Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon speaks on the Computex discussion board in Taipei, Taiwan, June 3, 2024.
Ann Wang | Reuters
Qualcomm reported fourth-quarter earnings on Wednesday that beat Wall Road expectations for earnings and income, and the corporate guided to a robust December quarter.
The shares rose 10% in prolonged buying and selling at one level earlier than falling to a acquire of about 4%.
This is how the corporate did versus Refinitiv consensus expectations for the quarter ending Sept. 29:
- Earnings per share: $2.69, adjusted $2.56 anticipated
- Income: $10.24 billion versus $9.90 billion anticipated
Qualcomm stated it expects income within the present quarter of between $10.5 billion and $11.3 billion, with the midpoint of that vary beating LSEG consensus expectations of $10.59 billion.
The corporate reported $2.92 billion in internet revenue, or $2.59 per share, a pointy leap from final 12 months’s $1.49 billion, or $1.23 per share. Qualcomm reported $33.19 billion in whole income in its fiscal 2024, a 9% enhance from 2023.
Qualcomm’s fortunes have traditionally been tied to the smartphone trade, the place the corporate supplies a spread of chips to handset makers, together with system-on-a-chip processors, modems, and antennas. The corporate makes the chip on the coronary heart of most high-end Android units, and lots of lower-end telephones as nicely. Qualcomm additionally sells modems and associated chips to Apple for its iPhones, and final 12 months stated its contract for 5G chips ran by 2026.
Qualcomm reported a 12% enhance in handset chip gross sales to $6.1 billion, in step with FactSet estimates. Qualcomm launched its high-end chip for 2025, known as Snapdragon 8 Elite, in October.
“In handsets we delivered better than 20% year-over-year progress in Android revenues,” stated Qualcomm CFO Akash Palkhiwala on a name with analysts.
Beneath CEO Cristiano Amon, the corporate has diversified away from being a smartphone provider and has launched and invested closely in producing chips for PCs, vehicles, and industrial machines.
“We are going to proceed to remodel Qualcomm from a wi-fi communications firm right into a related computing firm for the age of AI,” Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon stated on an earnings name with analysts.
Qualcomm has additionally made efforts to model itself as a frontrunner in AI, having developed smartphone chips with specialised elements for machine studying since 2017. However in contrast to Nvidia, the corporate does not produce the form of graphics processors for information facilities which are used for large AI packages like OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
The automotive enterprise grew 86% on an annual foundation to $899 million in gross sales. Qualcomm says it has billions of {dollars} in enterprise with automakers presently in its growth pipeline, and highlighted it was the fifth consecutive quarter of progress. Qualcomm stated that it anticipated automotive gross sales within the present quarter to rise 50% on an annual foundation.
The corporate’s “web of issues” enterprise consists of each chips for industrial functions in addition to the chips Meta makes use of in its Quest handsets and Ray-Ban Good Glasses. It additionally consists of the brand new enterprise promoting chips for laptops working Microsoft Home windows. The division reported $1.68 billion in income, a 22% enhance from a 12 months earlier.
Qualcomm’s chip enterprise, together with its handset, automotive, and different chips, which collectively is reported as QCT, noticed gross sales rise 18% in the course of the quarter to $7.37 billion in whole.
The corporate’s worthwhile know-how licensing enterprise, QTL, reported $1.52 billion in income, a 21% enhance over the identical interval final 12 months.
Qualcomm stated its board had accredited $15 billion in extra buybacks. Throughout the fourth quarter, it repurchased $1.3 billion price of shares and paid out $947 million in dividends.
WATCH: CNBC’s full interview with Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon
