InterDigital Inc (IDCC)

[blueskywaves]

The Japanese market remains red hot with 7 straight months of
consecutive increases in handset sales.

From Reuters:

 
 JAPANESE WIRELESS HANDSET SHIPMENTS 
 [MONTHLY] 
 Source: JEITA  
 . 
                2002      2003     YOY Change 
 . 
 January       3.274M    3.837M      17.2% 
 February      2.899M    3.633M      25.3% 
 March         3.128M    4.955M      58.4% 
 April         3.072M    4.323M      40.7% 
 . 
 4 Mo. Ave.    3.093M    4.187M      35.4% 
 .

Notes:

1) These JEITA numbers exclude PHS. PHS remained
below 100,000 units a month for 8 straight months
before recovering to top 100,000 units a month for
the last two months.

2) 2002 shipments were slightly over 40M units.
If Japan continues this blistering pace, it is on
track to ship 54M units in 2003 even without
accounting for seasonality and fashion ebb and
flow! 1 to 3 MP camera phones are slated for
late 2003 and early 2004, for example, and that
should appeal very strongly to the 20% of
Japanese wireless subscribers who replace their
phones every 7 months!

3) Until the Nokia and Samsung royalties come in,
most of IDCC's recurring royalties still come
from Japanese manufacturers, for better or betterer.<g>