Qualcomm reported Q4 profit increases of 14% off of growing chipset sales. Qualcomm shipped a record 207 million Mobile Station Modem (MSM) chips in fiscal year 2006, up from 151 million in 2005, and said that now 402 million subscribers use handsets powered by its CDMA and Wideband CDMA silicon, an increase of 103 million in a year.

Qualcomm recorded quarterly revenues of $2 billion, up 28% year-over-year, and annual revenues of $7.53 billion, up 33% from 2005. Those numbers led to profits of $614 million for the quarter and $2.47 billion for the fiscal year, up 15% from the previous.

The chipmaker and CDMA technologist also said it is working with rival Nokia on a licensing agreement for GSM and W-CDMA technologies, aiming to come to a settlement before the April 9 expiration of their previous agreement. If the deal does not go through, Nokia would stop paying royalties to Qualcomm for its handsets, which could be a significant hit on Qualcomm’s revenues. Nokia is the largest cellphone maker in the world with about 35% market share. Most of Qualcomm’s intellectual property, however, lies in CDMA and W-CDMA technologies. Nokia manufactures very few of the former and has been ramping down its operations of late since it canceled a tie-up with Japanese CDMA handset maker Sanyo. And while it is one of the world’s leading W-CDMA handset makers, those devices account for a small percentage of its overall shipments. Still Qualcomm said it could knock 4 cents to 6 cents off of its earnings per share in its project 2007 earnings of $1.76 to $1.81 a share.