Samsung new phone to use Qualcomm chip
biz.yahoo.com
Wednesday November 20, 1:12 pm ET
PARIS, Nov 20 (Reuters) - Samsung Electronics, the world's third-largest maker of mobile phones, said on Wednesday it would use a new chip from U.S. Qualcomm (NasdaqNM:QCOM - News) when it launches a third-generation phone next year.
Park Sang-jin, senior vice president of telecommunication networks at Samsung Electronics, told Reuters the new phone would be launched in the European and Korean markets.
"We're going to introduce a wideband CDMA phone in the third quarter of next year for the European market," Park said at a Samsung roadshow in the French capital.
Park said the phone, which can handle both the W-CDMA and CDMA2000 third-generation standards, would use a new chip announced by Qualcomm last week.
"We need that chip for the Korean market too," he said, adding that both of Korea's main carriers had adopted the Wideband CDMA standard.
Samsung expected firm growth in the global market for mobile handsets, Park said.
"This year demand will end up at around 410 million, next year global demand will be 435 million. The big growth will come from India and China. We're going to have a mid-range phone for that market that could be considered as mass models for the West." Samsung showed a prototype of a 'smartphone' that would use software from U.S. giant Microsoft (NasdaqNM:MSFT - News). Smartphones extend the normal functionality of mobile phones to encompass games, e-mail, personal digital assistants and other applications.
This phone will be launched in the third quarter of next year, Park said, adding that most of the demand would come from the North American market.
Samsung will also produce a smartphone using rival software from Symbian (London:PON.L - News) and Nokia (NOK1V.HE), but this won't be launched before the fourth quarter of 2003 or even 2004. |
