Smartphone makers speak out on Broadcom deal

Five Chinese companies, who control over half of the country’s smartphone market, expressed their concern Thursday over chipmaker Broadcom Ltd's $105 billion proposal to buy Qualcomm Inc, saying they don’t want to see such a change while they work hard to prepare for 5G smartphones.

The remarks came as Qualcomm estimated at a conference in Beijing it will generate over $8 billion in revenue from China device makers in 2019, maintaining a compound annual growth rate of 17 percent from 2017 to 2019.

On Thursday, the United States giant also inked $2 billion sales memoranda of understandings with Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo and Lenovo, who promised to buy Qualcomm’s components over the next three years. The components make it easier for mobile phone antennae to be used with 5G connections.

The move is part of a broader push by Qualcomm to form a consortium of these smartphone vendors to launch super-speed 5G devices as early as next year.

Presidents and CEOs of the above companies and ZTE, another smartphone vendor, all voiced their objection over Broadcom’s proposal to buy Qualcomm.