Qualcomm Shares Fall 19% in Week

Qualcomm Inc. shares fell 19% this week, bucking a rising U.S. stock market, on concern that decisions by two cellular service providers will cut the mobile-phone chip maker’s sales.

Analysts said Qualcomm’s stock fell on investor concern that the San Diego-based company may lose some sales because Japan’s KDDI Corp. delayed plans to upgrade its network with Qualcomm technology and because Nextel Communications Inc. chose to buy Motorola Inc. equipment for its network rather than gear based on Qualcomm’s chips and patents.

On Friday, Qualcomm shares fell for the fifth time in six days, declining $3.54 to $38.46, the lowest close since September 1999. Its shares have dropped 53% this year.

“You just have a lot of frayed nerves,” said Mike Green, managing partner of Benham & Green Capital Management in La Jolla, which holds 380,000 Qualcomm shares.

Green said his firm has been buying Qualcomm stock this week because “the long-term outlook for the company, we feel, is phenomenal.”

KDDI said Sept. 20 that it will postpone the start of new high-speed wireless phone services until April, instead of year-end, because of technical hurdles.

The delay may mean lower sales of new Qualcomm chips to suppliers of KDDI, whose network already runs on equipment and phones using Qualcomm’s semiconductors, said ABN Amro analyst Keith Bachman, who rates the shares a “buy” and doesn’t personally own any.

Qualcomm spokeswoman Patty Goodwin said the company doesn’t comment on fluctuations in its stock price.