Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon speaks at the Computex forum in Taipei, Taiwan, June 3, 2024.
Ann Wang | Reuters
Qualcomm reported better-than-expected fiscal first-quarter results on Wednesday and issued strong guidance for the current period.
Here’s how the chipmaker did versus LSEG consensus estimates for the quarter ending Dec. 29:
- Earnings per share: $3.41, adjusted, vs. $2.96 estimated
- Revenue: $11.67 billion vs. $10.93 billion estimated
Revenue in the quarter rose 18% from $9.92 billion a year ago. Shares fell in extended trading.
For the March quarter, Qualcomm said it expects revenue of between $10.2 billion and $11 billion, which at its midpoint tops LSEG expectations of $10.34 billion. The company expects adjusted earnings of between $2.70 and $2.90 a share. The middle of the range is higher than Wall Street’s estimate of $2.69 per share.
Qualcomm said net income increased 15% to $3.18 billion, or $2.83 per share from $2.77 billion, or $2.46 per share, a year earlier.
The company’s adjusted earnings figure excluded items such as expected revenue resulting from the settlement of a dispute, acquisition-related items, as well as research and development expenditures.
All three of Qualcomm’s major end markets for its chips grew during the quarter. Its QCT division, which includes sales from physical chips, rose 20% to $10.1 billion.
The most important market for Qualcomm is mobile handsets, which grew 13% on an annual basis to $7.57 billion in sales. Analysts polled by FactSet were looking for $7.04 billion in handset sales, or about 5% growth.
The fastest-growing market for Qualcomm is its automotive business, which grew 61% to $961 million in sales, as long-term contracts for the company’s parts and software turn into recorded revenue.
Qualcomm saw big demand from customers in China for expensive “premium-tier” smartphones, CEO Cristiano Amon told CNBC’s Kristina Partsinevelos. The company also benefited from Samsung’s latest Galaxy device using Qualcomm processors exclusively. Qualcomm said it expected handset revenues to grow 10% in 2025.
Amon said on a call with analysts that it believes the recent release of the DeepSeek R1 AI model was good for Qualcomm, because its chips can run the efficient model locally, instead of in the cloud.
“DeepSeek R1 and other similar models recently demonstrated that AI models are developing faster, becoming smaller, more capable and efficient, and now able to run directly on device,” Amon said.
Qualcomm’s “IoT” business includes low-power chips for industrial purposes as well as the chips Qualcomm sells to Meta to power its Quest headsets and Ray-Ban-branded Meta smart glasses. It also includes sales of Snapdragon Elite chips for Windows laptops. The first Qualcomm laptop chips were released last year, and Qualcomm said on Wednesday that it had 10% market share in laptops over $800.
Revenue in the company’s IoT business grew 36% during the quarter to $1.55 billion.
“The Snapdragon based Ray-Ban meta glasses continue to exceed expectations as they adopt more AI features,” Amon said. “We remain optimistic that we are at the beginning of an inflection point for smart glasses to gain scale as they become wearable.”
Qualcomm also has a licensing business, called QTL, where other technology companies pay it for access to its intellectual property related to 5G and cellular technology. Qualcomm reported $1.54 billion in sales in the division, and it had signed notable Chinese smartphone maker Transsion to a 4G license, as well as finalized negotiations for long-term licenses with two other Chinese manufacturers.
“We remain very pleased with the execution of our QTL business in recent years, and we’re well positioned to maintain fiscal ’24 revenue scale going forward,” Amon said on a call with analysts.
Qualcomm said it paid $942 million in dividends and spent $1.8 billion on share repurchases during the quarter.
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