Qualcomm's smartphone chip sales miss estimates, shares fall

Qualcomm's smartphone chip sales fell short of Wall Street estimates in the fourth quarter, resulting in a 6 percent drop in the company's shares. The decline was attributed to weak demand for its chips and a decline in revenue from Apple. The cost of high-bandwidth memory chips used in smartphones has increased, affecting the profitability of companies like Qualcomm that design such chips for smartphones.

Global smartphone shipments fell 20 percent in the September quarter to a 14-year low, according to Counterpoint Research. Qualcomm's handset unit, which makes chips for smartphones, saw a 26 percent drop in revenue to $5.14 billion in the fourth quarter, bringing the chip segment's revenue down 8 percent to $9.02 billion. Analysts had expected handset revenue of $5.25 billion.

Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon said that Android handset sales had hit a bottom and were starting to grow again. The company expects non-handset revenue to replace Apple sales entirely, with a 70 percent increase in design wins in fiscal 2027, and 60 percent year-over-year growth in the non-handset business. Qualcomm expects first-quarter revenue to be between $10.4 billion and $11.2 billion, with sales in its chip segment exceeding $9 billion.

The company also secured a deal with Amazon to buy up to $60 billion worth of Qualcomm's AI chips and related data-center products.