< QCOM Most Active> Monday January 31 12:25 PM ET
Qualcomm Rebounds 5 Percent After China Report
By Ian Simpson
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Shares in high-flying wireless telephone technology company Qualcomm Inc. (NasdaqNM:QCOM - news) rebounded 5 percent on
Monday after a report that Qualcomm was moving closer to a wireless deal in China.
Qualcomm was up 5-7/16 at 116 at midday on Nasdaq. The stock was the most active issue on Nasdaq with 19 million shares traded.
The surge marked an uptick for the shares, which rose more than twentyfold last year as one of the best-performing shares on the Nasdaq. Qualcomm closed
at a record 179-5/16 on Jan. 3 then slid the rest of the month.
The Wall Street Journal said meetings between Qualcomm executives and officials of China United Telecommunications Corp., China's second-biggest
telephone company, began on Thursday and stretched into the weekend.
A Qualcomm spokesman was not immediately available for comment.
San Diego-based Qualcomm is hoping to secure a deal that would expand China's huge mobile-phone market and help ensure that its products remain
dominant.
The talks pit code division multiple access (CDMA) wireless technology, widely used in the United States, against the European global system for mobile
communications (GSM) wireless technology that is the nearly exclusive technology in China, the Journal reported.
Last year, Chinese negotiators agreed to launch a CDMA mobile network, which would create more business opportunities for U.S. companies in the world's
most populous country.
CDMA is a ``spread spectrum' technology that takes information contained in a particular signal and spreads it over a much greater bandwidth, allowing
telecommunications operators in China to carry more phone traffic than the GSM standard.
Analysts said a Qualcomm deal with China United was only a matter of time.
``We've known that it's been on the radar screen for some time now,' said Brian Modoff, an analyst with Deutsche Banc Alex. Brown. ``The issue is when it's
going to happen.'
Mark Roberts, an analyst with First Union Securities, said the deal would be an advantage for China United since it would give them fast-growing technology.
The talks ``are more to do with China getting nervous that they are getting technologically behind the Japanese and Koreans,' Roberts said. |
