Qualcomm CEO: Low-price 3G phones by year-end
Prices will drop to $100-$120 range, he says, adding that Motorola will be among mostly likely Qualcomm customers.
Qualcomm added that Motorola was the most likely phone maker among the top five in the industry to buy its products.
Paul Jacobs, in an interview at the fringes of the 3GSM World Congress trade show in Barcelona, Spain, also said that Qualcomm would seek to merge the Flash OFDM wireless broadband network standard it acquired through the takeover of Flarion into another technology in a "couple of years" time.
But he also stated that the business justification for all the new wireless broadband network technologies--
"We may see WCDMA phones at those price points, between $100 and $120, toward the end of this year," Jacobs told Reuters in an interview. Qualcomm makes the chips for CDMA phones as well as WCDMA phones, both 3G cellular standards used around the world.
Once that happens the market for WCDMA phones will increase significantly and, Jacobs said, he expects that 40 to 50 percent of the combined 650-million-units-a-year second-generation GSM and third-generation WCDMA cell phone market will then be fitted with WCDMA chips to access those networks.
Qualcomm has said it needs another top-tier buyer of its WCDMA chips, alongside LG Electronics and Samsung Electronics, and, Jacobs said, Motorola "is probably the most likely candidate. But it's no slam dunk."
Motorola handset chief Ron Garriques told Reuters on Monday he hesitated to use Qualcomm's WCDMA chips, although the U.S. firm often is the first out of the door with such products, because the chips and license fees are expensive and consumers are not willing to pay a premium.
"But I met them a few weeks ago and I'm meeting Qualcomm again later this week," Garriques said.