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To: D.B. Cooper who wrote (8651)	1/9/2001 6:44:15 AM
From: D.B. Cooper	Respond to of 13572

Tuesday January 9, 3:15 am Eastern Time Qualcomm says willing to join in Korea's 3G bids (UPDATE: recasts, adds ministry statement, details) By Nam In-soo SEOUL, Jan 9 (Reuters) - The Korean branch of U.S. wireless technology provider Qualcomm Inc (NasdaqNM:QCOM - news) said on Tuesday it would be willing to join with Korean telecom firms in a bid for a third-generation (3G) mobile service licence. ``Qualcomm is ready to partner with Korean firms in bidding for 3G services, which includes equity participation if they want,'' Park Moon-suh, director at Qualcomm Korea Ltd, told Reuters. He said the company had notified the Ministry of Information and Communication of its position on Tuesday morning. ``Korea is a really important market for Qualcomm and we will aggressively seek a partnership with Korean telecom firms,'' he said. The ministry said in a statement that Qualcomm Korea had expressed its intention to jointly invest with other foreign companies in Korean telecom firms and provide technical assistance. ``The scale of the investment will be adjusted through talks with potential Korean partners,'' it said. The move came one day after South Korea's Hanaro Telecom Inc (NasdaqNM:HANA - news), an Internet service provider, said it was seeking a partnership with Qualcomm in a bid for a licence to be awarded in March for 3G, which offers quality video and high-speed data services. Qualcomm signed an MOU with Hanaro on 3G technology assistance in December. Shares of Hanaro rose by their daily limit of 12 percent to 3,680 won on the over-the-counter market on Tuesday. HANARO IN TALKS A senior Hanaro Telecom official said on Monday a company delegation was in the United States for talks with Qualcomm and any results could emerge around this weekend or early next week. ``Qualcomm will be tempted to forge an alliance with a Korean telecom company to help maintain its revenues from Korea,'' said Doo Wan-soo, a director at Hanaro. Qualcomm's Park agreed: ``Korea is a key market for Qualcomm as it first commercialised our cdma2000 mobile technology.'' More than half of South Korea's 46 million people use mobile phones. The country pioneered the commercial application of cdma2000 technology and has the largest number of mobile phone users with that technology in the world. Local media had said Qualcomm might team up with LG Telecom or Hanaro in the form of equity investment in a consortium for the bid. Both LG Telecom and Hanaro led consortia that were rejected in bidding for 3G licences last month, but the government plans to offer one more licence, which will use Qualcomm's cdma2000 format, in March. LG Telecom shares finished up four percent at 5,400 won on Tuesday. Shares in Qualcomm fell sharply last week after a leading brokerage warned mobile phone subscriptions had tapered off in December in South Korea, a key market for the company. Qualcomm derives the bulk of its revenue from licensing its CDMA technology to the mobile phone industry. Shares in Qualcomm closed up 4\13 at $77-7/8 on Monday on the Nasdaq (^IXIC - news). In the December bidding for two 3G licences the winners were consortia formed respectively around state-run Korea Telecom and SK Telecom , Korea's largest mobile carrier. Both will use W-CDMA technology developed by Nokia and Ericcson . The Korean government would like both cmda2000 and W-CDMA used in 3G as it wants to allow service providers to tap into the larger W-CDMA international user market while offering a market for local handset makers which produce cdma2000 units. LG SAYS WILL NOT BID AGAIN The Ministry of Information and Communication had announced on Monday it was delaying the award of the cdma2000 licence to mid-March from end-February. The ministry gave no explanation, but analysts said the move might have been designed to buy more time to persuade LG into re-bidding for the cdma2000 licence. LG has said it was not interested. ``We will not bid for the cdma2000 licence. So, we are not interested in developing relations with Qualcomm in that regard,'' Park Hyung-il, an LG Telecom spokesman, said.