Qualcomm announced its fourth-quarter financial results on Wednesday, with both sales and bottom line profits exceeding analysts’ expectations.
Here’s how the company performed compared to the expectations of analysts surveyed by LSEG:
Earnings per share: $3.00 adjusted vs. $2.88 expected Revenue: $11.27 billion vs. $10.79 billion expected
Qualcomm said in a statement that revenue increased 10% from $10.24 billion in the same period last year. Due to income tax expense, the company posted a net loss of $3.12 billion, or $2.89 per share, compared with net income of $2.92 billion, or $2.59 per share, in the year-ago period.
For its fiscal first quarter, Qualcomm said it expects revenue to be between $11.8 billion and $12.6 billion, with the midrange of the range at $12.2 billion. This beat the average analyst estimate of $11.62 billion, according to LSEG. The company said adjusted EPS would be between $3.30 and $3.50, while analysts had expected earnings of $3.31 per share.
The company has long been a leading provider of chips for mobile phones, including central processors and modems for high-end devices made by Samsung and modems for Apple’s iPhone.
Qualcomm expects to lose Apple as a customer in its modem business over the next few years and is working to diversify by having Meta make chips for other devices such as Windows PCs, virtual reality headsets and smart glasses.
But the biggest opportunity lies with artificial intelligence. Nvidia fleeing the processor market, advanced micro device I’m trying to catch up.
Last week, Qualcomm announced that it would launch a new AI accelerator chip, and that information pushed the stock up 11%. According to Qualcomm, both the AI200, scheduled for release in 2026, and the AI250, scheduled for release in 2027, can be installed in systems that fill entire liquid-cooled server racks.
Nvidia and AMD offer their graphics processing units (GPUs) in full rack systems, allowing up to 72 chips to function as a single computer. AI labs need computing power to run cutting-edge models.
Qualcomm stock has risen 17% since the beginning of the year as of Wednesday’s close, lagging the Nasdaq’s 22% rise. Meanwhile, Nvidia and AMD rose 45% and 112%, respectively.
Qualcomm’s mobile device business’ sales rose 14% to $6.96 billion in the latest quarter. Automotive sales increased 17% to $1.05 billion. Qualcomm reported meta earnings for its Internet of Things (IoT) division, with sales of $1.81 billion for the quarter, an increase of 7% year over year.
According to StreetAccount, all three segments exceeded expectations.
Qualcomm’s licensing business revenue fell 7% from a year earlier to $1.41 billion, also exceeding analyst expectations.
WATCH: Qualcomm CEO talks about new AI chip
