Qualcomm Cell Phones

Qualcomm cell phones were available for several years and were sold by several of the major cell phone carriers. These days, Qualcomm cell phones are no longer in production. Qualcomm still holds a major stake in the cell phone industry however--they produce the microchips for virtually all CDMA handsets sold in the United States and abroad. In this sense, most CDMA phones are actually Qualcomm cell phones.

Qualcomm Cell Phones and Chips

CDMA (short for Code Division Multiple Access) networks were at one time the predominant networks in the United States. While Europe moved into the cellular age with its own GSM technology, U.S. cell providers utilized CDMA technology, which was actually developed decades ago for military purposes. These days, several major U.S. cell carriers have moved to GSM, but a few still remain on CDMA.

CDMA is also a common standard in Korea and South America, so the format is far from dead. This is good news for Qualcomm, the company that produces the chips in virtually every CDMA phone. CDMA cell phone users account for 20 percent of the world's one billion handsets, so this is a lot of business for Qualcomm.

Recently, Samsung announced that it would begin producing its own CDMA cell phone chips. While Qualcomm's chips are used by many manufacturers, Samsung's new chips will be exclusively used in Samsung phones. Since Samsung is a major player in the CDMA phone market, this will cut substantially into Qualcomm's business.