TI sees emerging markets driving handset growth
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InfoWorld - With much of the growth in the mobile phone market expected to come from emerging markets, Texas Instruments&#160;(TI) has stepped up development of advanced processors designed for low-cost handsets.
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Robust demand from emerging markets in  Asia and Africa lifted third-quarter sales of all major handset  vendors from the previous quarter, with companies expecting  another sales boost from holiday shopping ahead.
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Nokia is blowing away its competition in the mobile handset market in large part due to its aggressive moves to address developing markets, like China, India and Africa.
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(InfoWorld) - Texas Instruments, the world's largest maker of mobile phone chips, plans to work more closely with its Asian contract chip manufacturing partners to develop new production technologies, a company spokeswoman confirmed. The company said earlier this year it planned to stop developing its own chip production technologies and instead work more closely with contract manufacturing partners on joint development. A TI spokeswoman confirmed that the company plans to work with Asian contract chip makers, or foundries, on the new strategy. TI currently farms out chip production to four Asian chip foundries: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.Â (TSMC) and United Microelectronics Corp. (UMC) of Taiwan; Singapore's Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing; and China's Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp., according to Tracy Zhou, head of media relations in the Asia Pacific region for TI. "For the cooperation with foundries, TI will continue working with its current advanced logic foundry partners," she said in an e-mail. The change in tactics is significant. TI is one of the world's biggest chip makers, and has long developed its own production technologies. For any new chip, engineers must focus not only on the circuit design of the chip itself, but also on how it will be mass produced. If a design is too complicated to manufacture at a reasonable price, it can get the boot even if it has promising features. The outsourcing of chip production development by companies that previously did it mostly themselves, such as TI, has become a trend over the past several months, said Jackson Hu, the chairman of UMC, at the company's fourth quarter investor conference last month. "Some companies are even closing their own chip factories and farming out orders to foundry chip makers, while others are simply no longer investing in chip production R&D, and instead putting that investment money into chip product design efforts. We believe this is a positive industry trend, a win-win situation, and a strong affirmation of our R&D capabilities," Hu said. The fact that a company the caliber of TI is willing to leave the production side of technology development up to contract chip makers, at least in part, shows how far the foundry business has come. TSMC was the first company to focus on manufacturing chips that are designed by other companies. Before TSMC opened, small chip design firms had to ask Intel, Motorola, and other big companies to manufacture their chips, and these companies would only agree if their factories weren't already full. Most small companies didn't have enough money to set up their own chip factories because the high tech plants then cost around $1 billion each. Now, new ones cost around $3.5 billion. TSMC stepped in to fill the gap, setting up huge chip factories and taking orders from customers, mainly in the U.S. The result has been the steady growth of chip design companies that never build their own factories. Mobile phone chip developer Qualcomm and graphics chip designer NvidiaÂ are two examples of companies that have been wildly successful, despite not owning their own factories. They farm out production to foundries such as TSMC and UMC.
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Vodafone is to kick-start a global push into 3G with an array of mobile phones that is likely to outstrip the range of handsets being sold by many of its rivals.
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Strong demand for low-cost phones in Africa, the Middle East and Asia lifted the companyâs share of the global market to almost 40 percent.
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Wireless carriers look beyond home markets for new growth.
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The mobile phone giant says its next results will now be better than expected, thanks to a boost in handset sales.
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Nokia, the world's top cellphone  maker, reported a 57 percent rise in earnings per share in the  October-to-December quarter, with booming demand in emerging  markets boosting its global market share to 40 percent.
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According to research agency Gartner, the country will be the highest growth market for telecommunications with around 3.5 crore new subscribers being added in 2005.
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The global mobile phone market is set to  grow to 2 billion subscribers by the end of 2005, fueled by  strong demand from developing economies in Asia and Latin  America, Deloitte & Touche said on Tuesday.
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LONDON-A new study shows that the market for smart phones will continue to increase during the next several years, with global shipments growing from 14.
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LONDON, December 2  - Analyst Angela Dean of Morgan Stanley expects mobile handset market growth to moderate in 2005.
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Global smart phone shipments are set to rise dramatically over the next five years, as better devices and lower prices combine with other factors to fuel growthand meet
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Brazil, India, China and Russia are driving global telecoms growth, a report by UK watchdog Ofcom suggests.
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(InfoWorld) - As IT investors brace for a wave of financial reports next week, mobile device makers are attracting attention as Asia becomes an increasingly important battleground for handset sales. For example, Motorola preannounced part of its quarterly report, due July 19, on Wednesday, saying thatÂ second quarter sales would be $8.6 billion to $8.7 billion, instead of $9.4 billion as previously forecast. The company expects a drop in handset sales in Asia, where vendors are vying to get the lion's share of the market in growing national economies, as North American and Europe become saturated with mobile phones. Despite the revised forecast, Motorola enjoyed a spike in the price of its shares caused by rumors that CEO Ed Zander might resign. Motorola shares jumped Wednesday by $0.33 Wednesday to close at $17.95, and rose again Thursday to close at $18.08. Zander attracted criticism from heavyweight investor Carl Icahn earlier this year and now has come under attack from well-known activist shareholder Eric Jackson. Zander's departure would indicate that a serious restructuring was under way at the company, which has been outflanked on several fronts in the handsets wars by rivals like Apple. Meanwhile, investors saw Motorola's quarterly weakness as Nokia's gain. Brokerage Oppenheimer & Co. reiterated a "buy" rating on Nokia after Motorola's announcement. Nokia shares rose $1.08 Thursday to close at $29.95. The mobile phone market has come under increasing scrutiny lately in the wake of the June 29 launch of Apple's iPhone in the U.S. Apple is now reported to be in talks with carriers to launch the device in Europe, Finland-based Nokia's home market. A report from a JP Morgan Chase analyst Tuesday thatÂ Apple will also launch a cheaper version of the iPhoneÂ in the fourth quarter drove up Apple shares. JP Morgan analyst Kevin Chang said the new model could sell for less than $300, basing his report on Apple patent filings and component supplier sources. A cheaper iPhone would put it within reach of younger customers. Apple shares rose by $1.68 Thursday to close at $134.07. Technology companies for the most part are riding high on general confidence in corporate earnings. The technology-heavy Nasdaq has hit several six-and-a-half year highs over the last 10 days. General economic conditions have helped. For example, the Dow Jones Industrial Average reached a record Thursday on positive news from retail sales data and continued mergers and acquisitions announcements. But IT vendors themselves are coming off a string of quarters that have generally been good for earnings overall. The torrid pace of M&A in IT also continues unabated: Just this week, for example, Google beefed up security offerings with itsÂ planned $625 million buy of Postini. Next week will provide key information for forecasts for the rest of the year as a string of IT bellwether reports quarterly sales and guidance for the rest of the year. Among those due to report: IBM, Google, Yahoo, Motorola, Microsoft, Intel, AMD, and SAP.
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(InfoWorld) - The T-Mobile brand could soon be coming to a market near you. As part of a strategy to revive profits, Deutsche TelekomÂ intends to expand its T-Mobile cellular business in markets in which the German telecommunications group is already offering fixed-line services and possibly in entirely new markets, the company said Thursday. T-Mobile is already one of the largest mobile phone operators in western Europe and the U.S. Its T-Mobile USA subsidiary has emerged as the group's main growth engine. Deutsche Telekom "does not rule out acquisitions" as part of its expansion strategy, it said. Acquiring the Dutch mobile phone subsidiary of France's Orange could be part of that strategy. The company is rumored to be among the bidders for the Dutch company, the smallest of four operators in the Netherlands. The new strategy carries the signature of RenÃ© Obermann, newly appointed CEO of Deutsche Telekom and the former head of the group's mobile phone business. Obermann is under pressure to tap new areas of growth to offset falling prices for mobile phone calls in mature markets such as Germany and the U.S. and to counter stiff competition from providers of fixed-line telephone services, particularly new VOIP (voice over Internet Protocol) service providers. More than 2.3 fixed-line customers defected to rivals last year. Obermann's new strategy also includes selling several business units, including the French and Spanish ISPs (Internet service providers) Club Internet and Ya.com and the T-Systems Media & Broadcast unit. In addition, the CEO hopes to find an international "strategic partner" for its T-Systems subsidiary. T-Systems provides IT services to about 60 multinationals and 160,000 smaller companies. The Frankfurt-based unit, which also operates and maintains Deutsche Telekom's global telecommunications network, was established a few years ago following the merger of DaimlerChrysler's IT outsourcing unit, Debis Systemhaus, and the systems integration activities of the German network operator. Last year, T-Systems acquired Gedas, the former computer services subsidiary of German car maker Volkswagen. Gedas has 12 subsidiaries around the world, including Brazil, China, Japan, and the U.S. Most of these are located in automobile manufacturing centers. By the end of 2010, Deutsche Telekom hopes to have 1.5 million customers for its new IPTV (Internet Protocol television) service. The operator intends to have 50 cities connected to its new VDSL (Very high bit-rate Digital Subscriber Line) network next year, with an additional 750 towns to linked via ADSL2+ (Asymmetric DSL) technology. Deutsche Telekom's VDSL network has been a contentious issue with regulators in Brussels. On Monday, the European CommissionÂ threatened the German governmentÂ with legal action unless it scraps a new law thatÂ protects Deutsche Telekom from competitionÂ in the broadband Internet access market. The Commission's action focuses on specific amendments in the German law that effectively exempt the German operator VDSL network from competition. The amendment was requested by the company, which is still partly owned by the German state. Â