South Korea's CDMA royalties top $2.6 billion

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South Korea's CDMA royalties top $2.6 billion

Sean Shim
EE Times (05/10/2006 9:07 AM EDT)

SEOUL, South Korea — Royalty payments by South Korean mobile phone makers using Qualcomm Inc.'s CDMA technology totaled $2.63 billion over the past decade, according to a report by the Ministry of Information and Communication.

The report said domestic handset makers paid a total of 3.03 trillion won from 1995 to 2005 to use the wireless phone technology developed and patented by the San Diego-based company.

The CDMA standard is the core technology for South Korea’s mobile telecommunications networks. Korean cellphone makers are known to pay royalties totaling 5.25 percent of factory prices for domestic sales and 5.75 percent for overseas shipments.

Royalty payments by the phone makers including Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics peaked in 2004 at a combined 526.7 billion won (about $565.7 million), the report stated. The total for 2005 was 478.6 billion won (about $514 million).

CDMA technology, which has helped transform South Korea into a wireless technology giant, accounts for about 15 percent of the global mobile telecommunications market with about 2 billion global subscribers by the end of 2005.

CDMA technology also dominates the U.S., Chinese and Indian markets.

South Korea’s CDMA phone market totals almost 14 trillion won (about $15 billion), a seven-fold increase since 1996. More than 38 million Koreans, or 79.4 percent of South Korea's population, subscribe to CDMA services.