We need to redirect the focus of the thread. While next generation and transitional issues are not unimportant and are certainly interesting, the short to medium term outlook for Qualcomm and the price of its shares is tied to two things. First, how well PrimeCo and Sprint are doing and the customer acceptance of CDMA phones and service. Second, whether Qualcomm can prove itself able to manufacture the new phones, get the software ready, and get them to the market. In this regard, it is critical that it deliver its dual-mode phone in particular sometime in September. What I am interested and hope others are interested in, are things such as:
(1) how many production lines have been ramped up at the present time; (2) how is the software tweaking going; (3) when the new phones are going to be delivered. Anyone from the San Diego area heard anything on these matters? This is why the stock is lagging. The company cannot prove its ability to compete unless it can get these phones to the market timely, they work without problems, and the customers accept them--i.e., Sprint and PrimeCo can talk them up and move them off the shelves. This is the critical kind of information we need to know, because if the company proves that it can get the new phones out, without a hitch, and take advantage of the fall and Christimas markets--before the competitors get their phones out--the street will finally start believing. Moreover, if these phones hit the shelves by the second week of September and fly off the shelves, it will actually be a blow out quarter.
Just a note of reminder, as I posted about a week ago, the CEO of Airtouch was on Nightly Business Report. The discussion was that the churning rate has not increased despite the entrance into the market of the PCS players. The CEO opined that his firm obviously had been satisfying its customers so they would not subscribe to the new companies and that the new providers were expanding the market (a good thing for the industry, he added) and not taking away subscribers from the existing cell phone users. In other words, TDMA vs. CDMA is not the real battle in the short term; what is important is how the CDMA providers are doing on their own in garnering subscribers and selling phones. The technology battle, especially for next generation (overlay, backward compatibility, etc.) is a different issue and one that is not critical to QCOM in the next few quarters.
Has anybody heard anything about the questions I have regarding getting the phones out, getting them manufactured, etc.???? |
