Joint venture to take on Qualcomm?
Fujitsu, NEC and Panasonic Mobile Communications are reportedly in talks with NTT DoCoMo to develop chips for next generation smartphones, according to the Nikkei Business Daily.
According to the Nikkei, the companies will develop chips that control wireless communications and signals – and could help reduce the 80% baseband market dominance currently held by Qualcomm.
The article reported that DoCoMo will take a majority stake in the joint venture, to be capitalised at about 30billion yen ($389.6 million) and headquartered in Japan. It added that the chips will most likely be used in the partners' own smartphones and also sold to other handset manufacturers.
According to the report, Samsung expects the joint venture to help it in the development of next generation telecommunication while DoCoMo hopes to lower chip procurement costs by taking part in development.
