There has been—and will continue to be—tremendous growth in wireless communication. But it’s hard to predict the future market share of any individual company. Nokia and Ericsson were the major mobile phone players 15 to 20 years ago. Today, their phones are industry footnotes, and Apple and Samsung dominate. InterDigital (NASDAQ:IDCC) is a company that will allow us to participate in this growth without betting on which smart phone, tablet, or e-reader companies will hold the largest market share in the future. InterDigital’s role is to sell critical technology across the wireless industry. To make sure its technology maintains a vital place inside networks and devices, the company employs 175 engineers who work on new inventions and patents every day. To date, they have obtained or applied for about 20,000 patents, a testament to InterDigital’s innovative strength. The company also works with Standard Development Organizations to incorporate its technology into the standards that ensure that a Samsung Galaxy on Verizon’s network can communicate with an iPhone with service from China Telecom.
We initiated a small position in 2011 and had a chance to increase our ownership substantially in 2012, when InterDigital had lawsuits pending that claimed large industry players owed the company royalties related to the deployment of 4G/LTE technology. They were similar to the lawsuits that followed the rollout of 2G and 3G wireless technologies. In all these cases, the users of the technology waited for the lawsuits to run their course before agreeing on a licensing rate. Our research suggested that there was no doubt that everyone was using their technology. During this downturn, the company managed its balance sheet extremely well and continued to generate cash. It decreased the share count from 45 million at the end of 2010 to 36 million today. Yet net cash still makes up almost 25% of the company’s market capitalization. InterDigital’s goal is to reach $600 million of revenue. At that time, the company could be able to generate more than $7 cash earnings.
In summary, we believe that the world will use more smart phones and tablets going forward, but we don’t know who the top sellers will be. We’ve decided not to try to predict that. We’d rather invest in a company that supplies its technology to all the players. In short: We see InterDigital as a backdoor way to participate in the growth of mobile communications.
From FPA Capital Fund (Trades, Portfolio)'s first quarter 2016 commentary.
