Hi Mike, Interesting feedback. I had been happy with my MOT startac. Then I changed service providers and have been even more pleased with my Samsung phone. I like the very intuitive menu systems on it.
It will be interesting to see how big this NOK issue turns out to be.
Jorj and I have talked about CAPEX spending decreasing in China and we continue to see that theme play out.
this note from last friday shows how the Chinese telco's are really reducing CAPEX this year:
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Last week China Unicom reported results and provided guidance for 2002. In
its report we saw the first real indication of the potential level of the
decline in infrastructure spending in China in 2002. We are forecasting
wireless capex spending in China will decrease 25-30% in 2002 due to: (1)
slowing net adds and (2) little, if any, CDMA capacity spending (we feel
Unicom's 15 million sub capacity on its CDMA network is ample for its 7
million subscriber goal this year). There has been a lot of concern
surrounding the amount of spending in China in 2002 and we believe this is
the first solid indication of a dramatic spending slowdown in this region in
2002. We believe our estimate for the level of the spending decline is in-
line with our forecast for a 24% decline in net adds in 2002 to 40 million
from 52 million in 2001.
China Unicom indicated it plans to lower its wireless capex spending to 36%
of its 2002 capex budget from roughly 67% of its capex budget in 2001. This
is a decline of 62% to $950 million from roughly $2.5 billion on total
wireless spending. However, if we back out the CDMA network spending in 2001
(approximately $1.2 billion) to get an apples-to-apples comparison, Unicom is
forecasting a decline of 28%. We are forecasting a 19% decline in spending
for China Mobile to $4.2 billion from $5.2 billion last year.
All of the major wireless infrastructure suppliers have exposure in China:
Motorola (MOT, 1H, $13.90), Ericsson (ERICY, 4H, $3.97), Nokia (NOK, 3M,
$20.03), Nortel (NT, 2H, $4.24), Lucent (LU, 2H, $4.58), Alcatel (ALA, 3M,
$13.97) and Siemens (SI, 2M, $63.05). Our 2002 estimates for global capex
spending (a decline of 7%) and Motorola's infrastructure revenues (a decline
of 21%) reflect our bearish outlook for wireless equipment spending in China
in 2002. We also believe our estimates for Nokia and Ericsson's
infrastructure divisions reflect our expectations for wireless spending in
China. |
