Eric - it's a little disingenuous to say that TDMA being the fastest growing digital standard is "not a long term trend". It wasn't supposed to be any kind of a trend during the year 2000, remember? This was the year when TDMA growth was supposed to stall as subs defect to IS-95 operators. You were one of the people who bought into this prediction.
And now you're shrugging the stellar TDMA growth off by saying that it's not sustainable, anyway. Paging Dubya - how evasive and dismissive can you get about clear statistics?
Maybe TDMA growth advantage will continue and maybe it won't. But it sure is going to have a major impact on mobile phone and DSP chipset sales patterns of this winter. This wasn't how this year was supposed to develop. All the equipment vendors who ignored the TDMA market because their growth projections were off will now have to face the consequences. You can't shrug off the fact that all of the long-term standard growth projections will be rewritten before this year is over.
Your numbers of year-to-date growth patterns of digital standards show exactly why it's important to highlight the summer figures. That's because the growth patterns shifted dramatically during the summer. Thanks for not trying the tired old "It's just Korea" angle, Eric. It's not just Korea. It's Korea, USA, Brazil, Japan and Mexico.
Would you claim that January-April trends are more important than April-August trends? I wouldn't. Last winter's growth patterns are history. The April-August period is crucial precisely because it is totally different from the January-April period.
Without strong Latin American showing TDMA would not be the world's fastest growing standard. Trying to highlight the role of Los Angeles in TDMA growth is absurd. You really think that Santa Monica soccer moms are pivotal to the global sales growth of TDMA - with its sub base nearing 60 million? Please. Mexico and Brazil are the keystones of TDMA's current performance.
You're talking about WAP phones when I'm talking about global market share shifts. Planet Earth to Eric - WAP models do not define the global market shares in mobile telephony during the second half of the year 2000. The flipside of betting big on WAP phones during this autumn seems to be the absence of appealing, new non-WAP models.
You know perfectly well what model is the monster hit in the TDMA market right now - WAP has nothing to do with it.
The market for non-WAP phones is hot. Moving the company emphasis on a new technology too early is just as damaging as moving it too late. This is the whole point of this quarter's earnings. Having an appealing WAP line-up during this quarter means nothing if the entry-level model line-up is obsolete. The lost sales in the mass market sector can obliterate the gains made in specialised product niches.
People can discuss about 1XRTT, GPRS, HDR, cdma2000 and W-CDMA on this thread until the cows come home. What drives the industry sales during the next 6 months is going to be the boring, plain vanilla 2G sales.
You are talking about Verizon - the current global sales growth revolves around Germany, England, Italy and China. The major growth surprises of the 3Q have come from the British, German and Chinese operators. Would you let the New Jersey retail scene alone for a moment and take a look at what's going on globally? Two years after I was first attacked for expressing doubts about the prospects of IS-95 in China, GSM is now topping 60 million subs in this country.
That's 60 million as in "all of the digital standards combined in the continent of North America".
I understand the point about the talk of the 3G technologies. They are important for long-term growth. But that does not mean that companies or investors can afford to ignore 2G trends. In this environment, "Just you wait until 2003!!" does not cut the mustard with investors. People in this thread have done a great job of ignoring the 2G market while shifting the focus to 3G. I doubt the markets will be as nobly far-sighted if they detect 2G sales weakness going into the fourth quarter.
Tero |
