San Diego, Mar 11: Qualcomm Inc., whose mobile-telephone technology is used by 135 million people, will sell 1 million more phone chips in its second quarter than the company had planned, as demand in Asia rises. Qualcomm plans to ship about 28 million phone chips in the three months ending march 30, after estimating 27 million, the company said in a statement. Qualcomm shipped 14 million chips in the year-earlier period.
Companies such as India's Reliance Infocomm Ltd. are starting new phone networks, boosting demand in Asia for Qualcomm chips.
Qualcomm expects 7 million subscribers from reliance this year and improvement from China Unicom Ltd., which had 7 million users last month. The higher orders coming now raise some concerns about whether sales will slump later this year, investors said.
The company's first-quarter sales surged 57 per cent to 1.1 billion dollar as demand soared in Asia for handsets that let users take photos, browse the internet and play games. In January, Qualcomm raised forecasts for fiscal 2003 profit and sales, citing growth in countries including China and India.
Third-quarter shipments will rise to as many as 25 million chips, up 56 per cent from 16 million a year earlier, San Diego-based Qualcomm said today.
India had less than 10 million mobile-phone subscribers at the end of last year, said John Bucher, an analyst at Gerard klauer mattison & co. "It's a huge potential market."
Chief financial officer William Keitel said 87 per cent of China's mobile-phone market is "still to be captured" by Qualcomm. China is the world's largest wireless-phone market, with 207 million subscribers. Bureau Report