Qualcomm Ups Chip Outlook

March 15, 2007 - source: BWCS

US mobile chip-maker Qualcomm has turned more bullish in its outlook for this year. Ahead of the announcement of the company's second quarter results Qualcomm said it continued to see strong demand for both its CDMA 200 and its W-CDMA products.

Revenues for the quarter which will end on the 1st April are now set to come in at between US$2.1 and US$2.2 billion Qualcomm reports. This compares to the company's previous projections of US$2.0 billion to US$2.1 billion.

On the chips front, which is perhaps the more interesting figure for students of the mobile industry as a whole, Qualcomm says it will ship between 60 million and 61 million units of its mobile stations modem chips during the quarter. This is a considerable increase of its previous estimate which set the number of chips shipped at only 55 million to 57 million.

The US manufacturer says that the high level of demand reflects the strong performance of mobile handset sales in 2006 and into 2007. It now expects that sales of phones kitted out with its chips will reach 91 million in the second quarter of this year, compared to 67 million in the same period last year.