You can teach an old dog new tricks.
Just ask household name Dolby Laboratories (NYSE: DLB). In the first quarter of fiscal year 2012, the media technologist saw non-GAAP earnings nudging up to $0.76 per share -- a $0.01 year-over-year increase -- despite lower total sales and a home entertainment market on crutches.
Media playback on mobile devices play a large part in Dolby's success. In this quarter, consumer electronics revenue overall fell 15% year over year, but mobile licenses propelled the "other" segment to 26% growth.
That strength won't go away anytime soon. QUALCOMM (Nasdaq: QCOM) just built support for the high-end Dolby Digital Plus surround sound platform right into its next-generation Snapdragon chips for mobile devices. That makes it even easier for device builders to support the Dolby standard, since it's part of the processor out of the box.
And if you thought that this longtime Stock Advisor recommendation would be doomed when the DVD player goes the way of the dodo bird, you're sadly mistaken. These technologies are an important part of the Blu-ray successor, but more importantly ship in nearly every digital video service of note. Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX) supports Dolby Surround, as do the Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) iTunes service and Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN) On Demand. Most recently, Time Warner joined the party with Dolby sound in the much-vaunted HBO Go platform. Wherever you turn in the digital media landscape, Dolby stands ready to reap royalties.
Dolby is helping my All-Star CAPS portfolio crush the market, and should continue to do so for years to come. Click here to make your own call on this five-star stock (out of five possible CAPS stars). The wisdom of crowds is turning CAPS into a mighty powerful investing tool, and your help would be much appreciated. Plus, the service is totally free -- you've got absolutely nothing to lose.
