Qualcomm Reports Higher Earnings, No Progress On Patent DisputesQualcomm Reports Higher Earnings, No Progress On Patent Disputes

Qualcomm reported a big jump in profits for its fiscal fourth quarter, but the wireless technology provider's stock tumbled after it expressed caution about the future.

The company has been in somewhat of a standoff with competitors Nokia and Broadcom over patent litigation, and also with developers of WiMax, which threatens to compete with Qualcomm's CDMA 3G technology.

Qualcomm said Friday that its net profits jumped 84% to $1.13 billion, while its revenue rose to $2.31 billion, up about 15% versus the fourth quarter last year. The company's forecast of its future revenue and earnings, however, were lower than consensus numbers developed by securities analysts.

In comments made in the wake of the collapse of a WiMax partnership between Sprint Nextel and Clearwire, Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs predicted that 3G will prevail over WiMax.

"More than 530 million wireless subscribers are now benefiting from the widespread and accelerating availability of 3G CDMA mobile broadband networks with advanced wireless devices at competitive prices," said Jacobs in a statement.

Jacobs also hailed Qualcomm's involvement with Google's Android effort; Qualcomm was a featured participant in this week's Android announcement.

Jacobs noted that Qualcomm shipped 253 million Mobile Station Modem chips during the quarter, a 22% increase over the fourth quarter of 2006. "We continued to expand our chipset portfolio with the addition of the 7000 series platform for high-performance wireless devices and a low-cost single chip for EV-DO Rev. A mobile broadband," he said.

But Qualcomm continued to be plagued by a series of lawsuits with Nokia and Broadcom, which have prevailed over Qualcomm in some key issues in recent months. Qualcomm indicated there has been no progress in settling the disputes.