In a market blitz, Qualcomm Inc. unveiled a series of chipsets covering CDMA, GSM and W-CDMA protocols.
The U.S. supplier made two announcements for the first phase of W-CDMA technology known as High Speed Downlink Packet Access. It also claimed that 21 wireless device manufacturers have selected its integrated chipsets and system software for their W-CDMA deployments.
“These products expand our addressable marketplace,” remarked Luis Pineda, vice president of marketing and product development at Qualcomm.
Earlier in the week, the CDMA pioneer increased its third-quarter and full-year expectations due to higher sales of its chipsets and technology products, along with higher W-CDMA royalties, but investors sent the company’s stock down slightly to $62.83 per share.
Qualcomm said it expects to report a third-quarter revenue increase of between 44 percent and 46 percent year over year. The company said its total earnings per share would be between 49 cents and 51 cents. For the full year, the company said it expects revenues should grow by about 28 percent to 30 percent year over year, and its earnings per share should be between $1.93 and $1.98.
For next year, Qualcomm said it expects the CDMA phone market to grow to 195 million to 215 million units. The company said it expects 45 million W-CDMA unit shipments next year.
Qualcomm sees its W-CDMA endorsements as evidence of its growing influence in a market where some rivals thought it couldn’t compete. Qualcomm regards its market as “the largest customer base in the industry to work with a single W-CDMA wireless chipset provider.”
Some of the new adopters of Qualcomm’s products include Benq Corp., Mitsubishi Electric Corp., Pantech & Curitel and Vitelcom Mobile.
The company rolled out a mobile station modem chipset solution known as MSM6280, which supports peak data rates of 7.2 megabits per second. The MSM6280 supports applications such as advanced graphics, video telephony and gaming. It also announced an RFR6275 chip to increase W-CDMA network capacity.
The company also announced three chipset solutions converging the three major air interfaces, including CDMA, GSM and W-CDMA. The products are the MSM7500 chipset, which covers CDMA 1x EV-DO Revision A and GSM/GPRS. It also is backward compatible with CDMA2000 standards.
The second is MSM7200, which supports W-CDMA/HSDPA and GSM/GPRS/EDGE. The third is MSM7600, which supports CDMA2000 1x EV-DO Revision A and CDMA2000 1x EV-DV Revision D. The chipmaker designated the three chipsets as the convergence platform that works in “always with you” devices. The wireless player said these chipsets will morph wireless communications into consumer electronics products like camcorders, video cameras and MP3 players.
The products have up to 6.0 megapixel digital camera support and image processing, digital video record and playback, high-fidelity digital stereo and graphics-enhanced location services with gpsOne technology, along with a standard TV interface to view images or play games.
Pineda said Qualcomm has developed a team to focus on chipsets that target the electronic markets, as well as marketing experts to look at various geographies, making sure Qualcomm meets their requirements. “What we bring is CDMA first and foremost,” he said, “and now we integrate them to electronic products.”
