solutions and complete work flow solutions. The Company provides services, such as database services (telephone number databases, domain names, short-codes and fixed Internet protocol (IP) addresses), analytics platforms used for Internet security services, caller identification services, Web performance monitoring services and real-time information and analytics services. In October 2013, Neustar, Inc acquired Aggregate Knowledge, Inc.

Carrier Services

The Company�� carrier services include numbering services, order management services and IP services. Its numbering services enable the dynamic routing of calls and text messages. In particular, the Company provides near real-time updates to the North American telephone numbering system that is essential for the accurate routing of telephone calls and text messages. In addition, it also facilitates order management and work-flow processing among carriers, including telephone number inventory management, and allow carriers to manage and optimize the addressing and routing of IP communications. The numbering services the Company provides to its carrier customers using these databases include number portability administration center services (NPAC Services), in the United States and Canada and local number portability (LNP), services in Taiwan and Brazil, or international LNP solutions, and number inventory and allocation management. The Company�� order management services permit its carrier customers to exchange essential operating information with multiple carriers in order to provision and manage services. The Company provides these services through a single interface or on-premise installations. In addition, it offers inventory management services that! allow its carrier customers to manage their assigned telephone numbers and associated resources. The Company provides scalable IP services to global carriers and service providers that allow them to manage access for the routing of IP communications, such as multimedia messaging service. Its solutions also provide accurate and reliable routing of text messages and voice calls by identifying terminating service provider networks. In addition, it provides a solution for carriers to migrate from the public switched telephone network to IP Interconnect through mapping a phone number to an IP address for accurate and reliable routing to a carrier�� network.

Enterprise Services

The Company�� Enterprise Services include Internet infrastructure services and registry services. It provides Internet infrastructure services that its customers use in order to direct, prioritize and manage Internet traffic. In addition, enterprise customers rely on its services to optimize their Website performance, including protecting against malicious traffic. Enterprises use its infrastructure and its datasets to identify the location of their online customers for a variety of purposes, including fraud prevention and marketing. It also operates the authoritative common short codes registry on behalf of the United States wireless industry. The Company provides a suite of domain name systems (DNS) services to its enterprise customers built on a global directory platform. These services play a key role in directing and managing Internet traffic flow, resolving Internet queries, providing security protection against distributed denial of service attacks, providing geolocation services used to enhance fraud prevention and online marketing, and monitoring, testing and measuring the performance of Websites and networks. The Company operates the authoritative registries of Internet domain names for the .biz, .us, .co, .tel and .travel top-level domains. It also provides international registry gateways for! China�� s .cn and Taiwan�� .tw country-code top-level domains. All Internet communications routed to any of these domains must query a copy of its directory to ensure that the communication is routed to the appropriate destination. The Company also operates the authoritative common short codes registry on behalf of the United States wireless industry. In addition, it operates the user authentication and rights management system, which supports the UltraViolet digital content locker that consumers use to access their entertainment content.

Information Services

The Company�� Information Services include identification services, verification and analytics services, and local search and licensed data services. It utilizes databases and solutions to inform real-time decisions on customer initiated interactions over the telephone, Internet and at points of sale. Its services correlate attributes, such as demographic information, projected buying behaviors and location. Its business listings identity management services manage the placement of its customers��online local business listings on search engines, improving brand awareness and targeted advertising. The Company provides Caller ID services to carriers in the United States and real-time identification and location services to over 1,000 businesses in the United States across multiple industries. Its location service enables clients to match a 10-digit phone number to a latitude and longitude, and is used for a number of applications, including intelligent site planning, market scoring, and Web-based location lookup. In addition, it provides services that enable clients to remarket to non-converting prospects and to help identify whether an inbound inquiry is coming from an existing customer or a prospect. The Company provides lead verification services that allow clients to validate customer data, enhance leads and assign a lead quality rating to each lead to provide a client the ability to contact a customer. The Company provide! s an onli! ne local business listing identity management solution that serves local search platforms, national brands, authorized channel partners and local businesses. This service provides businesses and channel partners the essential tools to verify, enhance and manage the identity of local listings on local search platforms across the Web, and offers local search platforms an accurate, complete and up-to-date database of local business listings for online publishing.

The Company competes with Accenture plc, Computer Sciences Corporation, Hewlett-Packard Company, International Business Machines Corporation, Noblis, Inc., Nortel Networks Corporation, Pearson Education, Inc., Perot Systems Corporation, Telcordia Technologies, Inc., VeriSign, Inc., Afilias Limited, Oracle Corporation, Synchronoss Technologies, Inc., Syniverse Technologies, Inc., Akamai Technologies, Inc., F5 Networks, Inc., Keynote Systems, Inc., Compuware Corporation, TNS, Inc., eBureau, LLC, Acxiom, Nielsen Holdings N.V., DataLogix International Inc. and infoGROUP Inc.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Magic Diligence]

  Neustar (NSR) is a provider of a wide array of communications information services. Examining all of the different services Neustar provides is an article in itself, but let's try to order them in importance to the company from a standpoint of revenue.

• [By Rex Moore]

  You may not have heard of NeuStar (NYSE: NSR  ) , but the services it provides can affect you greatly. This $3 billion company is also handily beating the market as it shifts its focus to move deeper into the information and analytics industry.

• [By Rex Moore]

  You may not have heard of NeuStar (NYSE: NSR  ) , but the services it provides can affect you greatly. This $3 billion company is also handily beating the market as it shifts its focus to move deeper into the information and analytics industry.

Top 5 Telecom Stocks To Watch For 2015: BCE Inc. (BCE)

BCE Inc. provides communications solutions to residential, business, and wholesale customers primarily in Canada. The company offers local and long distance telephone services under the Bell Home Phone brand; direct-to-home satellite television (TV) services under the Bell TV name; Internet protocol TV services under the Bell Fibe TV brand; and personal video recorders and online access services. It also provides data services, including Internet access services under the Bell Internet name; Internet protocol based services; and information and communications technology solutions. In addition, the company engages in the rental, sale, and maintenance of business terminal equipment; sale of TV set-top boxes; and provision of network installation and maintenance services for third parties. Further, it offers wireless voice and data communications products and services, such as call display and voicemail, e-mail, Web browsing, social networking, text, picture and video messagi ng, music downloads, ring tunes, ringtones, games and applications, video streaming, live TV, mobile Internet, roaming, and global positioning system navigation services under the Bell and Virgin Mobile brands. Additionally, the company provides media services comprising TV programming services to broadcast distributors. It operates approximately 28 conventional over-the-air stations and 30 English and French-language specialty TV channels; 33 FM and AM radio stations and their related Websites; and Theloop.ca Website. As of December 31, 2012, the company served approximately 2.1 million high-speed Internet access customers through fiber-optic, digital subscriber line, or wireless broadband technology; and 7.7 million wireless customers. BCE Inc. offers its services through call centre representatives, independent dealer stores, and value-added resellers, as well as through its Websites. The company was founded in 1880 and is headquartered in Verdun, Canada.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Dan Caplinger]

  The big news for Madison Square Garden has been the success of its key sports franchises. The New York Knicks basketball team made the playoffs and earned the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference. Even more importantly, the long-delayed National Hockey League season finally got going in January, helping resurrect what many had feared would be a lost season, sending shares of MSG, as well as Canadian venue/team-owners Rogers Communications (NYSE: RCI  ) and BCE (NYSE: BCE  ) , higher. As it turned out, MSG's New York Rangers made the playoffs and will go up against the Washington Capitals in the first round. Playoffs are an especially lucrative time for sports viewership, and usually translate into extra profits for the company's broadcast businesses.

• [By Holly LaFon]

  Dalio�� next largest purchase was Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK.B), and three new buys: BCE Inc. (BCE), The Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS), and Peabody Energy Corp. (BTU).