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Technology Stocks : Qualcomm Incorporated (QCOM) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: CNC who wrote (31817)	6/6/1999 4:40:00 PM
From: Art Bechhoefer	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 152472

To understand better how idiotic the recommendations were in the BARRON'S article, contrast the balance sheet of QCOM with WCOM. WCOM is heavily laden with debt, while QCOM has much less, and much more manageable because of its free cash flow. Contrast the business plans: WCOM provides traditional wired voice/data services. QCOM has proprietary wireless voice/data technology. WCOM, even though it concentrates on higher volume business customers, still has low margins and very high advertising costs. QCOM concentrates on the higher growth demand for wireless services, particularly in countries where wired service is inadequate, and has much lower advertising costs. Aside from the higher growth part of the market which QCOM addresses, it's the high debt that makes WCOM a really speculative, and probably lower growth investment. The only conclusion I can draw is that there still are buying opportunities for QCOM.