CNBC Stock Blog

This Year's Tech Leader: S&P Sector Head

The technology sector was one of the biggest winners in 2009, outperforming the broader market. What can we expect from the sector this year? Scott Kessler, senior director of IT equity research at Standard & Poor’s, shared his market strategy.

“We think Apple probably has the best—not only technology—but track record of innovation and consistent innovation,” Kessler told CNBC.

“If you look back over the history of the company, they’ve had hit after hit.”

S&P Equity has a “buy” recommendation on the company. He said while a lot of other technology firms are spending billions of dollars, they don’t measure up to Apple.

Kessler believes Apple’s upcoming product, iSlate, "will be able to drive millions of unit sales for the company in the next couple of years,” he said.

Meanwhile, Kessler said Google’s new Nexus One smartphone is not only a costly initiative for the company, but will ruffle the feathers of its partners.

“Google has stated that they’re not in this business to make money off the phones themselves—they want more people to consume Google's applications, content and advertising,” he said. “But it is an expensive proposition. If this is a big business for Google, it’s probably going to mar margins to a certain extent.”

  • Watch Kessler's Previous Appearance on CNBC (Oct. 15, 2009)

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Other Smartphone Giants:

Motorola

Research in Motion

Nokia

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Disclosures:

Kessler does not own shares of AAPL, AMZN, GOOG, or MSFT.

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