Andrew Gilbert on widening opportunities in 2010.
Qualcomm's Andrew Gilbert kicked Mobile World Congress off early this morning, telling a
roomful of journalists about the company's announcements this week, as well as how it sees
the mobile industry panning out in 2010.
He started by talking about the European 3G market. “At the end of last quarter we passed
the 200 million subscriber mark for Europe, and by the end of this year, we'll pass the 300
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million subscriber mark,” he said.
Around a third of all subscribers in Western Europe have 3G phones now, with that expected
to rise to 50% by the end of 2010, said Gilbert. And Eastern Europe? It's about 7%
penetration with 30 million subscribers, which is expected to double this year, thanks to
strong growth in markets like Poland and Russia.
“3G has been with us for a while, but it didn't really catch on until it established a clear
differentiator, which was high-speed data,” said Gilbert. “We're seeing a tremendous takeup
of data.”
He also said that 70% of 3G users are contract users, while 30% are prepaid - “that's quite
a strong move to the prepaid market,” he pointed out, saying that handset makers and
operators are pushing data in affordable handsets like INQ's handsets, and HTC's as-yet-
unannounced massmarket smartphone – it's expected to be unveiled later this week.
Gilbert said it's not just iPhone driving data use in Europe - “We see tremendous activity
from the handset manufacturers and response from the mobile operators around Android,” he
said.
Qualcomm has several announcements happening at Mobile World Congress today, and Gilbert
outlined the key news from the company.
First: FLO, and mobile TV. "We are announcing a new evolution of FLO - FLO EVolution," he
said, revealing that the new system will deliver up to 50% cost improvements for anyone
looking to roll out a FLO-based mobile broadcast TV network.
Qualcomm will also be showing off FLO running on smartbooks for the first time at Mobile
World Congress.
Another announcement today is a connected car. "The range of the Audi A8 car will have a
connected 3G experience using the Qualcomm UMTS module," said Gilbert.
He also said Qualcomm and its Snapdragon chipset will be included in several big handset and operating system announcements this week at Mobile World Congress.
"This is an industry that needs to be enabled, and we are helping to enable that industry," said Gilbert.
He also addressed the legal wrangles around the term 'smartbook' - a trademark owned in Germany by a company called Smartbook AG, stopping Qualcomm from using the term there.
"We are obviously respecting that, but smartbook is a legitimate generic category," he said. "It's not just ours - other people are adopting it too."
How about smartbooks versus tablets? "To my mind, innovations like the iPad are a good thing," he said.
"Personally, I think the connectivity of a device is as important as anything else about the device. I would always encourage manufacturers to build in wide-area connectivity from day one, rather than as a retro-fit."
We'll have more coverage of Qualcomm's news later today.
