April 27 (Bloomberg) -- Qualcomm Inc., the world’s biggest maker of mobile-phone chips, posted a second-quarter loss of $289 million on legal costs. The company raised its 2009 sales forecast, sending the stock higher in early trading.

Revenue this year will be at least $9.85 billion, up from a previous projection of as much as $9.8 billion, the San Diego- based company said today in a statement. That beat the $9.72 billion average of estimates in a Bloomberg survey.

Consumers are buying more advanced phones that surf the Web and send e-mail even as the economy slows, Chief Executive Officer Paul Jacobs said. Some manufacturers are ordering parts again after running their stockpiles down, said Ashok Kumar, a Collins Stewart analyst in Palo Alto, California.

“Visibility remains weak, but demand isn’t getting much worse,” said Kumar, who recommends buying the shares and said he doesn’t own any. “The indications are that global handset shipments are flat.”

Qualcomm gained $1.39, or 3.4 percent, to $42.75 in trading before U.S. exchanges opened, after closing at $41.36 on the Nasdaq Stock Market on April 24. The stock had gained 15 percent this year before today.

Yesterday, the company agreed to pay Broadcom $891 million in cash over four years to end a global dispute over handset- technology patents. Qualcomm, which had costs of $748 million last quarter related to the settlement, said the deal doesn’t affect its licensing-revenue model.

‘Strong’ 3G Demand

The second-quarter net loss of 18 cents a share compares with a profit $766 million, or 47 cents, a year earlier. Revenue fell 5.8 percent to $2.46 billion in the period, which ended March 29. Analysts had projected a profit of 29 cents a share on sales of $2.35 billion.

Sales this quarter will probably be $2.4 billion to $2.6 billion, Qualcomm said. Analysts had predicted $2.35 billion on average.

Qualcomm’s technology has grown more popular with the rise of so-called third-generation phones that offer high-speed Web. Unlike other chipmakers, Qualcomm gets most of its profit from licensing its technology, called code division multiple access, or CDMA.

“Worldwide demand for 3G enabled products and services remains strong,” Jacobs said on a conference call. “We continue to see healthy growth in CDMA device shipments, as well as significantly increased demand for our chip sets.”

Mobile-Phone Slump

Global mobile-phone shipments will drop 8.3 percent this year, with declines as high as 25 percent in markets such as Japan and the U.S., according to IDC. Still, sales of so-called smart phones with high-speed Internet access will grow at 3.4 percent, according to the Framingham, Massachusetts-based researcher.

“The bright spot is smart phones,” said Kumar. He estimates that overall phone-unit sales dropped 15 percent in the first three months of 2009 from the previous quarter.

Qualcomm surpassed Texas Instruments Inc. last year as the biggest maker of mobile-phone digital signal processors, the key chips in handsets. Texas Instruments last week posted profit and gave a forecast that exceeded analyst predictions. Still, the company also cautioned that demand wasn’t rebounding; its customers are restocking their inventory.

To contact the reporters on this story: Ian King in San Francisco at ianking@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: April 27, 2009 08:59 EDT