In my opinion 90% market share for GSM by 2005 is a total victory.
Who would argue with that? Of course 90% is total victory.
What's important about 99, from the CDMA POV of course, is whether or not there will be a meaningful national footprint in China or not, and whether the government will seriously commit themselves to it..I think by the end of 99 we'll know the answer to at least part of that question. If it doesn't happen then CDMAone will have lost China, case closed to use your words.
I'll predict that we won't "lose" China and by that I mean there will be a LARGE IS95 network which will allow seamless roaming between China, Japan, and Korea. My prediction is based upon the more than persuasive evidence that GSM is a legacy, no longer state of the art, air interface. We are not talking about Apple/MSFT. At issue is the efficient use of spectrum, a finite resource. That the existence of this network in Japan will force NTT to build a more IS95/CDMA2000 compatible network than you think is going to happen. And that as a result WCDMA will not end up being very different from CDMA2000. As for numbers in China, there's no point discussing them until we see whether a network will be built and on what scale. If it doesn't come to pass, you'll have been proven correct...
I should also point out that the fact that CDMA is building from a smaller subscriber base works in "our" favor for the purposes of this discussion. As of Dec98 there were only 23 mil CDMAone subs worldwide. If China were to add 40 mil over the next few years that would be a meaningful number for us even if we don't achieve 50% of the mkt. This, at its most basic level, is the case I've made for a long time for an investment in QCOM.
There's also perhaps the possibility that by 2005 we'll see some 3G CDMA system in China, although that's not something I'd bet on. Were that to come to pass, would "we" have lost?
Dave |
