Qualcomm Inc. rose to the defense of third-generation technology, amid reports the technology will drag its feet for about three years.
The company said the demand for its CDMA integrated circuits would meet the forecast of 16 million units, a 1 million unit increase from the previous quarter. Third-quarter demand, Qualcomm maintained, will surpass the second.
The company said that one of the 3G CDMA technologies, cdma2000 1x, has been deployed in South Korea and will be in Japan, North America and Latin America later this year.
Qualcomm, which announced a family of multimode integrated circuits and system software to help the migration of GSM and TDMA to 3G CDMA, expects cdma2000 1x to enjoy significant growth in 2002.
Qualcomm said it already has licensed about 100 companies, half of which are for Qualcomm’s 3G CDMA patents.
Its shares fell last Friday to the lowest level since 1999 after fears about 3G were expressed at the 3GSM World Conference in France last week. But the company’s reassurance recouped much of it to a 7.7 percent drop. At RCR Wireless News press time the stock was trading at $61.81. Its lowest dip that day was to $50.13.
