Qualcomm, the US company whose Snapdragon chips power a large share of the world's Android phones, reported revenue of $10.32 billion for its fiscal fourth quarter to 27 September, down 8% from $11.27 billion a year earlier, according to its results release on 4 November.
The fall came from phones. Revenue from handset chips dropped 26% to $5.14 billion, slightly below the $5.21 billion analysts polled by StreetAccount had expected, CNBC reports. For the full fiscal year, Qualcomm's revenue slipped 3% to $43.1 billion.
Dearer memory, dearer phones
Qualcomm said rising memory costs are forcing phone makers to raise prices, which is weighing on smartphone demand, according to CNBC. In its release, the company said chipmaking is seeing "a broad-based increase in input costs" across wafers, packaging, memory and other materials, and that it is passing these costs into its own product pricing. CNBC reports Qualcomm raised its prices in September. The company expects the handset market to be flat in 2027.
That matters well beyond the US. Most smartphones sold in Nigeria are Android phones, and price rises that start with memory and chips tend to reach shop shelves. Qualcomm also said it renewed long-term patent licence agreements with Apple, Huawei and Transsion, the Chinese maker of the Tecno, Infinix and itel phones widely sold in Nigeria.
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Qualcomm's other businesses grew. Automotive chip revenue rose 89% to a record $1.99 billion, which Qualcomm called its first $2 billion quarter, and chips for connected devices (IoT) rose 4% to $1.89 billion. Licensing revenue fell 7% to $1.3 billion.
Qualcomm earned $650 million from its new data centre business in the quarter, CNBC reports, and repeated its target of $5 billion in data centre revenue in fiscal 2027. "Fiscal 2027 marks the start of our non-handset revenue inflection, including the ramp of our Data Center business," chief executive Cristiano Amon said in the release. The company announced a multi-generation product collaboration with Amazon for AI data centres. On the earnings call, Amon described the data centre business as supply-limited, according to CNBC: "We don't have a demand issue; it's a supply issue."
For the current quarter, Qualcomm expects revenue of $10.4 billion to $11.2 billion and adjusted earnings of $2.15 to $2.35 a share. Analysts had expected $10.48 billion and $2.27 a share, according to CNBC, and the shares fell about 7% in extended trading. The results come a day after Qualcomm was named as SpaceX's chip partner for a Starlink mobile network in the US.
