Intel is bowing out of the mobile-phone chip business, selling the money-losing unit to Marvell Technology for $600 million. Marvell investors didn't like the move. Its shares dived 15 percent to an eight-month low of $44.14. Intel never quite mastered the market for mobile-phone chips like it did in the PC world, and it wasn't faring much better in the 3G chip market. In fact, few players are performing well in the 3G chip market. The 3G market is very much a two-horse race between Qualcomm and Ericsson Mobile Platforms (EMP). Vendors that performed well in the 2.5G era such as Broadcom, Texas Instruments, Agere, Infineon, Freescale, TTPCom and Philips have had little success so far. Now Marvell said it intends to use Intel's XScale technology to become a player in the 3G mobile-phone and consumer electronics market. Can Marvell do what Intel couldn't?
To read more about Intel's sale of its handheld chip business to Marvell:
- check out this article from IDG News Services