It's entirely possible that there is some overall decrease to the growth in telecom buildouts in SEA, but if you look at the QCOM problems, they primarily stem from Korea. Since Korea is a CDMAone only country, and since it's economy is one of the ones in the worst shape, the effect may be fairly concentrated. Remember that a huge chunk of QCOM revenues are royalties, and lacking Korean sales of CDMAone hardware, that royalty flow dies rather rapidly.
On the other hand, companies like Ericsson who have a majority of their SEA exposure in China, seem to have weathered the downturn more gracefully. E's stock may still get tarred with the same broad brush that paints QCOM black today, but just like the earlier drop when the whole SEA mess showed up, as details came to light, it showed that Ericsson was in a much better position to survive the current downturn.
All-in-all, while the Korean/QCOM thing is still a short term effect, it still shows that some companies, like Ericsson, appear to be less affected due to the countries they are connected to.
DWB |