By Scott Moritz

Qualcomm (QCOM) joined tech’s growing crowd of downward revisionists as the slumping global economy forced the company to slash its financial targets.

While the San Diego wireless chipmaker turned in a strong fiscal fourth quarter Thursday, Qualcomm like several tech giants – including Cisco (CSCO), Intel (INTC) and Apple (AAPL) – have lowered financial projections as business took a nose dive this fall.

Qualcomm posted adjusted earnings of $1.06 billion or 63 cents a share, a 17% increase over the 54 cent pro forma profit in the year ago period and 3 cents above analysts estimates, according to Thomson First Call.

Sales for the company’s fourth quarter ended in September were $3.3 billion, up $1 billion or 45 % over the same period a year ago. Analysts had anticipated revenue of $2.86 billion.

Similar to Cisco, which saw strong pre-October results yet dire post-October conditions, Qualcomm pulled down its forecast for the current quarter.

“As a result of the credit crisis and the economic uncertainty, our guidance reflects slower end-market device growth for 2009 than previously anticipated,” said CEO Paul Jacobs in a statement.

Looking ahead, Qualcomm cut its December quarter adjusted earnings forecast to a range around 48 cents or 8% below year-ago levels. Sales are now expected to drop 4% on a year-over-year basis to $2.4 billion roughly flat sequentially. Analysts had been looking for earnings of 61 cents on revenue of $2.9 billion.

Qualcomm shares dropped 3% in after-hours trading after closing at $33.05 Thursday.

Qualcomm, which makes components for cell phones and licenses wireless technology, says December-quarter chip shipments will drop to 62.5 million from the 79 million level a year ago. And the company predicts the average selling price for mobile phones will fall to $205 from $211 last year.

Is anyone really watching TV on their mobile phones? At least three million people are, according to the latest subscriber numbers from MobiTV, an Emeryville, Calif.-based company that streams television shows like Nascar events, HBO dramas and the hit drama CSI to cell phones.

Although the bulk of MobiTV’s subscribers are likely in the United States – the company doesn’t break down user numbers by geography, but U.S.-based Sprint (S) is its longest-standing customer – North Americans have been relatively slow to take up watching TV shows on the small screen.

That’s because most of the constraints on the growth of mobile television in the U.S. have more to do with culture than technology, says Michael Wolf, an analyst with ABI Research. Unlike their Asian and European counterparts, most Americans don’t commute on mass transit, and let’s face it, driving is not exactly conducive to watching TV.

“I do still think we’re in the very early phase here,” says Wolf.

MobiTV is trying to change that. But they’re not alone: Qualcomm’s (QCOM) MediFLO service, available to some Verizon (VZ) Wireless customers, transmits television channels to handsets using UHF spectrum. Sling Media, meanwhile, lets consumers watch and control their home TV from select phones.

This rise in service providers, along with an increase of compatible handsets and more premium TV content, are all reasons MobiTV president Paul Scanlan remains optimistic on the prospects of mobile television in the United States.

“This coming year we think mobile television will take a dramatic shift forward,” says Scanlan. “Within the next year or two pretty much everything available on your home television will be available on your mobile.”

By year’s end there will be an estimated 3.7 million mobile TV subscribers in the United States and Canada, compared to 2.2 million at the close of 2006, according to Wolf. And by the end of 2008, about 6.7 million people across the United States and Canada are expected to watch television on their phones.

One of the reasons MobiTV has had some early success with its service is that it works on a broad range of cell phones. What’s more, MobiTV’s basic channel lineup is now bundled in with Sprint’s data plan. That means that any Sprint customer who signs up for data in addition to voice automatically becomes a MobiTV subscriber.

“Bundling has been a huge point of growth,” says Scanlan.

If there’s one thing North Americans are ahead of the curve in, it’s spending money on wireless plans. According to a new report by Informa Telecoms and Media, Americans and Canadians generate the world’s highest monthly average revenue per user from mobile data services. But whether they’ll end up using those data plans to watch television on the tiny three-inch screen remains to be seen.