For Qualcomm this has the potential to be a bit of an identity crisis,
Quotes about qualcomm (15 Quotes)
QUALCOMM is pleased to license 4G Systems for the development, manufacture and sale of WCDMA and TD-SCDMA modem cards and routers. 4G Systems products allow for wireless connectivity in the office, at home or on the go. This license agreement will now allow 4G Systems to expand their wireless offering to include HSDPA solutions, providing high-speed mobile service to European consumers.
QUALCOMM is pleased to license Casio, a leading consumer electronics company, for the manufacture and sale of 3G subscriber units. This license will allow Casio to offer 3G handsets that provide consumers the opportunity to have high-quality, high-speed, wireless access to feature-rich multimedia applications and services. Casio's initiative to add WCDMA products to their product line is a testament of yet another manufacturer recognizing the market value of 3G products.
And number three, we think that a number of carriers around the world using an alternative technology known as TDMA or GSM, instead of migrating down a path using a technology called Edge -- which does not involve Qualcomm -- will decide to overlay Qualcomm's CDMA 2001X technology,
While the numbers seem conservative, I wouldn't rule out Qualcomm raising them later in the year. As a matter of fact, I almost expect it.
The best way, I would say, to play Qualcomm is to play the volatility,
Qualcomm has a very viable patent portfolio, and they are trying to extract the maximum amount of money out of it that they can while at the same time the licensees are looking to spend as little as possible for the right to use the patents. It is likely that what is going on is some business maneuvering going on both sides.
Our concern on Qualcomm relates to the outlook for the handset and CDMA business. As we have indicated previously, we remain concerned that the company may take down forecasts for future earnings because we think the company's CDMA forecasts are too aggressive.
I think the Qualcomm report may be dampening sentiment and Compaq's report is somewhat mixed. It does seem that disappointment over the Qualcomm report is feeding into the tech stocks.
Qualcomm will still get royalties, because they have key intellectual property rights for using CDMA in mobile telephony, ... What is a little more at risk is what it means for Qualcomm in terms of their chipset business.
Samsung's deal with Qualcomm will pave the way for the chipmaker to expand the chip foundry business, and is bad news for Taiwan foundry manufacturers.
No. 1, we're increasingly convinced that Qualcomm will be able to get a substantial royalty in all third-generation equipment, which will be based on its CDMA technology, ... No. 2, we're getting a growing amount of evidence that China intends to deploy CDMA nationwide. That was a big concern earlier in the year among some investors.
Chipset sales declined 26 percent to 269 million, and operating margins dropped to 24 percent from 39 percent. Qualcomm shipped only 11 million chipsets in the quarter, down from 15 million in the preceding quarter and 13.5 million a year ago. This disappointing performance partially reflected continued weak demand in Korea.
The earnings are pretty good, but people are worried about the company's guidance. There's a big difference between Qualcomm's and some other companies' views of how many W-CDMA handsets will be sold in 2006. Companies like Motorola Inc., Texas Instruments Inc. and RF Micro Devices Inc. estimate that 100 million W-CDMA handsets will be sold. But Qualcomm says only 86 million will be sold-that's a spread of 14 million units.
I always like to bring them down (to Qualcomm) to get some work in before the night games. We don't want them to get too caught up in everything when they get out here Sunday night, so this is a nice way to do things.