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Technology Stocks : The New Qualcomm - a S&P500 company -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Eric L who wrote (6135)	2/2/2000 11:59:00 PM
From: Ruffian	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13582

2/02/00 - CHINA'S DEAL WITH QUALCOMM TO WIDEN DOORS FOR KOREAN CDMA Feb 02, 2000 (AsiaPulse via COMTEX) -- By Suh Hae-Sung SEOUL, Feb 3 Asia Pulse - Korean mobile phone makers, who supply over half of the world's supply of CDMA-based cellular phones, expect big things in the world's biggest market after Qualcomm's deal in China to commercialize the wireless technology. Qualcomm, which holds the patents to most CDMA technologies, reached an agreement Tuesday with China United Telecommunications (China Unicom) on supplying infrastructure for CDMA to China, which is more familiar with the GSM standard prevalent in Europe. "This agreement enables China Unicom to move forward aggressively with plans to deploy a commercial CDMA network with an initial capacity of 10 million subscribers this year, and exponentially grow the network in the next few years," said Yang Xianzu, chairman and general manager of China Unicom. The much-delayed deal between Qualcomm and China Unicom is expected to accelerate the Chinese telecom company's other wireless projects that have kept global telecom giants waiting impatiently. China Unicom is in a hurry to catch up with China Telecom, which dominates the wireless market under the GSM mode. The country had 43 million mobile phone users last year and the figure is expected to reach 70 million this year. Last November, 13 companies including Samsung, Hyundai and LG of Korea submitted bids for China's first CDMA project of constructing 4 million cables in the latter half of this year. An announcement on prime bidders expected this month has been delayed, but sources close to the situation predict procedures to pick up speed now that China has agreed to open its market to CDMA. Government sources say Korean companies have a good chance of winning in Unicom's first bidding. Samsung, Hyundai and LG are vying with Motorola, Lucent Technologies, Nortel Networks, Ericsson, NEC, Fujitsu and four Chinese companies for the country's largest-ever supply contract. Three to four will likely be chosen to supply CDMA equipment for three to four major regions in China. "The Chinese have a good impression about Korean CDMA phones and technology. We hear all three Korean companies have received high ratings and expect at least one or two will be included among the three to four finalists," said Chung Jin-kwan, an official of the Information and Communications Ministry. Korea, which was first in the world to commercialize CDMA technology, has 60 percent of the 33.6 million CDMA phone users worldwide. Noh Joon-hyung, head of the ministry's international affairs department, visited China with former Finance and Economy Minister Kang Bong-kyun last month and had "deep" talks with senior executives of China Unicom, Chung said. The government has made a concerted effort to help Korean phone makers gain the upper hand in the Chinese market since Beijing decided to introduce CDMA technology in April last year. After many working-level talks, Information and Communication Minister Namgoong Suek, Wu Zichuan, Chinese minister for information technology, and Telecom Industries signed a memorandum in May to set up a working group to study CDMA technology and cooperate in commercializing it in China. The government spoke on behalf of the Korean CDMA industry during meetings with presidents, foreign ministers and finance ministers of the two countries last year. "We think our efforts will produce results," Chung said. The industry is also relaxed in that it acted relatively quicker in advancing into the Chinese market than other global rivals. Samsung, which was first to introduce CDMA technology in China, supplied the equipment when CDMA service was tested in Beijing and Tianjin in 1998. It was also the first to start commercial service together with Hebei Century Mobile Communication from this month in Hebei, China. LG Information and Communications last month set up a joint venture telecom company LG-TOPS with China's GPTE and GTAST to sell wireless local loop (WLL) system based on CDMA technology. It said Tuesday that it completed China Unicom's first infrastructure for CDMA-based WLL in Chengdu, China. It also obtained contracts from the company for construction in four to five more regions in the country. "The most important thing right now is to make CDMA technology known in China," says Yoon Jong-jin, a spokesman for Samsung Electronics, adding the Qualcomm deal will serve as a big boost. "The competition is good. We should have Qualcomm, Motorola and many more others in the market competing in the CDMA mode. We need to make the market big first of all in order to compete." Foreign companies consider China one of the most important markets because its choice between CDMA and GSM can affect the country's later choice on which wireless standard to base the next-generation IMT-2000 project. Korean companies face tough competition from their foreign rivals but expect to gain the upper hand because of their earlier entry into China, Yoon of Samsung says. According to a 1998 Dataquest survey, Samsung took 28.5 percent of the world CDMA handset market with sales of 17 million units. LG accounted for 18.1 percent and Hyundai 10.3 percent. (Yonhap) (C) 2000 Asia Pulse Pte Ltd -0-