Qualcomm Sees Slowly Rising Demand For New Chip
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Qualcomm Sees Slowly Rising Demand For New Chip
Thursday September 4, 1:01 pm ET
By Frank Byrt, Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
BOSTON (Dow Jones)--Qualcomm Inc. expects that demand for its latest mobile phone technology, a chipset for use in the next generation of mobile phones, will be slow until late next year, but the company will take the lion's share of the market when it picks up in 2005.
Tony Thornley, Qualcomm's chief operating officer, said the company expects 2004 will be "a transition year" for adoption of the wideband code division multiple access chipsets, or WCDMAs, with overall market demand at under 10 million units, but that will rise in 2005.
Thornley, speaking at the SG Cowen Annual Technology Conference here, said that Qualcomm's target for the WCDMA chipset, based on digital wireless technology, is to gain 50% of the world market, "and we think that target is very achievable."
Initial deployments of WCDMA have begun in Japan and Europe, the company said.
As for the industry's competitive environment, Thornley said that Nokia , the world's largest mobile phone maker, controls the chip market at the low end of the market and is more of a competitor to Qualcomm than Texas Instruments Inc. .
"But we're very good at competing with Nokia at the high end and middle" of the chip set market, Thornley said.
Thornley said that product lifecycles are shrinking, but company's such as Qualcomm can maintain a competitive advantage by using the same software as the company's products evolve.
In the longer term, Thornley said that Qualcomm expects product upgrades will continue to drive demand for its products. Consumer products such as mobile handsets, DVD machines and cameras will be growing users of Qualcomm's products as features are added.
Qualcomm, San Diego, is expected to earn $1.42 in its fiscal year ending in September, and $1.38 in 2004, according to Thomson First Call (News - Websites). |
