QUALCOMM Shrugs Off Nokia's CDMA Decision

QUALCOMM does not expect Nokia's announced plan to ramp down its CDMA2000 R&D and manufacturing to impede the growth of CDMA2000 or to impact QUALCOMM adversely.



QUALCOMM argues that Nokia has had very little success in competition against many of QUALCOMM's other licensees and chipset customers over the past several years, preferring to focus instead on GSM where Nokia controls a dominant share of the handset market in many countries. QUALCOMM also said that it does not believe that CDMA licensing terms resulted in the failure of Nokia to complete its previously announced joint venture with Sanyo.



"In view of Nokia's existing small presence in CDMA2000, we do not believe that Nokia's decision to ramp down will have any impact on the continued growth of CDMA2000 or any adverse effect on QUALCOMM," said Steve Altman, president of QUALCOMM. "QUALCOMM, of course, will continue to allocate substantial resources in expanding the CDMA2000 market and we will continue to work in close partnership with our many other licensees."http://www.qualcomm.com