"We're building the wireless world"
"Communication without limit"
These are the slogans Mighty Q uses. Being the equivalent of "A puter on every desk and in every home". So the spin-off phone cdmaOne phone companies from Qualcomm makes good sense as a match with their goals.
Thanks for the Strategis estimates. I say they underestimate growth overall and cdmaOne in particular. Also the analog decline seems too slow. Why? Analog is so hopeless and people buy new handsets so frequently that it will die on the vine as people ditch their analog phones. PHS and the minor ones seem destined to remain niche activities. TDMA estimates seem reasonable to me.
So, to the cmdaOne/GSM main event. They seem to have reverse engineered their annual figures for each, with growth constant after 3 years. A boring 50 million new subscribers, year in, year out after 1999 up to 2003 for GSM and an equally boring 27 million a year from 1998 to 2003 for cdma. With no separation for W-cdmaOne or W-cdma-VW, which they presumably didn't bother counting.
So, their figures are total stabs in the dark after 1998. What they have really done is given us a report on approximate subscribers for each type up until now.
1998 until 2003 is about 5 years. In 1993, I was using a 286, which I'd bought in 1990. I might have heard of the internet, but it was embryonic. Cellphones in 1993 were robust pieces of USSR style engineering [though they did look pretty swanky at the time]. There was no Windows 95. Anyway, you get the point. The new paradigm has seen prices crash while performance soared.
People love to gas to each other. They also love buzzing around the Web. Despite the alleged bankruptcy of countries east of 60 deg longitude, to 165 deg longitude, people there and elsewhere have an intense proclivity to remain in touch with each other. So they all want cellphones. Despite protestations they sometimes make to the contrary. It's just a matter of how much they cost. You've seen that Korean cellphone sales continue to soar with exports going wild.
People most places are getting better off. With cdmaOne prices set to drop rapidly due to volume and competition, as well as technical progress in design, more and more people will be able to afford them.
Strategis thinking seems to stop at 1998. They have GSM selling double cdmaOne from here to eternity! Eternity being 2003, which is a long way away in Web years. Or even chip design years. They certainly won't have included WLL, which is mobile if you don't move quickly. Take your phone somewhere in the vicinity, stand still and it'll work fine. Nice, cheap mobile!
Few phones in use now will be in use in 2001. Battery life alone will see most people ditch them. Voice quality, privacy, small phone size, functionality such as Web access, email, caller ID, banking, vegemite dispensing will cause even more demand.
Annual sales of 50 million GSM and 27 million cdmaOne is nonsense. They should have analog drop faster, TDMA grow slower, then die one day! GSM should peak about 3 years from now and cdmaOne will just carry on growing, but faster and faster. So GSM monthly sales should be exceeded by cdma in about 2 years. Total cdmaOne subscribers should exceed GSM maybe 3 years after that. Especially if Newbury style overlays are done.
China digital is largely GSM now, but they will soon figure out that it is worth having cdmaOne networks competing too.
A week is a long time in politics, a day a long time in financial markets. Cellular changes in months rather than decades or even years.
Mqurice
"Don't let a slogan do your thinking for you"
PS: At the projected 77 million per year new subscribers, it will take 100 years for everyone to have a phone! I think they better think more in terms of 20 years! And lots of people will have 3 phones - one for going for a run, one for the car, a Globalstar one and a couple spare. A bit like calculators. All with the same number, which won't be a number anyway, you'll dial the name or url of the person you want.
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