Qualcomm to launch ``world cell phone chip'' in 2003
LONDON, Nov 12 (Reuters) - Qualcomm Inc, the U.S. mobile phone equipment group determined to break into Europe, insisted on Tuesday that it had the key to allow cell phone customers to use high-speed data services across the globe.
Chief Financial Officer Bill Keitel said Qualcomm was on course to bring to market the world's first, single mobile phone chip that would allow mobiles to bridge a technology gap between the Americas, Europe and Asia towards the end of 2003.
``We expect our world chip to be available in commercial volumes starting in the second half of next year,'' Keitel told Reuters in London, one day before the group's first European analyst presentation.
Research group Gartner ranks the U.S. group as the leader in the $12-billion-a-year wireless chip market, with 12.5 percent market share -- just ahead of domestic rival Texas Instruments and Franco-Italian STmicroelectronics.
But Qualcomm has been sidelined in Europe, where its patented code division multiple access (CDMA) wireless technology has failed to gain ground against Europe's home-grown global system for mobile communications (GSM), which is also used in most parts of Asia.
Qualcomm, which pioneered CDMA in the United States, is hoping that its new chipset, dubbed MSM6300, can provide the key to entering the key GSM-dominated markets.
BRIDGING THE GAP
The MSM6300 will allow mobile phones to offer high-speed, multi-media services and swing between U.S. CDMA technologies -- including the most advanced CDMA2000 version -- and GSM and its higher-speed GPRS (general packet radio service) version.
Keitel declined to divulge which telecoms manufacturers had already placed orders for MSM6300 chipset, saying only that there had been ``very keen interest'' in a technology that would allow companies to tap into lucrative global roaming revenues.
He said Qualcomm was working closely with the usual suspects -- such as South Korea's Samsung Electronics, Sanyo and Novatel Wireless -- and hoped to get U.S. telecoms manufacturer Motorola Inc on board.
``Those are names that are often aggressive in terms that are wanting to get handsets to market,'' he said. ``Motorola is coming along as a strong customers of ours ... Hopefully they'll be there.''
Qualcomm says Asian manufacturers have also been working on chipsets that would allow mobile phones to work on both CDMA and European GSM technologies.
But Keitel said Qualcomm, which is building a business in countries such as China, India, South Korea and Japan, was the only company to date to use only one chipset. This allowed the mobile phones to be more efficient, he said.
``As we take apart phones with other companies' chipsets, we're seeing two chipsets beside each other,'' he said. ``In terms of talk time and standby time, the dual-chip approach reduces the efficiency of the handset and increases the cost.''
In an effort to stay ahead of the game, Qualcomm is also trialling an upgraded version of the world chip, called MSM6500, which will allow even faster speeds of up to 2.4 megabits per second. It plans to ship samples in the second quarter of 2003.
Whether Qualcomm can also bring to market a chip that will allow mobile phones to work over both U.S. and European third-generation (3G) technologies remains to be seen.
The lack of a mobile phone that marries both Qualcomm's CDMA2000 and the European UMTS (universal mobile telecommunications system) rival has strained relations between the partners in the top U.S. mobile operator: Verizon Wireless.
Verizon, which is majority-owned by Verizon Communications and part-owned by Europe's top mobile group Vodafone Group Plc, is upgrading its network with Qualcomm technology rather than a European standard.
But both companies have insisted that while European operators delay commercial launches of 3G services, mobile phone manufacturers have plenty of time to come up with a solution.
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