Jorg, true, there are only about 800 million Chinese and 300 million Indians who will probably be able to afford a CDMA phone by 2010. But 1 billion is still quite a crowd if they tried to squeeze into QUALCOMM stadium to watch the Superbowl. You say a third, I say half [not a big difference and maybe your "meaningful future" is sooner than 2010].
Already, with the old, expensive, GSM technology, there are about 150 million Chinese subscribers, with very rapid growth. CDMA will tip the balance to bring the average Chinese into the market.
India is more problematic as they haven't done a lot to ditch their 19th century Karl Marx ideas. But they are on the move and a lot can happen in 10 years. They don't have the option of wired phones, so CDMA will be the name of the game.
The legacy GSM networks are big in China, but not such a big deal in India, where cellphone penetration remains tiny. But capacity is the issue. Then, cyberspace links will be crucial [see Korean market for demand]. GPRS is DOA. EDGE is bleeding.
The Betamax argument is no argument at all. Yes, it's true that the best doesn't always win, either because of network effects, economies of scale, narrow marketing platforms or whatever. But that doesn't mean that worse technologies always win, [or even very often]. The almost universal outcome of technological development is that better technologies win. If the examples were all that common, we wouldn't always hear about the Betamax business [which is debatable anyway - it's not entirely clear that Betamax was better than VHS in any respect which mattered to most consumers].
With RadioOne replacing half the cellphone bill of materials, we are moving way beyond the ASIC sale and some derisory royalties.
Mq |
