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Technology Stocks : Ericsson overlook? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Fernando Saldanha who wrote (1172)	1/1/1998 1:07:00 AM
From: Patrick Sharkey	Respond to of 5390

What percentage of Ericsson's profits come from phone sets? How many cents per share did forbes Think that Ericsson's 41% earnings growth increase would suffer as a result of the ocmpetition for the sale of handsets?

To: Fernando Saldanha who wrote (1172)	1/2/1998 9:17:00 AM
From: Sawtooth	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 5390

<<The latest issue of Forbes recommends shorting Ericsson and Nokia. They mention the fact that cellular phones are becoming cheaper, and are increasingly being given away by the service providers.>> Fernando: Thanks for the reference to the article. Interestingly, when I searched the Forbes site for "Ericsson", the article in the search results next to your referenced article was a 9/97 Forbes article where the GT (Global Telecomm.) Fund manager was saying that Ericsson and Nokia where his hands-down favorites and largest positions. I guess it's a difference in opinions that makes for a market in a stock! One of the two articles mentioned that handsets for ERICY was about 40% of sales. It talked about CDMA but mentioned it only as a real threat in US right now, with sporadic activitiy out of the country. Made an interesting analogy between Apple/IBM and ERICY, et al./QCOM, noting that Apple clearley had superior technology but what mattered when all of the smoke cleared was who was able to get the most installed market share. The loser frequently starts carving a tombstone. Food for thought. Search the Forbes/Investor sight for these other articles, if you haven't seen them already. With a position in the Nordics as well as QCOM, this is interesting for me to watch from both sides of the fence (on the fence? Hope I don't fall!). Regards.

To: Fernando Saldanha who wrote (1172)	1/2/1998 5:45:00 PM
From: Randy Ellingson	Respond to of 5390

This makes sense, I think, wrt to tendency for any service requiring specialized hardware (in this case the cell phone is the specialized communications device) to encourage the commoditization of, and drop in price/profit of the hardware. Same may very well be true for cable modems once they hit the point of widespread use. A company that can deliver unique capabilities, or a service/hardware combination where the technology is sufficiently unique and superior to enable a patent and licensing thereof, could win big. A rare combination I guess. What fraction of ERICY's revenues and profits come from cell phone sales? Randy

To: Fernando Saldanha who wrote (1172)	1/3/1998 12:52:00 AM
From: DWB	Respond to of 5390

IMHO, valuing Ericsson and Nokia based on handsets alone is not a smart thing to do... Both have substantial revenues derived from infrastructure contracts (Ericsson more than Nokia), and the phones that are given away by service providers are still paid for to the companies that build them... the cost of the phone is just built into the price of your contract. Sounds like someone at Forbes thought it sounded good, and they stuck it in print before thinking about it. DWB