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Telecommunications: LatAm to represent 25% of Kyocera sales

The division has seen the importance of Latin America grow from 4% of sales in fiscal 2002 to 10% in fiscal 2003 and now 15%, he added. KWC - which evolved from Kyocera's purchase of the handset manufacturing division from US-based Qualcomm - covers the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and India, while other divisions cover Europe, Japan and Asia.

Ittner sees revenues growing more than 100% this year, similar to the growth seen in the year just closed. Latin American sales for the year ending March 2004 were up 135% year-on-year, and units shipped up 173%. Revenues for fiscal fourth quarter were in fact up 300% compared to the previous year, driven mainly by the launch of a new model, the Slider.

The company now has 19 models available in the region and plans to launch three more in the next few months. Operators in Mexico, Argentina and Venezuela are selling up to 11 of the 19 models, while Vivo in Brazil has taken on three Kyocera models since signing with the vendor in November.

Kyocera has a 35% market share of handsets operated by Mexico's Unefon and expects to grow that share, Ittner said. Kyocera ranks third in terms of CDMA handset penetration worldwide and has been told it had a 26% market share in Latin America across all technologies in 2003, regional marketing director Natasha Marvin told BNamericas.

The three models soon to be launched include a high-resolution camera phone, the Koi, a clamshell phone and a handset offering push-to-talk (PTT) capability. Ittner's team has already secured Brazil's Vivo, BellSouth Latin America, Telefónica Móviles and Unefon as clients for the PTT handset and is in talks with most of its other operator partners. Virtually all CDMA operators in Latin America and the Caribbean offer Kyocera handsets, or 31 operators in 19 countries.

A factor behind the company's growing success is its strategy of talking at depth with carriers to learn about their needs and which market tier they are most interested in. Given the importance of the prepaid market in Latin America, Kyocera is developing a very low-end model for CDMA2000 1X networks, working closely with Qualcomm. This handset would be below the US$70-85 range, while current low-end handsets are up to US$100.

Ittner believes the expansion potential of some of Latin America's main CDMA operators should be enough to offset migration of some BellSouth divisions to GSM as part of the takeover by Spain's Telefónica Móviles (NYSE: TEM). Vivo in particular will be important in this respect.

Globally, KWC is the number seven handset manufacturer, across all technologies.

Parent company Kyocera (NYSE: KYO) billed 1.1 trillion yen (US$10.4bn) in the fiscal year just ended. Handset manufacturing is part of Kyocera's equipment group, which includes cameras, printers and copiers, and was responsible for almost half the group's revenues.

Source: Business News Americas (BNamericas.com)

http://www.latinfinance.com/default.asp?page=1234&storyid=2853172&s=Telecommunications