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To: sea_biscuit who wrote (112912)	2/10/2002 12:22:54 PM
From: arun gera	Respond to of 152472

>You are right. Only a small section of the Indian populace can think of cellphones and other glitzy gadgets. Even those who have electricity and water connections have to worry about paying their bills. And that is a small fraction of the population. > That small fraction is about 200 million people. There are many misconceptions about the wealth of Indians. The NET WORTH of a middle class Indian household in the cities (I never lived in the villages, so can't comment) is probably on par in dollars with a typical middle class American. Most middle class households have about $30,000 in just gold and jewels. Till recently, one could not buy a house on mortgage. Most Indians buy their houses in cash. Even here in the US, most people of Indian origin try to pay off their houses in 15 years or less. Having electricity and water connections are problems created by Govt. policy. It has nothing to do with the wealth of the people. If you visit a market in a small town, you will hear the hum of gasoline powered generators. That's because sufficient investment has not been made in the electricity grid. So the shopkeeper has to pay a higher price for a unit of electricity while using a generator. And forget that Coke argument. There is nothing intrinsically delicious about Coke and Pepsi as drinks. The consumption is directly related to marketing and to the addictive nature of caffeine. Most Indian households, even the poorer ones, get home-cooked fresh meals three times a day. Talk about luxury.

To: sea_biscuit who wrote (112912)	2/10/2002 4:28:00 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 152472

Dear Dipstick, have you been to India or are you just quoting your prejudices to support your ideas? Personally, I don't think people have to go somewhere to understand it enough to get some accurate ideas, but it definitely helps. While Coca Cola has been widely popular, I can imagine that it might not be the top seller in India that it is elsewhere. If I remember rightly Pepsi had more signs [both are widely advertised]. It might seem silly, but I had fun comparing how many of each sign was in an area. As Arun pointed out, they are not all living in penury. I don't think anyone suggested that by 2010 there would be a billion people in India using CDMA phones. My guess was about 200 million. Judging by Arun's comments, that would be about right. But if they ditch the British bureaucracy, closed borders to capital flows, and socialism, a lot can happen in 10 years. Look at Singapore for what foreign capital can do if it's allowed to and is protected against confiscation by crooks. It's quite funny that poor countries "protect" their economies like that. People feel sorry for the poor, but it's the local political processes which keep them poor. There's a weird rich-guilt as though the USA is to blame because places like India are poor. I think it derives from the cargo-cult mentality and the idea of 'found wealth' which is the biological inheritance we have. That found wealth required territorial defence and is a fixed size. What drives wealth these days is much more abstract and hard to understand for people steeped in such cultures. Most in the rich west don't understand it either. Agriculture enabled wealth to be expanded and technology and cloning of technology [software, ASICs etc] has made it limitless. So, don't depend on young Indians thinking the good old days of socialism, bureaucracy and poverty were all that great and should be maintained as an Indian tradition. As in China, they'll figure it out one of these days. Maybe. Even if they don't, already there are 200 million addressable Indians who would love some pixelated CDMA cyberbank gadgets to swoop around in cyberspace. Meanwhile, there are queues of Indians waiting to use public phones where you pay a LOT per minute to call from Bangalore to Cochin or anywhere else. There's a big market already for mobile CDMA. I hope you have shorted a LOT of QUALCOMM stock. You should do it. There is no point in figuring it all out if you don't put your money where your mouth is. Mqurice PS: I secretly think that 600 million Indians will have CDMA phones by 2010, but I've learned things take a little longer than I expect, because what's obvious to me isn't so clear to dipsticks.

To: sea_biscuit who wrote (112912)	2/11/2002 2:08:05 AM
From: cfoe	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 152472

In addition to what arun and maurice responded to you with consider this. We are not talking about cellphones in addition to wired phones in India. The vast majority of Indians have NO basic phone service. WLL-CDMA with limited mobility will allow the average family in India to acquire BASIC phone service with the additional bonus of being able to travel within their city and still use the SAME phone. Humans need to communicate. The more they communicate the richer the society. Expanding phone service widely in India will make the nation richer, not poorer. I don't know (as you don't) whether all of this will result in QCOM's stock going up, down or sideways. But it is certain that the availability of phone service to the average person in India will explode over the next decade.