The Unknown Company Benefiting From The iPhone 6s

• Knowles Corp KN shares are down 24 percent year-to-date, trading below the $20 mark since June 23.
• JMP Securities’ Alex Gauna maintained a Market Outperform rating for the company and a price target of $29.
• Gauna believes that the company is poised to benefit from market share gains and iPhone 6s raising its Mic count to four.

Analyst Alex Gauna said that Knowles would benefit from iPhone 6s developments and the industry moving towards intelligent audio Internet of Things.

“It is now confirmed that the iPhone 6s has upped its Mic content from three to four per iPhone, and early tear-down reports indicate Knowles has captured at least half of the increased acoustic content per device.”

The iPhone 6s now features wake-on-voice functionality. This could drive the industry towards either the higher ASP VoiceIQ solutions offered by Knowles and/or the denser seven-Mic solution that Knowles provides for the Amazon Echo.

Gauna stated that Amazon Echo may be considered as “the definitive best-in-class embodiment of voice controlled Cloud experiences,” while added that it is not a coincidence that Apple has raised its Mic count in the iPhone 6s “as it strives to catch Echo in terms of raw acoustic performance.”

Siri did not live up to expectations. Gauna believes that this is merely the beginning of a “higher-Mic count intelligent acoustics future” that Knowles will “prove a cornerstone of.”

The non-GAAP EPS estimate for 2015 has been raised from $0.50 to $0.55.