From being an enemy to being a partner
Updated: 2011-08-04 14:32
By Shen Jingting (China Daily)
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"Then they come back to China's 3G market with rich experience. That's going to help them to achieve a greater success."
In addition to providing high-end chips, which run at a fast speed and have rich functionality, Qualcomm also focuses on low-end mobile chips aimed for the mass market.
"We are driving the price down at that low end to get the mass market smart phone because we really believe that providing mobile broadband very widely to a lot of people is important, not just because of the good business for us, but because it also improves people's lives," he added.
Qualcomm's move to further cut the low-end mobile phone chips could apply more pressure on some Taiwan-based chip makers, such as MediaTek Inc, but the hundreds of small- and medium-sized mobile phone manufacturers in China would benefit from the competition.
The average selling price for smart phones in China is set to fall below the $300 threshold in 2011 for the first time, declining to $299, down 4.9 percent from $314 in 2010, according to a July report from IHS iSuppli.
Domestic smart phone shipments in China will rise to 54.1 million units in 2011, up from 35.3 million units in 2010, the report said.
By the end of 2015, IHS forecasts that Chinese companies will ship 111.6 million smart phones, rising at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 25.9 percent from 2010. In contrast, the global smart phone market will grow at a more modest CAGR of 20.7 percent during the same period.
Jacobs said he is optimistic about China's smart phone market, since the country will see more than half of its mobile phone users holding a smart phone "very quickly".
He pointed out that a huge number of Chinese people want smart phones, given that 66 percent of the Chinese Internet users have gone online on the phone. "That's amazing. If we can get the price of a smart phone to the same level as a feature phone, they will obviously buy a smart phone," he said.
Qualcomm's global annual revenue rose to $11 billion in fiscal year 2010 from $7.53 billion in 2006. The company shipped 207 million MSM chips in fiscal year 2006, and the figure increased to 399 million in fiscal year 2010.
The performance of Qualcomm has fully demonstrated Paul Jacobs' ability to do an even better job than his father. Although he holds a PhD in electrical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, Paul Jacobs said there wasn't any obstacle to prevent an engineer from becoming a good businessman.
He had his first business when he was still at high school. He and a friend sold skateboards. They had no inventories, so they took orders first, got buyers' money and bought the parts from distributors. Then they screwed all the things together and kept the difference.
When Paul Jacobs went to Qualcomm, he worked in different departments in turn, from applications, to wireless and on to the handset business. "All these different experiences come together, but it wasn't one thing, like a bolt of lightning happened, it was really a set of experiences that built up over the course of my lifetime and my career," he said.
"I was always kind of stretching beyond what I was comfortable with, and I would say that is something for people who want to grow themselves. You have to be willing to be uncomfortable a lot of the time."
Q+A: Paul Jacobs
Q What is your favorite book?
A: The Fabric of Reality by David Deutsch. It's a science book and is about quantum computing and multiple universe theory.
What was your most impressive journey?
I've done a lot of pretty cool things. I went hiking in Nepal with my kids, my two boys, a couple of years ago. That was pretty good.
It was perfect weather. Supposedly normally when you walk up the Kaligandaki River valley there are clouds so you can't see the peaks but it was clear the whole time. You could see all the mountains.
What is your idea of perfect happiness?
I have a very close family and I think just being with friends and family kind of doing something that we all get excited about, that doesn't have to be anything in particular, but just something that kind of brings people together, that gets you united around something, that's probably the happiest thing for me.
What is your greatest fear?
So many people depend on me to lead Qualcomm, and I don't want to let those people down.
Which living person do you most admire?
My father.
What is the quality you most admire in a man?
I am very drawn to people who are creative, but not just creative, those who can also make something happen. So it's creative to come up with the idea and creative to execute the idea.
I get along very well with artists, because of the same kinds of things. Very creative, but they make something.
So I like people in the technology field, but I like people in the arts, too.
What is the quality you most admire in a woman?
I think I'd be in trouble (laughs). The characteristic women are very good at empathy.
Because, I have to train that into men a lot to be able to see someone else's point of view and understand it. Because when you're negotiating, that's the most important thing - that you can understand what the other person wants so you can bridge the gap between what you want and they want. Women seem to do that instinctively.
What do you value the most in your friends?
A little bit about what I said about men being creative. My friends are very loyal and we have very deep friendships. People who are willing to open up and be very close.
What do you dislike most about your appearance?
I'm losing my hair. It's turning grey.
If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
I only get one, huh? I can be too intense sometimes. I can get focused to the extent that I lose some balance - like my family. I travel too much, or work too hard. I would like to be better at being with my family.
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
I think right now, what's going on where I pushed the wireless Internet for so long.
And I think I was one of the first people talking about it and working on it.
And the fact that everybody cares about it now, I mean everybody, is pretty amazing.
What is your most treasured possession?
I think my house. I helped design my house, and it turned out well, so I like it. In La Jolla.
On what occasion do you lie?
I try not to lie.
What is your motto?
I have lots of mottos. Somebody said: "The best way to predict the future is to invent it." And I like that.