Prudential on Q4 WCDMA Handsets ...
<< Does anybody have access to the report? >>
Yes. Read it yesterday. Not The Pru teams best work. It's a 2¼ page update without a lot of meat.
<< I'm curious how he came up with the market share numbers. >>
Hard to say, although I suspect they are excluding Japan, even though they don't state that. Here's the text of the 3 lead-off summary bullets ("Highlights").
• Based on recent industry checks, we believe consumer adoption of 3G technologies may have been boosted substantially by carrier promotional activity in the December quarter. As such, we believe WCDMA adoption may have exceeded our 55 million unit forecast with continued strong momentum as we look into 2006.
• We believe handset vendors utilizing Qualcomm chipsets are starting to see greater traction in the market, potentially helping to boost QCOM's WCDMA chipset market share into the mid- to high- 20% range from the low- to mid-teens recently. We believe this early adoption will provide important reference accounts as Qualcomm seeks new opportunities to drive 3G chipset sales.
• We continue to look for robust growth in the overall WCDMA market, with handset units roughly doubling to 80-90M in 2006, boosting QCOM's chipset sales and high margin royalty revenues.
In the expanded "Discussion" below, that's stated somewhat differently.
We believe handset vendors utilizing Qualcomm chipsets are starting to see greater traction in the market, potentially helping to boost QCOM's WCDMA chipset market share. ... While we believe the company’s share of the chipset market has been in the low- to mid-teens in recent quarters, the ramping of new devices using Qualcomm chipsets during the seasonally strong December quarter may have boosted Qualcomm’s WCDMA market share to 20% or more. ... In addition to representing an attractive source of revenue growth, we believe this market traction also provides the company with important reference accounts as other handset vendors look for assistance in building their 3G market presence. We also continue to look for robust growth in the overall WCDMA market, with handset units roughly doubling to 80-90M in 2006, boosting QCOM's chipset sales and high margin royalty revenues.
Personally I think (hope) that excluding Japan "the ramping of new devices using Qualcomm chipsets during the seasonally strong December quarter may have boosted Qualcomm’s WCDMA market share to 20% or more" may be accurate but I'm less sure about the 2nd part of the statement ...
"Qualcomm chipsets are starting to see greater traction in the market, potentially helping to boost QCOM's WCDMA chipset market share into the mid- to high- 20% range from the low- to mid-teens recently,"
... even if Japan sales, which in 2005 accounted for ~50% of global WCDMA sales are excluded.
I also doubt that 2005 global UMTS (WCDMA) handset sell-in met or exceeded 50 million units, much less 55 million.
We'll have a better picture of Q4 in a few weeks. Actually, since Samsung reports tonight (Tomorrow over there) we'll get an early peek.
In the interim, this is the way Lehman Brothers who forecasts 49 million WCDMA handsets in 2005, and 89 million in 2006 forecasted 2005 WCDMA handset sales and saw Q3 WCDMA handset and chipset share (via GfK) in their December 21 3G report titled "3G Inflection in 2006-07" ...
2005 Global WCDMA Share 3Q05 European WCDMA Share
======================= =========================
Nokia 20% Nokia 35%
NEC 15% LG 23%
SEricsson 12% Motorola 22%
Motorola 11% Samsung 14%
LG 10% SEricsson 5%
Others 32% NEC 1%
Others 1%
·
3Q05 European 3G Baseband IC Market Share (GfK sell-through data to LB¹)
·
Nokia/TI 39%
EMP/TI 30%
Freescale 18%
QUALCOMM 13%
Agere 1%
·
¹ GfK saw QCOM European share at ~2% in Q1 and ~7% in Q2
Best,
- Eric - |
