Siemens Buys 15% NeoPoint. Nokia ultrabullish on WAP.
Bloomberg News:
-news>>Siemens Buys 15% of NeoPoint, Aims to Triple Mobile Phone Sales by 2001.
Siemens Buys NeoPoint Stake in Mobile Phone Push (Update1)
(Adds acquisition plans from first paragraph; is introducing
a palmtop computer in 11th paragraph, details throughout.)
Geneva, Oct. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Siemens AG, Europe's No. 4
mobile phone maker, said it bought a 15 percent stake in U.S.-
based NeoPoint Inc. and will make further acquisitions as it
moves to triple handset sales by 2001.
Terms of the purchase were not disclosed. Privately held
NeoPoint, based in San Diego, makes phones that allow users to
access information from the Internet using Wireless Application
Protocol, or WAP, technology.
Siemens hopes acquisitions and the introduction of new phone
models will enable it to grab 10 percent of the mobile phone
market within two years and take on Nokia Oyj and other large
rivals. The company expects to sell 35 million mobile phones
annually by 2001, from 12 million in the year ended Sept. 30.
To reach that goal ''we will acquire companies, there is no
doubt,'' said Volker Jung, head of Siemens' information and
communications division in an interview at Telecom '99.
He declined to comment on possible targets or how much money
the company was prepared to spend.
The German company and other smaller mobile phone makers
have struggled against Nokia Oyj, Motorola Corp., and Ericsson
AB, which control more than 70 percent of the mobile phone
market. Philips NV and Lucent Technologies Inc., for example,
decided to end their mobile phone venture last year after they
failed to win significant market share.
The company is Europe's fourth-largest mobile phone maker,
behind Nokia, Ericsson and France's Alcatel SA.
->news>Nokia Sees WAP-based Phones Taking 60% of Mobile Phone Market by 2003
There will be more mobile handsets connected to the Internet
than personal computers by 2004.
Nokia Sees WAP-based Phones Taking 60% of Mobile Market by 2003
Geneva, Oct. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Nokia Oyj, the world's
largest mobile phone maker, said WAP-based handsets that let
mobile users access e-mail and information over the Internet will
comprise 60 percent of the market by 2003, as demand for
information on the move increases.
Worldwide sales of mobile phones will reach 1 billion by
2003, according to the Finnish company's estimates. Sales of
phones that employ WAP, or Wireless Application Protocol, will
account for 600 million of that total, Nokia said at the Telecom
'99 exhibition.
WAP is a technology standard that will let mobile users send
and receive e-mail, buy theater tickets, trade securities
information, and access text information on the Internet -- all
on the go.
The Finnish company's 7110 model will be among the first of
a raft of WAP-enabled phones slated to hit the market over the
next year when it arrives in stores in a few weeks. Sweden's
Ericsson AB, Germany's Siemens AG and other rivals are also
demonstrating WAP phone models at Telecom '99.
Phone makers are rallying behind WAP because the added
functions raise the profile and function of mobile phones,
helping keep prices up. Phone prices fell 30 percent alone for
Ericsson AB, the world's third-largest mobile phone maker.
There will be more mobile handsets connected to the Internet
than personal computers by 2004, Nokia said.
bloomberg.com
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