Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Nokia (NOK) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tero kuittinen who wrote (3479)	2/1/2000 8:33:00 AM
From: brian h	Respond to of 34857

Tero, OOPS. China is going CDMA with its CDMA phone manufacturers. GSM's wall is cracking! It has been a long wait. But here we come China on CDMA. Eurocentric? The tide is changing! Guess who will benefit the most. Come on Nokia is also buying QCOM chips soon. "Go " game remembered. Tuesday February 1, 7:13 am Eastern Time ANALYSIS-Qualcomm China deal to open hardball market By Matt Pottinger BEIJING, Feb 1 (Reuters) - China's decision to soon build CDMA mobile phone networks through a deal with U.S.-based Qualcomm Inc (NasdaqNM:QCOM - news) has foreign equipment vendors like Motorola and Nortel salivating. But unlike the feast laid out when Beijing embraced the GSM mobile phone standard, this time there will be a new group of vendors crowding the table -- the Chinese themselves. Supplying GSM equipment earned billions of dollars for European and North American companies selling handsets, switches and base stations into the virgin market. It has taken Chinese companies years to make inroads into the market dominated by Nokia, Ericsson, Motorola and Siemens. Now they are better prepared, and regulation is in their favour. In 1998, Premier Zhu Rongji ordered an industry shift toward localisation. Local content requirements were phased in, forcing foreign companies to enter manufacturing joint ventures on Chinese soil. ``There were 30 million subscribers in China, and local content was a big 'zero',' said a senior executive with a foreign equipment vendor in Beijing, recalling the market figure just a few months ago. ``They will not repeat this mistake again.' GREAT DRAGON IS IN CONTENTION On Tuesday, an executive with China Unicom said the company had struck a preliminary agreement with Qualcomm on patents that paves the way for China to build a mobile phone network based on CDMA standards. Qualcomm owns most of the patents on the Code Division Multiple Access technology, and stands to make huge profits out of licencing royalties in China. China Unicom is the country's number to telephone company, and hopes to use the technology to compete against state giant China Telecom's GSM networks. Under current plans, the CDMA network would reach a subscriber capacity of 11 million by the end of the year. Foreign companies competing for meaty contracts will include Motorola (NYSE:MOT - news), Lucent Technologies (NYSE:LU - news) of the United States, Canada's Nortel Networks (Toronto:NT.TO - news), South Korea's Samsung and Sweden's Ericsson . But companies with names like Great Dragon, ZTE, Jinpeng Electronic Information Machine Co, and Datang Telecom will stand shoulder-to-shoulder with foreign firms in the bidding process. WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY China currently has more than 40 million mobile phone subscribers, and the number is expected to hit 70 million later this year. Only two foreign companies have joint ventures licensed to make and sell CDMA equipment in China - Nortel and Motorola - while others have applied to license existing joint ventures. Industry executives said Unicom was expected to start putting out tenders for CDMA contracts as soon as March. All the contracts would be for locally-produced equipment priced in domestic yuan currency, shutting out pure imports. ``They're in the short-listing phase,' said one Motorola executive, who declined to be identified. Foreign ventures are hoping to win contracts early on, while Chinese firms are still learning the ropes. ``Initially, the bulk will go to the foreign joint ventures, because initially there is a learning curve,' said one foreign executive in Beijing. ``Unicom in one year is going to double the world CDMA population. No single supplier, probably not even two suppliers, could handle that,' he said. Jan Malm, Ericsson's executive vice president for China, said it would take time for Chinese firms to become competitive in the new market. ``They'll need to prove themselves,' he said. Brian H.

To: tero kuittinen who wrote (3479)	2/1/2000 9:31:00 AM
From: slacker711	Respond to of 34857

You don't seem to realize what's happening in the Brazilian CDMA phone market. I don't think you know what Nokia's year 2000 US CDMA strategy is, either. So saying that Nokia is not placing bets on CDMA based on 1999 would be totally false. Hey....I think this is progress. This is the first time you have mentioned that Nokia might have a "2000 US CDMA strategy". This has always been my basic point....Nokia will need to address the market. Warning....US-Centric Question following. Does Nokia have a conference call in English? Slacker