Qualcomm Personal Electronics says it is meeting the handset manufacturing contract requirements of Sprint PCS, which intends to launch service in 15 to 20 major markets by year’s end.
Even though Sprint recently signed a handset contract with Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Samsung isn’t scheduled to make initial deliveries to Sprint until April. Which means the fanfare service launch by Sprint PCS depends on handsets coming from the new California manufacturing partnership of Qualcomm Inc./Sony Electronics Inc.
Sprint PCS is expected to use Sony brand handsets at launch. Sprint PCS is the new name for Sprint Spectrum, the Sprint Corp.-cable TV venture that owns personal communications services licenses in 33 major trading areas covering 190 million people.
Sprint PCS and Samsung have signed a three-year agreement, valued at $600 million. Samsung will build the Code Division Multiple Access phones at its plant in Kumi, Korea, and ship them to the United States.
Samsung has established a new division in Dallas, Samsung Telecommunications America. It will handle system infrastructure, business communications, office automation and wireless devices for Samsung’s business in North America.
Previously, Samsung handsets entered the U.S. market through original equipment manufacturers. The Sprint PCS contract offers Samsung a chance to introduce a Samsung branded product.
“It fits into our plan, and this happened to be the right time and right place,” said Henry Kim, project manager for Samsung Telecommunications America.
Sprint contracted with Qualcomm Personal Electronics last June to purchase CDMA handsets over the next three years; the deal is valued at $500 million. Until the Samsung agreement, QPE was the only handset contract announced by Sprint.
The name change to Sprint PCS is the third in two years. The venture began as a nameless alliance in fall 1994, then was officially WirelessCo L.P. during the A- and B-block PCS auction. It switched to Sprint Telecommunications Venture in 1995 and was generally referred to as STV; industry observers noted it was a clever play on the venture’s involvement with cable TV partners Tele-Communications Inc., Comcast Corp. and Cox Communications Inc.
But in February of this year, Sprint revised its plans to offer local phone service via cable.
After that decision was made, the STV name was changed to Sprint Spectrum L.P., which continues to be the name of the partnership.
Switching the brand from Sprint Spectrum to Sprint PCS should not cause marketing problems, said Sprint PCS spokesman Tom Murphy. “The only name customers will know is Sprint PCS,” Murphy said. Research indicates that the U.S. public identifies the term PCS with future, next-generation wireless phone service, and “that’s what Sprint PCS is,” Murphy said.
Sprint PCS will be the brand for the service. It will be displayed on storefronts and will be on the phone boxes. Handsets by Sony, Qualcomm and Samsung also will contain the red-diamond corporate Sprint brand (not the Sprint PCS brand).
