UPDATE: Bank of America Upgrades Spreadtrum Communications to Neutral; Downside Priced In

Bank of America raised its rating on Spreadtrum Communications (NASDAQ: SPRD) from Underperform to Neutral with a $17.83 price objective.

Bank of America said, "We think SPRD should meet its 30mn smartphone shipment target for 2012 and should be able to ship 87mn in 2013. We are concerned that ASP/GPM may be squeezed by (1) pricing pressures from RDA in featurephones (about 63% of revenue), (2) MTK moving into SPRD's low-end TD/EDGE market, (3) intense battle in the mid-end (dual core) market, and (4) 2-3 quarters behind in quad-core (dual mode 3G). Our model assumes only $5-6 ASP for its smartphone/baseband."

Spreadtrum Communications closed at $16.69 on Monday.

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