Qualcomm chief meets Chinese Premier Zhu
biz.yahoo.com
By Matt Pottinger
BEIJING, Oct 9 (Reuters) - In a sign Qualcomm Inc still enjoys a high profile in China
despite repeated failures to sell its mobile phone technology, its chief executive, Irwin
Jacobs, met Premier Zhu Rongji last week, a source said on Monday.
Also attending Friday's meeting, which ran nearly an hour, were top telecommunications regulator Wu Jichuan and China
Unicom Chairman Yang Xianzu -- the two men with the greatest power to open the market to Qualcomm -- according to the
source, who knew of the talks at Beijing's Tsinghua University.
Their discussion centred on CDMA, the wireless technology that Qualcomm pioneered but has largely failed to sell to Chinese
government-owned mobile phone companies, the source said.
China, the world's second biggest mobile market with 65 million users, uses the competing GSM standard for the vast majority
of its phone networks, lining the pockets of mostly European telecoms companies, such as Nokia Corp (NYSE:NOK - news)
and Ericsson .
Qualcomm -- which makes money from royalties on CDMA handsets and equipment -- has long lobbied China to adopt its
technology, saying it is more efficient than GSM (or global system for mobile communications) and is the basis for future mobile
technologies, such as fast Internet access and video phones.
But past pledges by China to use CDMA (or code division multiple access) have collapsed under the weight of domestic
politics and red tape, battering Qualcomm's stock price. The stock closed at 77/13 on Friday.
A POSITIVE SIGNAL
Qualcomm could not be reached for comment, and details of the talks were not available.
But the meeting appears to be the strongest of several recent signals its fortunes are taking a turn for the better in China.
Several Chinese and Western telecoms executives told Reuters last month that China Unicom has indicated interest in building
an extensive CDMA network early next year.
China Unicom Chairman Yang declined to confirm or deny such plans.
But in a news conference a few weeks later, he said his company would upgrade a small trial CDMA network the company
plans to take over from the the People's Liberation Army.
Hinting he would also expand those networks, he said: ``Without adequate scale, there will not be adequate coverage or
service and thus it will lack popularity and revenues.''
Telecoms equipment manufacturers, including Lucent Technologies (NYSE:LU - news) of the United States, Nortel Networks
(Toronto:NT.TO - news) of Canada and Samsung Electronics of South Korea could potentially win lucrative contracts if
CDMA is adopted. |
