Market - 10-01-05 - N46

A few set of market information released this week:

[                  According to the Semiconductor Industry Association, the worldwide sales of semiconductors increased 18% in 11/04, driven by the wireless handset market.

[                  In-Stat/MDR reports that the cellular modem market has grown 167% in 2004, and projects it will grow from 2.5m units in 2004 to 14m by 2009.

[                  In China, all new accounts for fixed or mobile telecom networks will be subject to the new fee regulation except for public service toll-free numbers. The fee is 0.01 Yuan per subscriber number per month, but half-price fees will be in force in 11 western provinces, in an effort to encourage telecom system development in the region.

[                  According to KMI, the US long-haul fiber cable market will be flat this year and probably even longer, with very few new deployments. Internationally, the situation is similar, even in China, which has completed most of its build-out. Only few countries represent small opportunities where long-haul infrastructure is required, such as Eastern Europe, Northern Africa, and Russia.

[                  Korean handset makers target to command 30% of the global market this year, from about 25% in 2004.

[                  Japan is targeting to have 20% of the country’s workforce teleworking by 2010, and 10% by the year-end, from current 6%. More than 9,000 Wi-Fi hotspots were up and running by the end of 2004, offering speeds of between 2 to 5 Mbps.

[                  According to Pyramid Research, the global capital expenditures for mobile infrastructure will be around $40bn in 2004, up 12%.

[                  According to The Eastern Management Group, total enterprise VoIP line share now totals 50.04% (on a total of about 3.6m), surpassing TDM lines for the first time. Avaya emerged as the winner in terms of total VoIP lines shipped, followed by Nortel and Cisco.

[                  According to ABI Research, fixed-line operators should be concerned about competition from high-speed downlink packet access (HSPDA) technology. The only factor that keeps people using fixed lines is broadband data, but HSDPA will eat away as well.

[                  The FCC of the US will auction licenses for 3G services in the 1710-1755 MHz and 2110-2155 MHz bands as early as June 2006.

[                  According to ECTA, the 10 new EU member states now have 1 million broadband connections between them.

China and Japan will co-operate in joining hands in research on information technology, particularly the broadband network.