3G buoys up another company

January 20, 2005 - source: BWCS

Taking up the torch from handset vendors Sony Ericsson and Motorola, US chip-maker Qualcomm has announced a very healthy set of quarterly figures and once again the catalyst appears to have been 3G kit. The company which is responsible for the CDMA mobile phone standard reported sales of US$1.4 billion in the three months from the end of September 2004. Qualcomm's net profits in the period rose by 46% (compared to the last three months of 2003) to reach US$513 million.

Company Chairman and CEO, Irwin Jacobs, told the Financial Times today that his company is benefiting from the recent consolidation in the US mobile market. Jacobs is quoted as saying that the combination of Cingular and AT&T Wireless will allow the combined company to more efficiently roll out 3G. In turn, he believes that this will put pressure on Verizon. Jacobs went on "Sprint and Nextel (getting together) is very positive for us Sprint has started to roll out EV-DO and that will support Nextel, while we have been working with Nextel on Push-To-Talk services and that can be rolled out on both networks."

According to Qualcomm's own figures, 32% of its revenues in the three months to the end of December 2004 came from sales of its WCDMA 3G equipment. It believes that this sector will continue to drive its results forward. For the full year to end of September 2005 Qualcomm maintains its predictions that revenues will be between US$5.8 billion and US$6.3 billion. It also believes that around 228 million CDMA compatible mobile handsets will be sold in the whole of 2005.

The company was also keen to point out that it had increased its expenditure on research and development in the last three month period. In fact, compared to the same period one year before, it managed to pour an extra US$228 million into this sector, an increase of 52%on the same period in 2003.