Qualcomm beat estimates on revenue and earnings per share last quarter, driven by major growth in its chipset business.
Revenue increased 10% year-over-year to US$11.27 billion, passing LSEG estimates of $10.79. Earnings per share were up 12% to $3.00, above estimates of $2.88.
“Our business remains strong as demonstrated by record QCT revenues in fiscal 2025,” said Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon. Its QCT segment includes wireless chipset technologies.
“We delivered 18% year-over-year growth in total QCT non-Apple revenues, with combined fiscal year Automotive and IoT revenue growth of 27%. We are excited about our business momentum, the availability of our automated driving stack, and our expansion to data centers and advanced robotics.”
GAAP earnings before taxes grew by 14% to $2.97 billion. The company said it expects lower cash tax payments in the future due to new United States legislation, but it received a $5.7 billion charge last quarter for a valuation allowance against U.S. tax assets.
QCT revenues were up 13% to $9.82 billion, driven by 14% growth in Handsets and 17% in Automotive. The segment’s earnings before taxes rose 17% to $2.90 billion.
QTL, Qualcomm’s patent licensing business, saw revenue fall 7% to $1.41 billion. Earnings before taxes dropped by 9% to $1.02 billion.
The company’s forecast for the next quarter projects revenue of $11.8-12.6 billion, with QCT revenues of $10.3-10.9 billion and QTL revenues of $1.4-1.6 billion. It expects earnings per share of $3.30-3.50.
While Qualcomm supplied all modem chips for Samsung’s Galaxy S25 smartphones this year, Amon said the company will likely provide 75% of these chips for Samsung’s forthcoming Galaxy S26 products. Apple, a longtime Qualcomm buyer, has also been transitioning towards using its own chips in its smartphones.
Qualcomm will release artificial intelligence accelerator chips for data centres in 2026 and 2027, it said last month, potentially representing competition for Nvidia and AMD.
Qualcomm’s (NASDAQ: QCOM) share price closed at $179.72, up from its previous close at $172.84, before ending after-hours trading at $174.70. Its market capitalisation is $193.70 billion.
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