Nuance Communications (Nasdaq: NUAN) has been rising ever since Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) presented the iPhone 4S with its nifty Siri voice-powered assistant. It's widely assumed that Nuance takes at least some part in the Siri story, and the darn thing is a game-changer. Why wouldn't we get excited?
The company just presented its first quarterly report since the new iPhone was introduced. Mobile and consumer sales jumped 32% year over year, and Nuance presented an impressive list of new or expanded accounts in the sector. The names included gadget gurus Samsung and Nokia (NYSE: NOK), and also tablet builder Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN). But Apple was nowhere to be found.
Mobile solutions isn't Nuance's largest division (that would be health care), nor its fastest-growing (hello, document imaging, including a big win from the SEC). Total sales rose 23% year over year, so the mobile stuff sure helped pull the train. "Recent high-profile speech applications in the smartphone market have increased interest in our solutions, from both manufacturers and users," CEO Paul Ricci said.
On the analyst call, Ricci delved deeper into the benefits of the Siri launch without ever calling Apple a customer. "The Apple Siri announcement along with a number of other things going on in the industry have heightened the understanding of the capabilities of speech recognition and natural language processing technologies," he said. And the same technologies are sold to enterprise and health care customers as well, so the consumer-side PR value bleeds over into other segments.
With or without direct payments from Apple, then, Nuance is a hidden winner of the smartphone wars in general and Siri's sweet voice in particular. There are many ways to play this revolution without ever touching a share of Apple stock. In a brand-new special report on hidden winners of the iPhone, iPad, and Android revolution, the Fool's finest analysts unveil three more stocks that fit this bill. Grab your copy by clicking here -- it's 100% free and full of surprisingly investable facts.
