Activist billionaire investor Carl Icahn has increaseed his shareholdings in software manufacturer Nuance Communications. The previous shareholdings he held was at 9.27% in the speech recognition and digital imaging software firm and now it has increased to 10.72%.

The information was obtained through SEC filings by Icahn and the passive stake was increased after stock values fell by over 18% last Tuesday. The decline was due to disappointing quarterly earnings and lowered profit forecasts.

Nuance, in its quarterly report, showed a net loss of US$25.8 billion or US$0.08 per share in the second quarter of the year compared to US$890,000 profit for the same period last year.

The company also forecasted a third quarter profit between US$0.30 to US$0.34 per share. This is excluding other items, well below analyst forecasts of US$0.49 per share, in data obtained by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Apple Inc utilizes Nuance speech recognition technology under its Siri voice recognition features for the iPhone.