Qualcomm is betting that not one but two device categories will emerge between cellphones and laptops, despite industry misfires, an executive said. As the company tries to reach beyond handsets with its Snapdragon chipset, it foresees the success not only of “pocket computing devices” with four to six inch displays -- always online and turned on, and carrying all of the owner’s personal information -- but also of “personal computing devices” whose seven to 12 inch displays easier to read, said Jim Clifford, senior vice president and general manager for operations at Qualcomm CDMA Technologies. There’s demand for ever-increasing resolutions, graphics and screen sizes, Clifford said Monday in San Francisco at the SEMI Market Symposium for the semiconductor industry. Snapdragon’s 1 GHz processor runs at less than 500 mW to “enable whole new categories of devices that we haven’t dealt with before,” he said. Communications and CE devices have replaced conventional computers in importance to the semiconductor industry, intensifying pressure to cut component costs and their power use, he said. Qualcomm chipset costs must fall 29 percent annually, compounded through 2014, in line with recent years’ patterns, Clifford said. The other needs are low power use, including on standby, small size and high performance, he said. To hit those marks, Qualcomm is depending on industry innovation in chip architecture, design and packaging, he said. The handset industry faces a margin squeeze as sales surge in India and China and entry-level prices sag as low as $20, Clifford said. In 2012, the largest number of phones being sold, around 600 million, will cost about that price, he said. “The place where you can still make money” will be smartphones, which will sell about 500 million units at around $300 each in 2012, Clifford said. A middle tier of enhanced-feature phones will run about $100, he said. A big challenge for Qualcomm is persuading foundries to spend to expand capacity despite doubts that the accompanying demand will appear, Clifford said. “The macroeconomics are working in the wrong direction… We just have to find a way to share the wealth so we both make money.”
Exports to China
Nokia Siemens Networks announced an $864 million deal to expand the mobile network of China Mobile. Under the deal, Nokia Siemens Networks said it will design, build and maintain a network for China Mobile, including base stations and mobile switching systems, allowing the Chinese carrier to increase its network capacity and expand its mobile coverage in major cities across China. Avian Securities said it’s unsure as to the timing, but sees the deal as “an incremental positive.”
It’s time to work on IPv6 transition “step two” after June 30, the deadline for passing IPv6 packets on all U.S. federal agencies’ backbone networks, officials said Thursday at an IPv6 briefing hosted by the Homeland Defense Journal. o Maximizing IPv6’s advantages means continuing the transition guidance and identifying the transition strategies, they said.
Chinese and Indian mobile markets are growing “dramatically faster” than more mature markets in Europe and the U.S., with a “significant jump” in capital expenditure and in revenue for 2008 among carriers in China and India, said Infonetics Research. Global telecom provider capital outlays rose seven percent last year to $248.8 billion, and revenue rose 10 percent to $1.5 trillion, it said. China Mobile is the world’s eighth-largest phone company by revenue, despite limits on mobile services until this year, it said. The top three companies by revenue are AT&T, Verizon and NTT, it said.
Chinese mobile search provider mInfo was chosen as mobile search provider for the official Olympics mobile Internet site, it said. Minfo’s search platform, available in China since 2005, is the only one there supporting natural language queries, allowing users to find answers by querying the service instead of entering basic keywords and getting too many related links. The official Olympic mobile site and search service went live in late June.
China’s telecom regulator imposed a phone and Internet moratorium order in cities hosting Olympic events, plus some non-Olympic cities, to ensure stable communications during the games, officials said. Chinese carriers are telling customers about the order, and affected businesses are activating backup plans. An analyst report said the order should have no major impact on Chinese telecom firms.
China Digital TV said it was designated as a mobile TV developer by China’s State Administration of Radio Film and Television, the country’s regulator on broadcasting. Under the contract, the company will develop Electronic Service Guide (ESG) solutions based on China Mobile Multimedia Broadcasting standards, a broadcasting platform made in China and designed for mobile devices. The company said the potential market for ESG is broad, as more than 300 network operators are expected to install ESG applications and software will be adopted by millions of mobile device users. The number of mobile phone users in China reached 600 million on May 31, China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said.
UTStarcom will sell its personal communications unit to a group led by AIG Vantage Capital for $240 million as it focuses on IPTV. UTStarcom said it may get an additional $50 million over three years based on the division’s performance. The division, renamed Personal Communications Devices, will keep making and distributing cellphones sold in the U.S. for Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint and other brands. HTC will keep supplying cellphones to the group. PCD still will be headed by former Audiovox executive Philip Christopher, who has led the group since UTStarcom bought Audiovox’s cellphone business in 2004. Verizon accounted for a quarter of UTStarcom’s Q1 revenue of $585.9 million, up from 15 percent a year earlier. UTStarcom’s Q1 personal communications device sales rose to $430.7 million from $280.3 million. PCD executives will share ownership of the new company with AIG and other investors, UTStarcom said. “Operating as a standalone business will afford the new company greater distribution and financial flexibility and better positions us to capitalize on emerging market trends and strategic growth opportunities,” Christopher said. In recent months, a UTStarcom restructuring, including sale of its mobile services business to OpenGate Capital, has shed 800 jobs. UTStarcomm is narrowing its focus to IPTV and its RollingStream platform. The company forecasts IPTV revenue to grow 19 percent a year through 2012 as it expands from a customer base that includes China Netcom and China Telcom. China Telcom has about 400,000 IPTV subscribers in the Shanghai area who use UTStarcom set-top boxes.
A Juniper Research report said the number of global mobile Internet users will reach 1.7 billion by 2013, rising from 577 million currently. It said the increase will be spurred by demand for collaborative applications such as “web 2.0,” and greater 3G penetration. It also said the Far East and China region will be the largest market for mobile Web, reaching nearly 416 million users by 2013, up from a year-end estimate of 190 million users in 2008. Meanwhile, South America will be the biggest untapped potential mobile Web market, it said.
Cisco China said it signed contracts with China Mobile Communications and China Construction Bank. China Mobile will buy data network equipment and services from Cisco and will work with Cisco on an IP over wavelength-division multiplexing project, as well as the deployment of the Cisco TelePresence system, said Cisco. China Construction Bank will work with Cisco on the construction of a data center, Cisco said.