NEC Corp. announced Monday it has set up a subsidiary in Singapore to design and develop hardware and software of base stations for wide-band Code Division Multiple Access (W-CDMA), a next-generation wide-band mobile communication system.
NEC Mobile Communications Development Singapore, wholly owned by NEC, is capitalized at 200 million yen. The W-CDMA technology, which is backed and developed by NTT Mobile Communications Network (NTT DoCoMo), is aimed for commercialization around 2000 in Japan. NEC hopes to market the W-CDMA system internationally, especially in Asia, in the near future, the firm said.
NEC has already set up a subsidiary in London to study the next-generation mobile communication system in Europe, officials said. The new company in Singapore will help NEC expand its development base in Asia by utilizing local engineers, they said. NEC hopes to ring up worldwide sales of 500 billion yen in the W-CDMA business in 2005.