Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon speaks at the Computex Forum in Taipei, Taiwan, June 3, 2024.
Ann Wang | Reuters
Qualcomm On Wednesday, it reported fourth-quarter earnings that beat Wall Street expectations for earnings and revenue, and the company headed for a strong December quarter.
Shares rose 10% in extended trading at one point before falling to a gain of about 4%.
Here's how the company performed against Refinitiv's consensus forecast for the quarter ending September 29:
Earnings per share: $2.69, adjusted $2.56 expected, Revenue: $10.24 billion vs. $9.90 billion expected
Qualcomm said it expects revenue in the current quarter to be between $10.5 billion and $11.3 billion, with the middle of that range exceeding LSEG's forecast of $10.59 billion.
The company reported net income of $2.92 billion, or $2.59 per share, a sharp jump from $1.49 billion last year, or $1.23 per share. Qualcomm reported total revenue of $33.19 billion in its fiscal 2024, an increase of 9% from 2023.
Historically, Qualcomm's fortunes have been tied to the smartphone industry, where the company supplies a range of chips to phone makers, including system-on-chip processors, modems, and antennas. The company makes the chip at the heart of most high-end Android devices, and many low-end phones as well. Qualcomm also sells modems and related chips to apple for its iPhones, and said last year that its contract for 5G chips runs through 2026.
Qualcomm reported a 12% increase in phone chip sales to $6.1 billion, in line with FactSet estimates. Qualcomm introduced its high-end 2025 chip, called the Snapdragon 8 Elite, in October.
“In phones, we had greater than 20% year-on-year growth in Android revenue,” Qualcomm CFO Akash Palkhewala said on a call with analysts.
Under the leadership of CEO Cristiano Amon, the company has diversified away from being a smartphone supplier, introducing and investing heavily in the production of chips for computers, cars and industrial machinery.
“We will continue to transform Qualcomm from a wireless company to a connected computing company for the AI era,” Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon said on an earnings call with analysts.
Qualcomm has also made efforts to promote itself as a leader in artificial intelligence, having developed smartphone chips with specialized machine learning parts since 2017. But otherwise, NvidiaThe company doesn't produce the kind of data center graphics processors used for large AI programs like OpenAI's ChatGPT.
The automotive business grew 86% year over year to reach $899 million in sales. Qualcomm says it has billions of dollars in business with automakers currently in development, and highlighted that this was its fifth straight quarter of growth. Qualcomm said it expects car sales in the current quarter to rise by 50% year-on-year.
The company's “Internet of Things” business includes both chips for industrial purposes as well as microchips dead Used in Quest phones and Ray-Ban smart glasses. It also includes new business selling slides for running laptops Microsoft Windows. The division generated revenue of $1.68 billion, an increase of 22% from the previous year.
Qualcomm's chip businesses, including phones, automobiles and other chips, which are reported together as QCT, saw sales rise 18% during the quarter to $7.37 billion in total.
The company's profitable technology licensing business, QTL, generated revenue of $1.52 billion, an increase of 21% compared to the same period last year.
Qualcomm said its board of directors approved an additional $15 billion in buybacks. During the fourth quarter, it repurchased $1.3 billion worth of shares and paid $947 million in dividends.
Watch: CNBC's full interview with Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon
