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Connectivity Centre "will be core of Bluetooth business" - CSR chief

Some in the Bluetooth world can be heard grumbling that Cambridge Silicon Radio is calling all the shots on this technology. Half-year (unaudited) results from Cambridge show why CSR can do this; they're showing no sign of any credit crunch damage.

CSR’s CEO, Joep van Beurden, probably didn't intend to sound smug, but the "I told you so..." tone couldn't be disguised:

"External evidence increasingly supports our belief that what we define as the Connectivity Centre –combining Bluetooth, FM transmit and receive, embedded Wi-Fi, GPS and a progressively growing range of other short range wireless technologies – is central to the way the market will develop and is set for enormous growth,"

he stated. CSR, he added, "is the only ‘pure play’ connectivity company and is moving fast to create and lead this market.

This, together with our product leadership and strong customer relationships gives us considerable confidence that CSR will deliver superior shareholder value over the medium and long term.

His statement continuedwith references to R&D expansion, and also the MusiCore codec product, and UniFi (WiFi convergence) silicon, which will be in six smartphone products next quarter, he said:

"We have redeployed our R&D behind the very substantial growth opportunities we see in the emerging Connectivity Centre market, which we believe will alter the profile of our industry in the coming years. 150 of our existing developers have been redeployed to help accelerate the development of CSR’s Connectivity Centre

Our innovative MusiCore product is exciting increasing customer interest and will enter production in 2009. Its combination of Bluetooth technology and highly advanced audio CODEC transforms the cell phone into a very power efficient, very high quality MP3 player, as well as materially improving voice quality.

In addition, UniFi, our embedded Wi-Fi product, will be shipping in six smart phones by the end of the current quarter. Digital picture frames incorporating CSR’s UniFi will be in the shops by this Christmas, and our next generation Wi-Fi chip at 65nm is progressing well.

Looking ahead, van Beurden said the company was convinced of the need for a high speed data rate within the Bluetooth standard. "We are unique in having both UWB/WiMedia and 802.11/Wi-Fi based versions working already and we have demonstrated data transfer in excess of 400Mbps," he added.

Guidance for the financial centres: CSR expects that Q3 2008 revenues will be in the range of $190 million to $220 million, "which is consistent with historical seasonal trends and reflects our continued strong market share."

Click on CSR logo (top of page) for PDF document of the financial tables.