Wow. I feel a lot better about 3G now... how could it fizzle if it has a "Maurice Winn Money Back Guarantee"! Let's see how Nasdaq reacts to this bombshell. Out of curiosity - did you notice that the mobile phone subscriber growth estimate for USA this year is just 30%? And that this growth is about three times lower than in markets like Spain, Turkey, China, etc.? I doubt it's only about calling party pays... it's probably mostly about the market fragmentation, high costs, etc.
Interestingly, most investors at SI seem to think that mobile phone use is cheap in USA - in reality, several surveys put the European real costs around 30-50% below what US consumers pay. Bet you didn't know that certain mobile calls in Finland cost less than a cent per minute - it's that "group calling" thing that AT&T is now starting to mimic. US operators are crafty at hiding real costs in those sky-high monthly base fees, whereas in many other markets the monthly fee is low or zero. However, consumers see through this shell game - that's why some European operators such as Telefonica of Spain are seeing 200% subscriber growth.
You keep talking about Qualcomm's US digital phone market share. And I keep talking about global mobile phone market share. I think it's the latter number, around 2.5% for Q, that matters when we discuss long term profit growth. The issue isn't whether the margins will stagnate; it's whether they will swing below zero, as has happened to all other regional manufacturers sooner or later. I think this industry is becoming genuinely global. Since Motorola and Nokia started getting serious about US CDMA market only this summer, we won't get any real answers about the situation before 4Q numbers. That should start resolving our differences in opinion.
Tero |
