To: John Cuthbertson who wrote (19153 ) 12/5/1998 12:55:00 PM From: tero kuittinen Read Replies (3) | Respond to of 152472
John - I'm gonna double for the next six months. The market share information for USA reflected the situation during the first nine months of the year. But Nokia's new models started shipping in volume from March onwards and AT&T's One Rate Plan was introduced during the summer. I think the market share shift during this winter is even more profound than the Dataquest numbers imply. American industry observers have totally dropped the ball here. There has been little or no commentary on the sea changes taking place. Nokia shipped 1 million digital mobile phones in USA during 1997 - now it looks like it will top 10 million units in 1999. That's nearly 1'000% increase over 24 months. And is this newsworthy? No, not really. What I'm reading from US financial news sources is a chronicle of CDMA's inevitable triumph, Motorola's impressive come-back, yada, yada, yada. Merrill Lynch solemnly states that Nokia is facing 15% long term growth and downgrades the stock at 70 bucks. The current projections for different digital standards in USA remind me of the Soviet agricultural statistics that were published during the Eighties. The divergence with reality is growing daily. My hometown newspaper, "Keskisuomalainen", reported on TDMA's big gains in US marketplace *months* ago... while Wall Street Journal still seems oblivious. I think Yanks deserve better than this. What I saw when I visited USA last month was CDMA's complete inability to reach consumers with a coherent message of what it is and what sets it apart from other standards. There is no awareness of the possible superiority of this standard - and when consumers are not even aware of the existence of the standard competition there is no way CDMA can gain an advantage over the better established competition. The two key pieces of information here are that TDMA beat CDMA in *percentage* growth during the first nine months of -98 and GSM is reported to have beaten CDMA in percentage growth during the 3Q of -98. CDMA was supposed to have a growth advantage over TDMA, because it is starting from a smaller subscriber base. If it can't close the gap now, it will be almost impossible in the future. Nokia's disconcerting market share increase is telling us something. You don't move from 20% to 40% in a market that is more than doubling annually, unless the competition has screwed up royally. The inability to stick to product introduction schedules and production volume increases is the mortal sin of this business and apparently Qualcomm and Motorola are both fumbling the crucial Christmas season pretty thoroughly. This on top of the weak 9-month numbers. It will take American business commentators probably months to realize the extent of what is taking place here. But the judgement day is drawing near in the form of 4Q reporting season. If Nokia can sew up 50-55% of the US digital phone market during the Xmas season even Fortune will have to finally take notice. I can hardly wait for the cute, dismissive sideswipes about polar bears and vodka that usually set the tone for US reporting on Nokia. At some point those projections on CDMA's future US market share will have to come down. This will have global implications - it's going to be might hard to sell IS-95 to the rest of the world as the wave of the future if it can't hold its own in San Diego. I'm sorry if all this seems blunt, but I'm having trouble expressing my views in any other way - I feel that American investors are being misled by slanted reporting. Tero