Tokyo, May 2: Japan's Fujitsu Ltd and France's Alcatel SA said Tuesday that they have agreed to form a joint venture in next-generation mobile telecommunications systems aimed at capturing 20 per cent of the nascent market by 2003. The new company will have about 2,000 employees engaged in the production and development of telecommunications systems to support third-generation (3G) mobile telecommunications, the companies said.Alcatel will take a 66 per cent stake in the new joint venture while Fujitsu will hold the remaining 34 per cent.The companies said that the new joint venture will capitalize on the early launch of 3G telecommunications services based on the wide-band code division multiple access (W-CDMA) technology.
At a press conference in Paris, Alcatel and Fujitsu said their 20 per cent market share target would represent an estimated $2.5 billion (2.73 billion euros) slice of the global third-generation universal mobile telephone system market by 2003. "Alcatel missed out a bit on the second generation and we don't want the same for the third generation," said Alcatel's Albert Dega, who has been working closely on the tie-up with Fujitsu. Dega said that the joint venture would be headquartered in Paris, with branches in Belgium, Germany and Japan.
Initially, the Fujitsu-Alcatel venture will focus on Europe and Japan, Dega added.
-- The Wall Street Journal
Copyright © 2000 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.