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To: joe who wrote (27854)	2/9/1999 11:36:00 AM
From: Moonray	Respond to of 45548

Siemens Sees FY99 Sales in Communication Rising 8.5% Berlin, Feb. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Siemens AG, Germany's biggest electrical engineering company, sees fiscal 1999 sales in its information and communication technology unit rising 8.5 percent as it introduces new products and services. The company also said it is seeking partnerships and acquisitions. The unit's sales are expected to climb to 51 billion deutsche marks ($30 billion) in the period ending Sept. 30 from 47 billion marks in the same period a year earlier, the company said at a press conference. Siemens also said it is seeking partnerships and acquisitions in businesses ranging from mobile phones to computers to Internet technology. Siemens combined its telecommunications and computer businesses into a single unit in October to tap growing demand for products that use technologies from both industries. Partnerships will be key to the company's efforts to wrest market share from industry leaders like Nokia Oyj, the No. 1 mobile phone company, analysts said. ''They've got ambitious goals, but they are too small to go it alone,'' said Hans Huff, an analyst at Bankgesellschaft Berlin AG, who rates the shares a ''buy.'' In the mobile phone business, for example, Siemens has a market share of just 2.2 percent. Pretax profit at the company's phone equipment operations tumbled 75 percent last year after a plan to focus on high-end mobile phones instead of cheaper consumer models failed. Seeks Partnerships The company now plans to expand into broadband and Internet applications in the mobile phone business through partnerships, mainly with U.S. companies and including those it already cooperates with, said Volker Jung, a member of the corporate executive committee. Siemens said today it will expand its alliance with a $100 million joint venture with 3Com Corp. of the U.S. to develop products to link phones with office computer networks. Siemens also said it will broaden its product development venture with Canada's Newbridge Networks Corp., which makes computer network products. Jung dismissed a suggestion that Siemens would sell its 50 percent stake in a Italtel, a telecommunications equipment venture with Telecom Italia SpA, Italtel. ''There is no way we will sell the whole 50 percent in Italtel,'' Jung said. Whether the company will sell part of its stake ''depends on our negotiations with Telecom Italia.'' Slow on Internet Siemens has been slower than Nokia Oyj and Ericsson AB to expand into the Internet equipment arena, in part through acquisitions. Siemens' computer operations, meanwhile, are ranked eighth in Europe with a market share of just over 4 percent. The company will ask shareholders for permission to raise as much as $4.9 billion through the sale of new shares to fund acquisitions at its annual meeting next week. ''We have a lot of plans for partnerships, which will be announced in coming months,'' Jung said, noting that Siemens is also considering buying other companies. Siemens also aims to win market share with new products that it unveiled today. Among the new products was a C25 dual-band mobile phone, which weighs 135 grams and is 117 millimeters long. The company expects to sell the phone, which also has a 100-hour standby mode, or a total of 300 minutes of talk, for 400 marks. ''We are broadening our mobile phone business by providing the full range of mobile phones from high-end to low-end,'' Jung said. Fingertip Chip The company also unveiled new applications for the Fingertip, a sensor microchip that verifies identities in a fraction of a second by scanning a fingertip. The technology is intended to replace personal identification numbers used in such things as automated cash machines. Siemens also expects to boost its share in the business computer market with a new line of PCs, ranging from network computers to PCs for professionals and high-end workstations. The PCs have the latest Intel processor and chip set technologies, plus technical features such as system monitoring. The company forecast that the new line will boost its European PC market share to 9 percent by 2001 from 5 percent last year. At the Cebit technology fair in March, Siemens will present its Powerline Communication technology, which supplies data and voice powerlines at more than 1 megabyte per second. It doesn't require additional wiring and makes Internet access possible at every power socket. Future investments will focus on mobile phones, Internet applications, broadband and call center solutions, plus international expansion, the company said. The company's shares slipped 0.60 euro to 61.66 in a falling market. o~~~ O