Qualcomm Inc, the world leader in CDMA digital wireless technology, is committed to investing up to US$100 million in early and mid-stage Chinese companies involved in the development and commercialization of CDMA-based products, applications and services, it was announced Wednesday.

"The investment further demonstrates our commitment to enabling and fostering a growing CDMA value chain for the next phase of CDMA development in China," said Wang Jing, the senior vice-president of Qualcomm Inc and chairman of Qualcomm China.

The latest investment comes after a US$500 million commitment at the end of 2000, as Qualcomm believes venture investment in a variety of markets in China will promote the continued adoption of CDMA worldwide.

Additionally, Chinese companies benefiting from Qualcomm investment will get access to the company's products and technology, as well as its business and strategic relationships throughout the industry, Wang said.

Qualcomm has been striving to expand its presence in China by working with the government, China Unicom and CDMA manufacturers on some of its developments, like binary runtime environment for wireless (BREW) and gpsOne (Global Positioning System) application developers.

Tony Thornley, president and chief executive officer of Qualcomm Inc, said: "China possesses a large pool of strong technical and marketing talent in CDMA. We expect to see a rapid increase in the number of new CDMA-related companies in China as third-generation CDMA technology is deployed worldwide."

Qualcomm will target its money to cover many different business areas, such as CDMA-based communications technology and devices, BREW applications and platform developers, and enabling and complementary technology providers.

Figures from China Unicom show that by May 13, the number of CDMA subscribers in China had surpassed 10 million.

Currently, there are more than 140 million CDMA subscribers and about 44 million CDMA 2000 1X subscribers worldwide.

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