Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon spoke at the Computex Forum in Taipei, Taiwan on June 3, 2024.
Ann Wang | Reuters
Highlight The report said Wednesday’s fiscal first-quarter results exceeded expectations and issued strong guidance during the current period.
Here is how chip manufacturers agree on LSEG consensus estimates for the quarter ended December 29:
- Earnings per share: $3.41, adjust, estimated $2.96
- income: $11.67 billion vs. $10.93 billion
Revenue for the quarter rose 18% from $9.92 billion a year ago. Stocks rose 2% in expansion trading.
Qualcomm said in the March quarter that it expects revenue to be between $10.2 billion and $11 billion, with the point exceeding LSEG’s forecast of $10.34 billion. The company expects adjusted earnings to range between $2.70 and $2.90 per share. The middle of the range is higher than Wall Street’s estimate of $2.69 per share.
Qualcomm said its net income rose from $2.77 billion or $2.46 a share a year ago to $3.18 billion, or $2.83 a share.
The company’s adjusted earnings figures do not include expected revenue generated from dispute resolution, acquisition-related projects, and R&D spending.
Qualcomm’s three main final markets for chips this quarter are growing. Its QCT division, which includes sales of physical chips, grew 20% to $10.1 billion.
Qualcomm’s most important market is mobile phones, which grows 13% annually and has sales of $7.57 billion. Analysts surveyed by Factset are looking for $7.04 billion in mobile phone sales, or up about 5%.
Qualcomm’s fastest growing market was its automotive business, which grew 61% to $961 million as long-term contracts and software for its parts turned into recorded revenue.
CEO Cristiano Amon told CNBC’s Kristina Partinevelos that Qualcomm has a lot of demand for Chinese customers. The company also uses Qualcomm’s processors specifically to benefit from Samsung’s latest galaxy devices.
Qualcomm’s “Internet of Things” business includes low-power chips for industrial purposes and the sale of chip Qualcomm to Yuan Powers the Quest headsets for Windows laptops and the relatively new Snapdragon Elite chip. The first batch of Qualcomm laptop chips were released last year.
The company’s IoT business revenue grew 36% to $1.55 billion.
Qualcomm also owns a licensed business called QTL, and other technology companies pay for access to its intellectual property rights related to 5G and cellular technologies. Qualcomm reported sales in the division of $1.54 billion and said it had reached deals with several Chinese smartphone manufacturers.
Qualcomm said dividends paid $942 million for the quarter and spent $1.8 billion in stock buybacks.
