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

To: Caxton Rhodes who wrote (3278)	5/26/1999 11:06:00 PM
From: Jim Oravetz	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 5390

Regarding the Chinese deal: <<Unicom will spend $870 million this year to build its CDMA network, which will initially serve 2 million customers. Network capacity will expand to 10 million users and cover 160 Chinese cities beginning next year. The company is aiming for a 30 percent share of the Chinese wireless-services market by 2003.>> 35M/X = 30/100 % X = 116M total subscribers 35M/3yr = 11.6 M/yr <<Moreover, Unicom will focus more heavily on third-generation wireless communications technology than other Chinese operators, said Li Zhengmao, Unicom's vice-chief engineer.>> Several things do not seem right to me regarding the article. Like the spending $870M on equipment this year and still be a supplier of 3rd G technology. With the "finalized" spec for 3G not yet complete. Can delivery of systems (who many? ) this year, still be a reality? Also, the number of total subscribers for 2003 in China seems awful low. How many Chinese are there? Lots. Only 116M wireless sub. three+ yrs from now? Seems kind of low to me. Same with the 12M per yr numbers. Pretty low. Jim

To: Caxton Rhodes who wrote (3278)	5/27/1999 5:09:00 AM
From: tero kuittinen	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 5390

OK - it's a major revision in our definition of "toast". I'll have mine with blueberry jam. Of course, TDMA and GSM are technologically similar and will be incorporated in multi-mode handsets next year. What we're looking at is at least 65% combined global market share for TDMA/GSM in 2003. And the TDMA growth estimates in the S&B research are seriously out of whack. S&B's track record in predicting GSM growth during the last five years pretty much speaks for itself. What is singular about China Unicom is their position as perhaps the most unsuccessful mobile operator in the world right now. In every other market, new challenger operators have been able to make sizable market share gains at the expense of the former state-owned monopoly. China Unicom is the only example of a mobile start-up which has actually been beaten by the state-owned company. And now they are promising country-wide roaming with a 870 million dollar network expansion? I thought China is somewhat bigger than Rhode Island. My favorite sentence in the article was: "Major Chinese handset suppliers include Motorola, Qualcomm Inc. and South Korea's Samsung Electronics". It's a daring redefinition of the word "major". Could somebody help me out here? Is Qualcomm's market share in China 0,4% or 0,6%? I can't recall. I think we are creating an entirely new vocabulary here. Orwell would be intrigued. Tero