Response from Bill Mann:
Hi [chapq]-
I've worked an extensive amount in telecommunications in that part of the world, so I immediately see the truth in what you're writing. I see a market for PAS in China that is manyfold larger than current teledensity, and don't see much overlap between that base and 3G.
This is a story with some holes in it, that's why the stock's so low. I rate it a reasonable chance that the negative association has been overstated.
Thank you for writing.
Bill Mann
Senior Editor, Investing
The Motley Fool
703-254-1317
------------------
[reprinted here by permission from Bill Mann]
-------------------------------------------
Yesterday's mailed promotion from Forbes is a "buy China" thing, including UTSI as bound for glory, with hyped numbers, like (in bold) "over 70% of the PAS market". Actually, it's now under 60% of the PHS/Little Smart/Xialingtong market, and shrinking, amid infra competition especially from from ZTE and Huawei and handset competition from many domestics.
The larger question is whether tyhe government, in a systemic long-term quest for efficiency , will continue to allow this low technology to propagate. Seems to me that this year we're looking at less than what was budgeted for UTSI's PAS infrastructure in 2003, that the objective has been to help consumers and prime the cities and the 2 operators with low cost "mobile" phone subs for the time being, that it worked very well and will be over in a couple of years, that UTStarcom is highly unlikely to grow at anything like what they've done for the last 2 years. Could be, if the reported efficiencies are true, that still Communist China will subsidize TD-SCDMA for the people. |
