Track market-moving stories before they get noisy

You are now leaving Barron's websiteBy clicking on the “Proceed” button below, you will be redirected to a third-party website owned and operated by Hong Kong Tiimoot Information Technology Co., Limited. (“HKT”), which is located in Hong Kong. That website operates independently from Barron's and Barron's does not control the website. The privacy practices of HKT are subject to its Privacy Statement, so please read it closely. We are not responsible for HKT's privacy or other data-related practices.

A trade through 29,811.50 will change the minor trend to up. If the move creates enough upside momentum, the rally could extend into the next main top at 30,343.00.

On the downside, a sustained move under 29,610.75 will signal the presence of sellers. This could trigger a break into the 50-day moving average at 29,375.89. Buyers could show up on the first test of the 50-day moving average, but if it fails, selling could extend into the intermediate 50% level at 29,150.75.

What to Watch Crude oil is the immediate risk. Brent near $99 has put $100 back in play, and another push higher would add to inflation pressure, lift Treasury yields and test the Nasdaq’s ability to ignore the macro trade. Qualcomm and the semiconductor group have the bid for now, but they are not trading in a vacuum.

The inflation reports arrive later this week. They matter because oil is already pushing the rate-hike case higher. If crude stays bid and the data come in hot, the chip rally faces a much tougher market.

The near-term bias stays bullish while the Nasdaq-100 holds the 50-day moving average at 29,375.89. A push through 29,811.50 confirms the uptrend and opens 30,343.00. The chip group has to hold Tuesday’s gains through PPI and CPI for the breakout to mean anything. The inflation numbers decide whether the Nasdaq keeps resisting the crude and yield pressure or whether the Dow’s problem becomes everybody’s problem.

More Information in our Economic Calendar.

AWS is sitting on a $496 billion backlog and doubling its power capacity, and the pressure is now pulling a surprising new name into the AI silicon race alongside Broadcom. Whether that newcomer can actually deliver before the window closes…

This post may contain links from our sponsors and affiliates, and Flywheel Publishing may receive compensation for actions taken through them.

Amazon’s AWS unit is now the loudest buyer in the AI compute market, and this morning it handed a piece of its silicon roadmap to a new supplier. Qualcomm announced a multi-generational product collaboration with Amazon to build next-generation AI data center infrastructure, extending AWS’s custom-chip strategy beyond in-house Trainium and incumbent Broadcom. The scale of what AWS is trying to feed is the point: AWS backlog stands at $496 billion, and Amazon is on pace to double its power capacity by the end of 2027 versus 2025. That is the demand pressure that just pulled Qualcomm into the accelerator conversation.

Amazon: Anchor Buyer With a $496 Billion Backlog Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN | AMZN Price Prediction) is the customer at the center of this story, and its Q2 FY2026 print explains why silicon vendors are lining up. AWS revenue was $42.2 billion, up 36.7% year-over-year, the fastest AWS growth in 18 quarters, with an annualized revenue run rate of $169 billion. Amazon’s own AI revenue run rate is now over $25 billion, and its chips business separately eclipsed a $25 billion run rate. Cash capital expenditures hit $53.1 billion in the quarter, and CEO Andy Jassy said AWS could “very possibly be a trillion dollar annual revenue business for us in time.”

The bull case is straightforward: Amazon has already reserved the lion’s share of 2027 capacity and is signing 2028, and management said most AI capacity is being contracted for at least five-year terms. Shares trade at a P/E of 36 with the stock up 11.03% year to date. The risk: near-term free cash flow is under pressure while data centers are built ahead of monetization, a point Amazon flagged directly on the call.

Qualcomm: New Data Center Entrant With a Signed Amazon Deal Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM) just converted what had been a vaguely disclosed “leading hyperscaler” engagement into a named Amazon partnership. Per CNBC, Qualcomm is working with Amazon “across multiple generations of customized silicon” focused on inference workloads for AWS AI infrastructure, and per user context, the scope also reaches into 1.6T optical connectivity, giving Qualcomm a shot at selling both compute and networking around AI workloads. On the July earnings call, CFO Akash Palkhiwala said Qualcomm already has purchase orders and has started wafer production on its two hyperscaler engagements, with revenue starting in the December quarter.

The numbers behind the pivot: Qualcomm is targeting $5 billion in data-center revenue in fiscal 2027 and $15 billion in fiscal 2029, with total non-handset revenue targeted at $40 billion by fiscal 2029. CEO Cristiano Amon said non-handset growth will accelerate from 24% in fiscal 2026 to greater than 60% in fiscal 2027. The stock ripped on the news, up 7.4% over the past week and 3.94% on the session to $175.39, trading at a P/E of 33 with a 2.11% dividend yield.

The bull case: this is Qualcomm’s second major hyperscaler win, following Meta’s commitment to use the Dragonfly C1000 starting in 2028 production, and Bank of America sees the CPU market growing from $27 billion in 2025 to $60 billion by 2030. The risk is real and management flagged it themselves: initial custom-chip data-center revenue carries gross margins significantly lower than baseline and will reduce QCT weighted-average gross margin by one and a half to 2% during the ramp. Handset revenue also declined 20% year-over-year last quarter, so the data-center story has to work to offset the core business.

Broadcom: Incumbent With a $115 Billion AI Runway Broadcom (NASDAQ:AVGO) is the incumbent Qualcomm is trying to catch, and last week’s print set the bar. Q3 AI semiconductor revenue was $16.70 billion, up 221% year-over-year and 54% quarter-over-quarter, representing 56% of total revenue. Q4 guidance calls for AI semi revenue of $21.7 billion, and management expects fiscal 2026 AI revenue of $58 billion, scaling to approximately $115 billion in fiscal 2027 and $230 billion in fiscal 2028. CEO Hock Tan pegged Broadcom’s content at $20 billion to $30 billion per gigawatt of AI infrastructure deployed.

The customer roster is what makes the incumbency stick: Google TPUs (Broadcom said it plans to deliver “multi-tens of billions of dollars of TPUs annually over the next several years”), Anthropic (a one-gigawatt Ironwood deployment in 2026 and another five gigawatts of TPU v8i in 2027), OpenAI (Jalapeno accelerator with 1.3 gigawatts of deployment in 2027), and Meta’s MTIA program. The stock is up 20.62% over the past year but down 12.37% over the past month to $366.52, with free cash flow last quarter of $13.66 billion (46% of revenue). The risk is customer concentration: the “vast majority” of AI demand originates from a concentrated group of frontier-model developers, and any of those customers dual-sourcing (as AWS is now doing with Qualcomm) chips away at the addressable moat.

What to Watch These are three fundamentally different bets on the same buildout. Amazon has the balance sheet and the backlog to fund the demand pull, Broadcom has the incumbent AI-silicon P&L with real free cash flow behind it, and Qualcomm is an early-revenue data-center entrant whose thesis rests on execution against a fiscal 2029 $15 billion target that has not yet shown up in the reported numbers. December-quarter shipments and the fiscal 2027 ramp are the two proof points that will decide whether Qualcomm actually takes durable share, or whether Broadcom’s TPU, Jalapeno, and MTIA pipelines simply absorb the next leg of hyperscaler capex. For readers hunting the next monster run in AI silicon, we reverse-engineered what the biggest tech winners looked like early in a free playbook here.

Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.

Qualcomm QCOM shares were surging on Tuesday after the chipmaker announced a major deal.

The stock surged as much as 10% in early trading, but gave up most of those gains to trade around 4% higher at the time of writing.

The company said it has entered a multi-generational product collaboration with Amazon Web Services to supply customized silicon for large-scale AI data centers.

The deal marks the chipmaker’s third named hyperscaler partnership as it pushes into a market dominated by Nvidia.

The companies will work together across multiple generations of custom chips focused on AI inference, the process by which trained models generate outputs.

They will also jointly develop optical connectivity solutions extending up to 1.6T, built on Qualcomm’s SerDes and optical DSP technologies, to handle the bandwidth demands of AWS’s data center networks.

The pullback from the day’s high suggests some profit-taking once the initial reaction to the Amazon news settled in.

The stock has lagged the broader semiconductor sector for most of 2026. On a year-to-date basis, the stock is up around 1.5%, while the VanEck Semiconductor ETF is up over 50%.

As part of the agreement, Qualcomm issued Amazon a warrant to purchase up to 25 million QCOM shares at $161.26 each, according to Qualcomm’s regulatory filing.

Amazon receives an initial tranche of 3.75 million shares, with the remainder tied to commercial milestones that could total up to $60 billion in business under the deal.

The warrant expires on September 3, 2036.

Qualcomm also said it plans to deepen its own use of AWS infrastructure, including Amazon Bedrock, for electronic design automation work, aiming to shorten its chip design cycles.

“As AI demand accelerates, data center infrastructure will require advances in both computing and connectivity to deliver greater performance with more efficiency,” Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon said in the companies’ joint statement.

The Amazon agreement follows Qualcomm’s June 2026 Investor Day, where the company laid out its AI data center strategy in detail, introducing the Dragonfly C1000 CPU and its High Bandwidth Compute architecture, alongside separately announced AI200 and AI250 inference accelerators built for Saudi-backed Humain.

At that event, Qualcomm named Meta and Microsoft as its first data center partners, Meta as a customer for the Dragonfly C1000 CPU, with production expected in the second half of 2028, and Microsoft backing Qualcomm’s High Bandwidth Compute architecture for Azure.

Qualcomm also told investors it was targeting $15 billion in data center revenue by fiscal 2029.

Amazon now becomes Qualcomm’s third named hyperscaler relationship.

The tie-up also puts Qualcomm in a slightly unusual position relative to Amazon’s own chip ambitions.

AWS already builds its own custom silicon, including the Trainium and Graviton lines, and CEO Andy Jassy said in his April shareholder letter that annualized revenue across Amazon’s chip products was already around $20 billion, with a path toward $50 billion if AWS begins selling to outside customers.

MarketBeat Week in Review – 08/31 - 09/04Qualcomm NASDAQ: QCOM CFO and COO Akash Palkhiwala said the company’s newly announced multiyear agreement with Amazon represents a “landmark deal” for its expanding data-center business and supports its previously disclosed growth targets.

Speaking at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology Conference, Palkhiwala said the agreement includes multiple generations of customized silicon as well as optical connectivity products beginning with 1.6T technology and future generations. Qualcomm expects to begin recording revenue from Amazon in the December quarter and said it is already producing chips for the customer.

Get Qualcomm alerts:

Qualcomm’s AI Ambitions Run Into a Smartphone Reality CheckThe transaction also includes a warrant agreement tied to Amazon purchases of up to $60 billion in Qualcomm data-center products over 10 years, according to Palkhiwala. He said roughly 15% of the warrants vest upfront based on Amazon’s initial commitments.

Data-center targets and product strategy Palkhiwala said the Amazon relationship gives Qualcomm high confidence in its target of approximately $5 billion in data-center revenue for fiscal 2027, which begins shortly for the company. He also said the agreement should support strong year-over-year growth in fiscal 2028 and is among the core components supporting Qualcomm’s goal of $15 billion in data-center revenue in fiscal 2029.

Qualcomm’s Turnaround Is Working, So Why Is Wall Street Selling?Qualcomm’s data-center approach consists of four business areas, Palkhiwala said:

Custom silicon for hyperscale customers AI accelerators Central processing units Connectivity products, including SerDes and optical connectivity The company is also working with another global hyperscaler on custom silicon, he said. Qualcomm’s custom-chip capabilities draw on its compute and connectivity technologies, experience with advanced manufacturing nodes and high-yield production, according to Palkhiwala.

In AI accelerators, Qualcomm is initially targeting inference workloads, particularly memory-bandwidth-intensive decode tasks. Palkhiwala highlighted the company’s High Bandwidth Compute technology, which combines compute and memory through stacking. He said the technology is designed to deliver high bandwidth at low power and has received a positive response from customers.

Qualcomm is also bringing its CPU technology to data centers, where it has Meta as its first silicon customer. Palkhiwala said the company believes its products can provide strong performance per watt and performance per area. He said the CPU market opportunity has expanded to more than $200 billion annually and that Qualcomm sees about half of that market moving toward Arm architecture.

Software and power efficiency Palkhiwala said Qualcomm’s acquisition of Modular addresses a key software need as the company expands in data centers. Modular’s software stack is designed to enable models to run across multiple silicon platforms, including those from NVIDIA, AMD and Qualcomm, without requiring developers to build separately for each architecture.

Qualcomm plans to use Modular as its software stack going forward and is pursuing an open-source approach for lower layers of the stack, Palkhiwala said. He compared the strategy to an Android-like model intended to make Qualcomm silicon more accessible to developers across both edge and data-center products.

He also said power constraints, wafer availability and memory supply are likely to shape the AI infrastructure market. Qualcomm’s longstanding focus on performance per watt could provide an advantage in a power-constrained environment, he said, while its manufacturing scale could also be strategically important.

Palkhiwala said AI computing will be distributed between cloud data centers and edge devices rather than concentrated solely in one environment. Qualcomm is developing AI accelerators for edge devices including smartphones, vehicles, PCs, industrial products and robotics.

Smartphones, automotive and wearables On smartphones, Palkhiwala described the market as being in transition toward agentic and voice-first experiences. He said future devices could incorporate separate AI accelerators alongside main processors, increasing silicon content.

He said global smartphone volumes have declined by low-double-digit percentages over the past year, with the largest pressure affecting devices priced below $300 as memory costs rose. However, Qualcomm has seen limited impact at the premium end of the market, where it has its greatest presence.

Palkhiwala also pointed to personal AI devices—including smart glasses, watches, pendants, pins and dongles—as another opportunity. He said companies are developing devices that can see and hear what users do and serve as AI interaction points. Qualcomm is moving toward providing modules and systems-in-package for these products, integrating processing, connectivity, AI, memory and passive components.

In automotive, Palkhiwala said Qualcomm expects to become the largest chip supplier to the auto industry next year. He said the company’s automotive compute content has increased eightfold from its third-generation products to its fifth-generation products, supported by demand for AI, advanced driver-assistance systems and in-car voice interfaces.

Qualcomm has also shifted from selling individual chips toward selling modules and systems-in-package for automotive customers, he said. The company has accelerated its automotive revenue target timetable, originally targeting $10 billion in revenue by 2031 before moving that objective to 2029 and then earlier.

Margins and investment Regarding financial implications, Palkhiwala said Qualcomm expects data-center gross margins to remain broadly in the range of current company margins. Custom products may carry lower margins, while merchant products could carry significantly higher margins, he said.

He added that operating margins should benefit as Qualcomm scales new businesses and leverages research and development investments across its product portfolio. The company has set a target of 30% operating margins three years out, with operating-expense increases expected to trail revenue growth, according to Palkhiwala.

About Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM)Qualcomm Incorporated is a global semiconductor and telecommunications equipment company headquartered in San Diego, California. Founded in 1985, the company is known for its development of wireless technologies and for playing a central role in the evolution of digital cellular standards, including CDMA and subsequent generations of mobile standards. Qualcomm’s business combines the design and sale of semiconductor products with a patent licensing program for wireless technologies and related intellectual property.

The company’s product portfolio includes system-on-chip (SoC) platforms marketed under the Snapdragon brand, cellular modem and RF front-end components, connectivity solutions for Wi‑Fi and Bluetooth, and processors and platforms aimed at automotive, IoT, networking and edge-computing applications.

This instant news alert was generated by narrative science technology and financial data from MarketBeat in order to provide readers with the fastest reporting and unbiased coverage. Please send any questions or comments about this story to [email protected].

Should You Invest $1,000 in Qualcomm Right Now?Before you consider Qualcomm, you'll want to hear this.

MarketBeat keeps track of Wall Street's top-rated and best performing research analysts and the stocks they recommend to their clients on a daily basis. MarketBeat has identified the five stocks that top analysts are quietly whispering to their clients to buy now before the broader market catches on... and Qualcomm wasn't on the list.

While Qualcomm currently has a Hold rating among analysts, top-rated analysts believe these five stocks are better buys.

View The Five Stocks Here

A strong long-term portfolio starts with companies that can survive recessions, inflation, changing consumer habits, and shifting market leadership.

This report names seven blue-chip stocks across technology, retail, consumer staples, healthcare, networking, sporting goods, and utilities that offer investors a mix of stability, income, growth, and staying power.

Get This Free Report

Continue following MarketBeat

Add MarketBeat as your preferred source on Google to see our latest stories in your feed.

Qualcomm (QCOM) establishing an AI collaboration with Amazon (AMZN) is something Futurum CEO Dan Newman sees as "very optimistic." The partnership is currently valued at $60 billion.

Shares of Qualcomm (QCOM +3.17%) rose as much as 8.7% on Tuesday after the semiconductor designer struck a potentially highly lucrative partnership with Amazon (AMZN -0.60%).

Image source: The Motley Fool.

Accelerating the AI boom Qualcomm will help Amazon develop custom artificial intelligence (AI) chips to power its industry-leading cloud computing business.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) will also deploy Qualcomm's advanced optical connectivity solutions to speed up data transfers across Amazon's sprawling data center network.

The shift from AI model training to inference -- using trained models to make predictions -- is creating an even greater need for power-efficient computing infrastructure.

That just happens to be Qualcomm's specialty.

The semiconductor designer has built expertise in energy-efficient processors over nearly two decades of developing high-performance, low-power chips for the smartphone market.

Premium Feature

Moneyball Superscore

81/100

Today's Change

(

3.17

%) $

5.35

Current Price

$

174.09

As part of the deal, Amazon obtained a warrant to buy up to 25 million shares of Qualcomm's stock at an exercise price of $161.26 per share. The warrant vests in stages based on up to $60 billion in chip orders and related purchases. It expires on Sept. 3, 2036.

A strong vote of confidence for Qualcomm's AI chips The global smartphone industry's slowing growth has prompted Qualcomm to seek greener pastures -- and there aren't many greener than the AI data center build-out race.

Earning Amazon's stamp of approval could provide a powerful boost to Qualcomm's AI customer acquisition efforts.

Joe Tenebruso has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon and Qualcomm. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Qualcomm President and CEO Cristiano Amon is not a morning person, so the meetings that decide the most get scheduled last, when nothing has to end on time. Ryan Patel spent a day with Amon at Qualcomm's San Diego campus: a ride in the 1973 Bronco he rebuilt, thirty minutes inside an all-hands where his own employees pushed back on the company's bets, and a walk through the 6G and robotics labs.

Qualcomm has significantly underperformed the semiconductor sector, returning only 16% over five years versus SOXX's 227%, due to handset dependency. I rate QCOM a 'Strong Buy' with a $360/share FY 2029 target, driven by aggressive diversification into non-handset segments like AI, automotive, and robotics. QCOM targets $40 billion in non-handset revenue and >$18 EPS by FY 2029, with hyperscaler wins and AI accelerators as key growth drivers.

AI silicon stocks are splitting sharply on Friday, with one beaten-down chip designer surging while a larger rival barely moves. The divergence reveals something important about which companies actually benefit when hyperscaler spending accelerates.

AI silicon is catching a bid Friday morning while the broader U.S. market leaks lower, and the leadership is coming squarely from the names beaten down over the past few sessions. The move looks like an unwind of defensive positioning in high-beta chip designers, with no fresh corporate news on the tape.

The SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (NYSEARCA:SPY) is down 0.5% to $769.39. At the same time, the Invesco QQQ Trust (NASDAQ:QQQ) is unchanged at $717.38 as large-cap tech treads water.

Marvell Technology (NASDAQ:MRVL | MRVL Price Prediction) stock is up 6% to $220.54, a sizable Friday bounce after a stretch of selling that pulled the shares below their August highs. Meanwhile, Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM) stock is down 0.33% to $168.01, barely registering during the same session that has Marvell rallying.

No Fresh Catalyst Behind the Bounce Marvell announced no company-specific news this morning, and today’s action reads as a sector flow story. It fits a familiar pattern where the names beaten down hardest in recent sessions lead when positioning unwinds. MRVL stock was down 4% over the past month through Thursday’s close, which set up the kind of oversold snap that tends to run first in high-beta AI silicon.

The company’s most recent update came on August 27, when Marvell reported Q2 FY2027 revenue of $2.739 billion, up 36.55% year over year, with data center revenue of $2.17 billion now at 79% of the mix. CEO Matt Murphy stated that “AI-related bookings remain exceptionally robust” heading into the company’s Investor Day on October 6. Nothing has been disclosed since to change what Marvell earns.

Custom Silicon Exposure Divides the Group What separates Marvell from Qualcomm today is exposure to the current AI infrastructure build cycle. Marvell’s investment case rests on custom silicon and data-center connectivity demand from a small number of very large hyperscalers, the kind of buildout that reaches well past the chipmakers themselves (we profiled seven of those non-chip AI suppliers in a free report here). When money rotates back into that trade, Marvell stock tends to lead, and when flows reverse, the drawdowns are just as large.

Qualcomm sits at the other end of the spectrum. It’s the large listed chip designer with the least direct exposure to the current AI accelerator build, still leaning on handsets while its custom data-center chips remain pre-revenue until the December quarter. That’s a legitimate reason for Qualcomm shares to sit out a session driven by AI silicon flows.

Arm Holdings (NASDAQ:ARM) belongs alongside Marvell in that custom-design conversation, with data-center royalties more than doubling year over year and customer demand for its artificial general intelligence (AGI) CPU now exceeding $2 billion against an initial $1 billion opportunity. Arm’s revenue is tied to the same hyperscaler capex flowing into AI training and inference clusters that lifts Marvell. Qualcomm, whose handset segment saw revenue drop 20% year over year last quarter, is running a different clock.

Session Scorecard Here is how the two featured names look against their year to date (YTD) anchors through Thursday’s close. Marvell’s outperformance underscores the flow-driven nature of today’s action, while Qualcomm stock has held roughly flat all year.

What to Watch Marvell’s Investor Day on October 6 in New York City is the next real information event for the AI-silicon thesis. Updated custom-silicon growth ranges, refreshed data-center targets, and any additional hyperscaler disclosure can reset expectations in either direction. Until then, single-session moves like this one carry limited fundamental signal.

For anyone treating today as confirmation of a bounce higher, the fair read is that a one-session gain in a name that’s down over the past month says more about flow than about demand. Investors can size their MRVL stock positions accordingly, keeping their exposure to concentrated AI-silicon names in line with the volatility that comes with a customer base measured in single digits and letting the Investor Day speak before adding to their allocation.

Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.

Key Takeaways Qualcomm plans a Japan Robotics Center to advance robotics, physical AI and ecosystem collaboration.QCOM's Snapdragon, automotive and AI expansion supports diversification beyond the smartphone market.Qualcomm faces margin pressure, falling estimates and revenue risks from Apple's in-house modem shift. Qualcomm Incorporated (QCOM - Free Report) is expanding its presence in Japan’s robotics and physical AI market through a new long-term investment initiative aimed at accelerating innovation, commercialization and global expansion.

As part of the initiative, the company plans to establish the Qualcomm Japan Robotics Center, which will support collaborative research, development and ecosystem engagement with startups, academic institutions and industry participants. The initiative is also expected to provide developers and robotics companies with access to Qualcomm’s products, technical expertise and enablement resources. In addition, the company plans to support flagship physical AI projects that demonstrate the potential of advanced robotics and intelligent automation.

The initiative should strengthen Qualcomm’s position in the fast-growing robotics, edge AI and industrial automation markets. Increased adoption of intelligent robotics could also drive demand for the company’s computing and AI platforms, supporting its diversification beyond the smartphone market over the long term.

Snapdragon, AI & Automotive: QCOM’s Key Growth DriversQualcomm envisions solid growth opportunities within the mobile space, driven by the strength of its Snapdragon portfolio. Leveraging processors with multi-core CPUs with cutting-edge features, amazing graphics and worldwide network connectivity, Qualcomm Snapdragon mobile platforms are fast with superb power efficiency, brilliant camera capabilities and state-of-the-art security solutions. Smartphones and mobile devices built with Snapdragon mobile platforms enable immersive augmented reality and virtual reality experiences, brilliant camera capabilities, superior 4G LTE and 5G connectivity, and state-of-the-art security solutions.

The company is also foraying deeper into the realm of AI capabilities within the laptop and desktop business with the launch of the Snapdragon X chip for mid-range AI desktops and laptops. The strategy is aimed at moving beyond the slowing smartphone industry, which is its primary breadwinner. In addition to diversifying its revenue stream, this is likely to further extend QCOM’s AI footprint.

Qualcomm is gaining traction in the vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication systems market with the buyout of Autotalks. With seamless access to Autotalks’ comprehensive V2X expertise, it has been able to offer an extensive suite of automotive-qualified global V2X solutions for installation in vehicles, as well as two-wheelers and roadside infrastructure. The company’s V2X chipsets offer production-ready standalone solutions that are purpose-built for global applications, resulting in direct communication becoming more pervasive.

Price PerformanceQCOM shares have gained 6.4% over the past year compared with the industry’s growth of 43.9%. It has underperformed peers like Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company (HPE - Free Report) and Broadcom Inc. (AVGO - Free Report) . While Broadcom is up 20%, Hewlett Packard has surged 123.8% over this period. 

One-Year QCOM Stock Price Performance

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

Waning Margins Hurt QCOMA combination of factors has led to the soft performance by the chip manufacturing firm. Qualcomm's margins have declined over the years due to high operating expenses and R&D (research & development) costs. The company expects softness in the handset market and a weaker overall mix of devices to continue in the near future. The shift in the share among original equipment manufacturers at the premium tier has reduced the near-term opportunity to sell integrated chipsets from the Snapdragon platform.

In addition, Qualcomm faces stiff competitive pressures from rivals Broadcom and Hewlett Packard. Aggressive competition from low-cost chip manufacturers and established players in the mobile phone chipset market is also likely to hurt Qualcomm's profits. Although the global smartphone market is expected to maintain its momentum over the next three to four years, a large share of this growth is likely to come from low-cost emerging markets, which may weigh on Qualcomm's margins.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

Apple’s In-House Modem Lowers Revenue ProjectionApple’s accelerating transition toward internally developed modems remains a major concern for Qualcomm. The company expects the faster-than-expected shift to in-house modems to lead to lower revenues from the fiscal fourth quarter. The resulting loss of premium handset chipset volumes is likely to weigh on QCT revenues and cash flows while increasing pressure on the company to offset the shortfall through Snapdragon gains at Android OEMs and continued expansion in automotive and IoT. Although Qualcomm’s licensing franchise provides some insulation, Apple’s vertical integration represents a meaningful long-term overhang on the company’s handset business.

Estimate Revision TrendEarnings estimates for Qualcomm for fiscal 2026 have moved down 11.1% to $10.54 over the past year, while the same for fiscal 2027 has declined 17.9% to $10.06. The downward estimate revision indicates that investors are bearish about the stock’s growth potential.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

End NoteQualcomm is likely to benefit from robust automotive and Snapdragon traction as it aims to build Japan’s open robotics ecosystem to accelerate edge AI innovations. A strong emphasis on quality, diligent execution of operational plans and continuous portfolio enhancements are driving more value for customers.

However, with declining earnings estimates, the stock is witnessing negative investor sentiment. Moreover, stiff competition and softness in key end markets are likely to put pressure on the bottom-line growth. High R&D costs erode its profitability to a large extent. It also faces reduced chip orders and near-term uncertainty in memory supply.

With a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold), Qualcomm appears to be treading in the middle of the road, and new investors could be better off if they trade with caution. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

With shares down about 5% year to date (YTD), Qualcomm Inc. NASDAQ: QCOM is hardly the most glamorous name in AI. The company neither builds the agents that capture headlines nor operates cloud platforms that draw institutional business.

Qualcomm Today

$166.26 -4.22 (-2.48%)

As of 01:32 PM Eastern

This is a fair market value price provided by Massive. Learn more.

$121.99▼

$259.922.21%

19.23

$203.76

Still, the company's underlying strength is hard to dismiss: it helps to put AI into just about everything else, including smartphones, cars, industrial tools in factories and manufacturing, and much more. This may give the company, often seen as an old-fashioned firm because of its legacy in digital cellular technology, a continued path to both relevance and long-term competitiveness.

Get Qualcomm alerts:

First, however, investors are likely to look at the company's recent turbulence (particularly the period of decline in late spring and summer). There is an argument to be made that Qualcomm could once again be transformative over the long-term, though it requires reconciling some not-so-appealing performance measures.

Qualcomm's Turbulence Is RealRecent earnings have not helped Qualcomm build momentum: a 4% year-over-year (YOY) dip in sales was slightly better than expected for Q3 2026, but still not heading in the right direction, and earnings missed analyst predictions slightly.

The company's reliance on Apple Inc. NASDAQ: AAPL products means that as the larger company diversifies its partner base, Qualcomm faces a shrinking opportunity tied to future iPhone launches. Qualcomm now expects revenue related to Apple products to decline even more rapidly than previously expected.

Perhaps the company's biggest issue is not even related to a specific partner company, though. Memory inflation and supply chain costs are eating into handset demand and the company's margins, forcing Qualcomm to make significant price increases just to keep these factors under control.

Understandably, the market has reacted to these updates with volatility. After trading at about $250 per share in late May 2026, shares fell sharply before recently trading around the mid-$160s. Still, the analyst consensus sits somewhere between these two levels, with a QCOM price target of nearly $204 agreed upon across Wall Street.

There's Some Room Still in the Smartphone BusinessDespite the bad news for Qualcomm's handset segment, it may not be worth writing it off entirely. The company's Snapdragon processors have become a primary on-device AI engine for Android phones, helping to process language models and other AI tools locally instead of via the cloud. Qualcomm has a strong position here and enjoys both pricing power and operational efficiency.

Automotive and AI Are Where the Long-Term Gains May Be FoundAlthough Qualcomm is well-known for its role in the smartphone industry, its automotive division could become the key focus as the company seeks to shift its strategic direction. Automotive revenue climbed by 61% YOY to nearly $1.6 billion for the latest quarter, a massive leap by any measure but especially impressive given that this may be only the beginning: Qualcomm anticipates annualized automotive revenue to reach $7 billion for the current fiscal year, thanks to major agreements with BMW OTCMKTS: BMWYY and Stellantis NV NYSE: STLA.

Back in June 2026, at its annual investor day, Qualcomm boosted its long-term non-handset revenue target for fiscal 2029 to $40 billion, almost double its previous target. Automotive is likely key to this projected growth, but the data center business is also significant. With custom silicon deals with hyperscalers and data center AI processors expected to ship in the coming months, Qualcomm is looking to continue its revitalization in one of the hottest markets currently available.

Qualcomm’s AI Case Needs Patience, Not NVIDIA ComparisonsQualcomm trades at nearly 20x earnings, which actually makes it a value play compared to some higher-multiple offerings in the AI space. Still, despite this potential, investors will need to look past Qualcomm's struggles in the smartphone space, which may continue to weigh on the company in the short-term.

96th Percentile

Hold

24.6% Upside

Healthy

Strong

1.39 Selling Shares

-6.98%

See Full Analysis

Qualcomm may not need to become the next NVIDIA Corp. NASDAQ: NVDA to succeed. Rather, the company's push into AI (via data centers) as well as automotive and other connected devices will need to offset the pressure it faces in its handset business. This may be a more manageable task and could end up rewarding investors willing to be patient through the low point of the current smartphone cycle.

In the end, the benefit could be longer-term diversification into multiple markets that have ample room for growth. However, this requires moving against Wall Street in some sense: analysts are split on QCOM shares, with most leaning toward Hold or Sell ratings, and the stock has an overall Hold rating despite its potential for upside going forward.

Continue following MarketBeat

Add MarketBeat as your preferred source on Google to see our latest stories in your feed.

Should You Invest $1,000 in Qualcomm Right Now?Before you consider Qualcomm, you'll want to hear this.

MarketBeat keeps track of Wall Street's top-rated and best performing research analysts and the stocks they recommend to their clients on a daily basis. MarketBeat has identified the five stocks that top analysts are quietly whispering to their clients to buy now before the broader market catches on... and Qualcomm wasn't on the list.

While Qualcomm currently has a Hold rating among analysts, top-rated analysts believe these five stocks are better buys.

View The Five Stocks Here

Nuclear energy is entering a new growth cycle as rising power demand, expanding data centers, and renewed policy support bring the sector back into focus. After strong gains in recent years, the most impactful phase of nuclear investment may still be ahead. This report highlights seven nuclear energy stocks positioned across the value chain—combining near-term revenue with long-term upside as next-generation technologies scale. Click the link below to unlock the full list.

Get This Free Report

Shares of MediaTek closed 10% higher on Tuesday after the Taiwanese chip firm announced a partnership with Nvidia, bolstering its push into the data center market.

Nvidia invested $3.5 billion in convertible bonds issued by MediaTek as part of the deal, the companies said on Monday, adding fuel to a near 200% rally in the Taiwanese firm's shares this year.

MediaTek is the world's biggest smartphone chip company by market share, according to Counterpoint Research, and the main rival to U.S. giant Qualcomm. But MediaTek has recently looked to diversify by designing custom chips for data centres.

Hyperscalers and other tech companies are increasingly building custom chips to run AI workloads. MediaTek is emerging as a player that can build these, posing a potential challenge to Broadcom, a market leader.

MediaTek shares year-to-date.

The partnership will see MediaTek offer Nvidia's NVLink Fusion platform for customers developing custom AI chips. That means the custom semiconductors that MediaTek builds can be integrated with Nvidia's AI infrastructure and systems.

NVLink Fusion is part of Nvidia's strategy to stay central to AI infrastructure even as companies move toward using their own chips to run certain AI processes.

The two companies will also work together on "local AI computing," which means chips designed for PCs as well as systems for cars.

In June, MediaTek said its custom AI chip business would bring in $2 billion of revenue this year with a total addressable market of up to $80 billion by 2027.

CNBC has reached out to MediaTek to ask if the Nvidia deal has changed that guidance.

In a press release issued on Monday, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang called MediaTek "one of the world's great semiconductor companies."

Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM | QCOM Price Prediction) has staged the standout comeback in chips this past month, and the rally deserves a closer look before anyone acts on it.

The global data center build-out is well on its way. According to consensus estimates, tech companies are expected to deploy roughly $800 billion in capital this year to scale AI infrastructure. Investment is only expected to grow from here. Research from McKinsey & Co. projects AI capex to reach $7 trillion globally by 2030. The consulting group calls it "one of the largest infrastructure build-outs in modern history."

Other analysts are more cautious. Research from AllianceBernstein observes:

The use cases of AI are slowly emerging, albeit it's frankly too early to really lay out a high confidence path. However, memories of the tech bubble frequently emerge in conversations with clients, as do analogies with the railway-building frenzy of the nineteenth century and other episodes where the adoption and economic benefits of a new technology took much longer than investors first hoped, and where the ultimate beneficiaries were not clear.

Unlike in previous capex waves, however, AI companies are largely backing up the fervor with real-world revenue growth. The industry is also spearheaded by companies with massive valuations and largely profitable core businesses, allowing them to raise capital and invest aggressively over time. This reality has Goldman Sachs predicting that high capex forecasts could understate the scale of investment in 2026.

Image source: Getty Images.

Instead of consensus estimates calling for $800 billion in AI capex this year, Goldman Sachs thinks the true number will be closer to $1 trillion. Due to reporting differences, the bank's analysts think U.S. spending might be lower than expected. In contrast, global spending and spending by private AI companies should come in more than $200 billion over expectations. That's because, according to Goldman Sachs, most market estimates "do not include investment in AI by private companies or by companies outside the U.S. -- including firms in Asia."

How should investors be betting on higher-than-expected AI capex outside the U.S.? There are two obvious strategies.

1. Bet on the global AI leader When it comes to AI investing, it's hard to ignore Nvidia (NVDA -4.58%), regardless of the investment framework. Nvidia is not only the biggest AI company in the world, but it's also the biggest company in the world, period. Its graphics processing units (GPUs) are widely regarded as the best on the market. While hardware leaders come and go over time, Nvidia's strong investments in software -- particularly its focus on the CUDA developer platform -- make the company's products "stickier" than most traditional hardware businesses. Plus, Nvidia's access to capital is a serious advantage at a time when customers are demanding GPU production to scale as quickly as possible.

U.S. companies are Nvidia's largest customers, and roughly 10% of its revenue comes from Taiwan. Chinese companies used to be significant sources of revenue, but that's all but vanished -- it's clear that Nvidia is a U.S.-centric business.

Premium Feature

Moneyball Superscore

94/100

Today's Change

(

-4.58

%) $

-10.43

Current Price

$

217.55

Then why is the company attractive, given Goldman Sachs' estimates? Because Nvidia still has the industry's leading hardware, and it's investing heavily in international growth. Last year, it announced more than 40 international partnerships, up from just 15 the year before. Nvidia is already on pace to exceed those figures in 2026.

According to one industry analyst, Nvidia's "growth story used to be American hyperscalers. Since 2025, their geographical mix has turned international."

2. Invest in AI stocks exposed to Asia Investors can also opt to invest in AI stocks already exposed to Asia. Qualcomm (QCOM -0.36%), for example, is generating nearly half of its 2025 revenues from China. More than one-quarter of sales came from South Korea and other foreign countries.

Qualcomm is primarily focused on producing high-end mobile chipsets for smartphones. As AI adoption moves toward edge devices, the company has a direct opportunity to benefit. The company is also moving more aggressively into data center components. Qualcomm expects at least $15 billion in data center revenue by 2029.

To be sure, Qualcomm isn't nearly as exposed to AI as Nvidia -- at least for now --, but that picture is quickly changing. Trading at just 19 times earnings, Qualcomm looks like a much cheaper way to invest in the AI economy, though geopolitical risks and a stagnating core business complicate the investment thesis.

Key Takeaways QCOM powers VENTUNO Q with up to 40 dense TOPS of AI performance and 16GB LPDDR5 memory.The platform supports on-device LLMs, computer vision, speech recognition and generative AI.Qualcomm gains commercial edge AI exposure through Arduino partners SECO and Toradex. Qualcomm Incorporated (QCOM - Free Report) is strengthening its footprint in the rapidly growing edge artificial intelligence (AI) market through the Arduino VENTUNO Q, a new development platform powered by its Dragonwing IQ-8275 processor. The platform brings the company's AI computing capabilities to physical-world applications, enabling machines to process data and respond in real time.

Qualcomm’s Dragonwing IQ-8275 powers the VENTUNO Q with up to 40 dense TOPS of AI performance, along with 16GB of LPDDR5 memory, 64GB of eMMC storage and expandable M.2 NVMe storage. Its dual-brain architecture combines the AI processor with an STM32H5 microcontroller, enabling high-performance AI workloads alongside deterministic control of motors, General-Purpose Input/Output, Pulse-Width Modulation and Controller Area Network Flexible Data-Rate.

The company is expanding its edge AI capabilities through the platform, enabling on-device applications such as large language models, computer vision, speech recognition and generative AI. It targets growing markets including robotics, industrial automation, predictive maintenance and smart cities, while delivering faster AI responses with less reliance on cloud computing.

Qualcomm is gaining exposure to commercial edge AI through Arduino’s Works with Arduino program, with companies such as SECO and Toradex expected to offer production-grade System-on-Module solutions based on the Dragonwing IQ8 architecture. This could create additional opportunities for the company in smart infrastructure, real-time AI processing and other intelligent edge applications.

How Are Competitors Advancing in the Edge AI?Qualcomm competes with NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA - Free Report) and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD - Free Report) . NVIDIA is advancing edge AI through its Jetson platform, which brings AI processing to robots, autonomous machines and other devices. The company’s Cosmos 3 Edge supports on-device vision reasoning for physical AI applications. NVIDIA introduced the Jetson Orin Nano 2, offering up to 78 TOPS of AI performance for real-time edge applications.

AMD introduced the Ryzen AI Embedded X100 Series, designed to bring CPU, GPU and NPU acceleration together for demanding edge AI workloads. The processors target physical AI applications such as robotics, industrial systems and intelligent embedded devices. AMD also unveiled its Kria AI SOMs and Robotics Developer Platform, broadening its portfolio for edge and physical AI applications.

QCOM’s Price Performance, Valuation and EstimatesQualcomm shares have gained 0.5% over the past year compared with the industry’s growth of 45.2%.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

Going by the price/earnings ratio, the company's shares currently trade at 15.88 forward earnings, higher than 13.48 for the industry.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

Earnings estimates for fiscal 2026 have declined 1.9% to $10.54 over the past 60 days, while those for fiscal 2027 have decreased 7.4% to $10.07.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

Qualcomm currently has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

QUALCOMM Incorporated (QCOM) Presents at Deutsche Bank 2026 Technology Conference Transcript

Vietnamese leaders have urged U.S. chip designer Qualcomm (QCOM.O) and South Korea's Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) to expand their investment in artificial intelligence, semiconductors ​and research and development as the country seeks to become ‌a regional innovation hub.

At a meeting in Hanoi on Thursday, Communist Party General Secretary and President To Lam asked Qualcomm Chief Executive Cristiano Amon to increase its ​investment in areas including AI, semiconductors, robotics, 5G/6G, data centres ​and next-generation connectivity technologies, according to a government statement.

Lam said ⁠Vietnam was shifting toward a growth model driven by science, technology, ​innovation, digital transformation and artificial intelligence, and welcomed further investment.

Amon was quoted ​as saying Qualcomm wanted to develop its presence in Vietnam into the company's third-largest artificial intelligence research and development hub globally.

Qualcomm already operates an R&D centre in Hanoi ​and has collaborated with Vietnamese companies including Viettel and VinSmart, the ​statement said.

Also on Thursday, Prime Minister Le Minh Hung told Samsung Electronics CEO Roh ‌Tae-moon ⁠that Vietnam wanted Samsung to remain a key partner in strengthening the country's technological capabilities, developing its industrial base and integrating more deeply into global value chains, according to another government statement.

Hung praised Samsung's contribution to ​Vietnam's industrial development ​and exports, saying ⁠the country was one of the company's most important manufacturing hubs globally.

Total exports of Samsung's mobile phone manufacturing ​entities in Vietnam had reached $500 billion by the end ​of ⁠June since production began 17 years ago, according to the statement.

Samsung has so far invested $24 billion in Vietnam, the government statement said.

Roh was quoted as ⁠saying ​that Samsung planned more investment and training in ​Vietnam, and was working with the government to enable local firms to participate more deeply ​in its global supply chain.

This post may contain links from our sponsors and affiliates, and Flywheel Publishing may receive compensation for actions taken through them.

Wall Street prices Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM | QCOM Price Prediction) like a handset company facing a slow Apple exit. Our model sees a diversified semiconductor platform with a credible path into the data center, priced at a discount to its earnings power.

The 24/7 Wall St. price target for Qualcomm is $226.05 over the next 12 months, implying 41.14% upside from the current $160.61 quote. Our recommendation is buy, with a high confidence level of 90%.

24/7 Wall St. Price Target Summary Metric Value Current Price $160.61 24/7 Wall St. Price Target $226.05 Upside 41.14% Recommendation BUY Confidence Level 90% A Rough Stretch With a Sharper Story Underneath QCOM shares are down 2.46% over the past week, 7.35% over the past month, and 5.06% year to date, well off the $258.96 52-week high.

Fiscal Q3 revenue of $9.947 billion beat consensus by roughly 2.84%, but non-GAAP EPS of $2.21 narrowly missed expectations, ending a six-quarter beat streak. Handset revenue fell 20% year over year, while automotive rose 61% to $1.588 billion. That mix shift is the story the market is under-pricing.

Why Bulls See a Breakout Ahead The bull thesis centers on non-handset revenue. CEO Cristiano Amon said Qualcomm is targeting “total non-handset revenues growing to $40 billion by fiscal 2029, nearly double the target we shared in November 2024”, with growth accelerating from 24% in fiscal 2026 to greater than 60% in fiscal 2027.

Data center alone is projected to scale from $5 billion in fiscal 2027 to $15 billion in fiscal 2029, backed by two hyperscaler custom silicon wins already in wafer production with revenue starting the December quarter (the same data-center buildout we mapped across seven non-chipmaker suppliers in a free AI infrastructure report).

HBC Gen 1 has taped out, with a first solution launch targeted for mid-2027. Our bull case forecast points to $243.69, a 52.16% total return.

What Could Go Wrong Apple product revenue is expected to fall roughly 50% from September to December quarter, with fiscal 2027 share landing materially below the prior 20% assumption. Operating income fell 41.13% year over year in Q3 amid broad-based increases in wafer, packaging, and memory costs.

Management expects planned double-digit price increases to restore gross margin to the historical 48% to 50% range. The margin decline reflects heavy investment in the data center roadmap that our model rewards. Our bear case still lands at $191.05, a 19.29% gain from here.

How Qualcomm Compares to Broadcom and Marvell Broadcom (NASDAQ: AVGO) is the incumbent in hyperscaler custom silicon and sets the valuation ceiling. AVGO trades at a rich multiple relative to QCOM’s forward P/E of 16, framing how much re-rating room Qualcomm has if its two hyperscaler wins scale as guided.

Marvell Technology (NASDAQ: MRVL) competes head-on for custom ASIC and networking sockets at the same hyperscalers Qualcomm just landed. Marvell already carries an AI premium; Qualcomm trades near 18x trailing earnings with an EV/EBITDA of 13. On the same data center opportunity, Qualcomm looks meaningfully cheaper, making our 24/7 Wall St. price target of $226.05 reasonable rather than aggressive.

Qualcomm Price Prediction 2026-2030 Buy, with high confidence. The 24/7 Wall St. price target of $226.05 rests on a forward multiple that is not demanding, a genuine data center inflection in fiscal 2027, and record automotive momentum.

The setup strengthens if fiscal Q4 confirms pricing-driven margin recovery and the December-quarter custom silicon ramp lands on schedule. The thesis weakens if handset weakness deepens beyond the guided low-teens fiscal-year decline or if HBC customer engagements slip past mid-2027.

Year 24/7 Wall St. Price Target 2026 $180.11 2027 $226.05 2028 $282.29 2029 $345.81 2030 $382.57 These projections assume Qualcomm executes on the $40 billion non-handset revenue target. Significant upside or downside could come from the pace of hyperscaler custom silicon ramps and the trajectory of memory and wafer input costs.

Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.

Barrow Hanley Mewhinney & Strauss LLC lessened its position in shares of Qualcomm Incorporated (NASDAQ:QCOM – Free Report) by 71.5% in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 1,064,560 shares of the wireless technology company’s stock after selling 2,671,679 shares during the quarter. Barrow Hanley Mewhinney & Strauss LLC owned 0.10% of Qualcomm worth $196,720,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. JFS Wealth Advisors LLC increased its position in shares of Qualcomm by 3.4% during the 2nd quarter. JFS Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 1,595 shares of the wireless technology company’s stock valued at $295,000 after purchasing an additional 53 shares during the last quarter. Wall Street Financial Group Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Qualcomm by 1.9% in the second quarter. Wall Street Financial Group Inc. now owns 3,050 shares of the wireless technology company’s stock worth $564,000 after buying an additional 57 shares during the last quarter. Sunbeam Capital Management LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Qualcomm by 3.7% in the second quarter. Sunbeam Capital Management LLC now owns 1,637 shares of the wireless technology company’s stock worth $303,000 after buying an additional 58 shares during the last quarter. Basepoint Wealth LLC grew its position in Qualcomm by 1.8% during the first quarter. Basepoint Wealth LLC now owns 3,333 shares of the wireless technology company’s stock valued at $429,000 after buying an additional 59 shares during the period. Finally, Five Oceans Advisors increased its holdings in Qualcomm by 3.3% during the second quarter. Five Oceans Advisors now owns 1,827 shares of the wireless technology company’s stock valued at $338,000 after buying an additional 59 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 74.35% of the company’s stock.

Qualcomm Price Performance Shares of QCOM stock opened at $160.75 on Monday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.46, a current ratio of 2.02 and a quick ratio of 1.28. Qualcomm Incorporated has a one year low of $121.99 and a one year high of $259.92. The company’s fifty day moving average price is $178.26 and its 200-day moving average price is $168.12. The company has a market capitalization of $168.82 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.61, a PEG ratio of 14.84 and a beta of 1.65.

Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM – Get Free Report) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, July 29th. The wireless technology company reported $2.21 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $2.23 by ($0.02). Qualcomm had a return on equity of 38.36% and a net margin of 21.01%.The firm had revenue of $9.95 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $9.69 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $2.77 EPS. The company’s quarterly revenue was down 4.0% on a year-over-year basis. Qualcomm has set its Q4 2026 guidance at 2.050-2.250 EPS. Sell-side analysts expect that Qualcomm Incorporated will post 7.74 EPS for the current fiscal year. Qualcomm Announces Dividend The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, September 24th. Investors of record on Thursday, September 3rd will be given a dividend of $0.92 per share. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, September 3rd. This represents a $3.68 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.3%. Qualcomm’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 42.59%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades QCOM has been the topic of several recent research reports. Citigroup decreased their price target on shares of Qualcomm from $198.00 to $175.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, July 29th. Rosenblatt Securities cut their price objective on shares of Qualcomm from $265.00 to $235.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, July 30th. Oppenheimer set a $200.00 target price on Qualcomm in a report on Monday, July 27th. Royal Bank Of Canada lowered their target price on Qualcomm from $250.00 to $160.00 and set a “sector perform” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, July 30th. Finally, Argus set a $220.00 price target on Qualcomm in a research report on Friday, May 1st. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, fourteen have given a Buy rating, twenty have given a Hold rating and two have issued a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, Qualcomm presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $203.63.

Read Our Latest Report on QCOM

Insider Buying and Selling In related news, EVP Akash J. Palkhiwala sold 2,500 shares of Qualcomm stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, August 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $163.26, for a total transaction of $408,150.00. Following the sale, the executive vice president owned 20,684 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,376,869.84. This trade represents a 10.78% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CAO Patricia Y. Grech sold 625 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, August 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $162.85, for a total value of $101,781.25. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer directly owned 208 shares in the company, valued at approximately $33,872.80. This represents a 75.03% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Over the last 90 days, insiders sold 11,325 shares of company stock worth $1,925,859. 0.05% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Qualcomm Company Profile (Free Report)

Qualcomm Incorporated is a global semiconductor and telecommunications equipment company headquartered in San Diego, California. Founded in 1985, the company is known for its development of wireless technologies and for playing a central role in the evolution of digital cellular standards, including CDMA and subsequent generations of mobile standards. Qualcomm’s business combines the design and sale of semiconductor products with a patent licensing program for wireless technologies and related intellectual property.

The company’s product portfolio includes system-on-chip (SoC) platforms marketed under the Snapdragon brand, cellular modem and RF front-end components, connectivity solutions for Wi‑Fi and Bluetooth, and processors and platforms aimed at automotive, IoT, networking and edge-computing applications.

See Also Five stocks we like better than Qualcomm VIG, VYM, and VYMI: Which Vanguard Dividend ETF Is Right for You? 3 Closed-End Funds to Maximize Dividend Payments Rocket Lab’s Sell-Off Is Fading—Is It Finally Safe to Buy? $27 Billion in Buybacks: 3 Stocks Betting Their Strong Runs Aren’t Over

Receive News & Ratings for Qualcomm Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Qualcomm and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter.

49.32K Followers

Analyst’s Disclosure: I/we have a beneficial long position in the shares of NVDA, AAPL either through stock ownership, options, or other derivatives. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

Seeking Alpha's Disclosure: Past performance is no guarantee of future results. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. Any views or opinions expressed above may not reflect those of Seeking Alpha as a whole. Seeking Alpha is not a licensed securities dealer, broker or US investment adviser or investment bank. Our analysts are third party authors that include both professional investors and individual investors who may not be licensed or certified by any institute or regulatory body.

Advisors Capital Management LLC decreased its stake in Qualcomm Incorporated (NASDAQ:QCOM – Free Report) by 26.7% during the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 337,481 shares of the wireless technology company’s stock after selling 123,085 shares during the quarter. Advisors Capital Management LLC’s holdings in Qualcomm were worth $62,363,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Several other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the stock. Your Advocates Ltd. LLP bought a new position in Qualcomm during the 1st quarter worth approximately $26,000. Torren Management LLC acquired a new position in Qualcomm during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $29,000. Caitong International Asset Management Co. Ltd increased its stake in Qualcomm by 17,000.0% in the fourth quarter. Caitong International Asset Management Co. Ltd now owns 171 shares of the wireless technology company’s stock valued at $29,000 after purchasing an additional 170 shares in the last quarter. Birchwood Financial Partners Inc. bought a new stake in Qualcomm in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $31,000. Finally, Commonwealth Retirement Investments LLC acquired a new stake in Qualcomm in the fourth quarter worth $32,000. 74.35% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Qualcomm Stock Up 0.0% Shares of Qualcomm stock opened at $160.75 on Friday. The business’s 50 day simple moving average is $178.26 and its 200 day simple moving average is $168.01. Qualcomm Incorporated has a 52-week low of $121.99 and a 52-week high of $259.92. The firm has a market cap of $168.82 billion, a PE ratio of 18.61, a P/E/G ratio of 14.84 and a beta of 1.65. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.46, a quick ratio of 1.28 and a current ratio of 2.02.

Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM – Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, July 29th. The wireless technology company reported $2.21 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $2.23 by ($0.02). Qualcomm had a net margin of 21.01% and a return on equity of 38.36%. The firm had revenue of $9.95 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $9.69 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $2.77 EPS. The company’s revenue was down 4.0% on a year-over-year basis. Qualcomm has set its Q4 2026 guidance at 2.050-2.250 EPS. On average, analysts predict that Qualcomm Incorporated will post 7.74 earnings per share for the current fiscal year. Qualcomm Dividend Announcement The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, September 24th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, September 3rd will be given a $0.92 dividend. This represents a $3.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.3%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, September 3rd. Qualcomm’s payout ratio is currently 42.59%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades A number of equities analysts have recently weighed in on QCOM shares. Cantor Fitzgerald reduced their price target on shares of Qualcomm from $200.00 to $165.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, July 27th. Bank of America upped their price objective on shares of Qualcomm from $165.00 to $195.00 and gave the company an “underperform” rating in a research report on Tuesday, June 23rd. Lake Street Capital downgraded Qualcomm to a “hold” rating in a research note on Thursday, June 25th. Roth Capital started coverage on Qualcomm in a report on Friday, May 8th. They set a “buy” rating on the stock. Finally, Susquehanna decreased their target price on Qualcomm from $190.00 to $160.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, July 30th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, fourteen have issued a Buy rating, twenty have assigned a Hold rating and two have assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $203.63.

View Our Latest Research Report on Qualcomm

Insider Buying and Selling In other Qualcomm news, CAO Patricia Y. Grech sold 625 shares of Qualcomm stock in a transaction on Friday, August 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $162.85, for a total value of $101,781.25. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer directly owned 208 shares in the company, valued at approximately $33,872.80. The trade was a 75.03% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, EVP Heather S. Ace sold 3,200 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, August 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $147.04, for a total transaction of $470,528.00. Following the sale, the executive vice president directly owned 36,535 shares in the company, valued at $5,372,106.40. This trade represents a 8.05% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Over the last 90 days, insiders sold 11,325 shares of company stock worth $1,925,859. 0.05% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Qualcomm Company Profile (Free Report)

Qualcomm Incorporated is a global semiconductor and telecommunications equipment company headquartered in San Diego, California. Founded in 1985, the company is known for its development of wireless technologies and for playing a central role in the evolution of digital cellular standards, including CDMA and subsequent generations of mobile standards. Qualcomm’s business combines the design and sale of semiconductor products with a patent licensing program for wireless technologies and related intellectual property.

The company’s product portfolio includes system-on-chip (SoC) platforms marketed under the Snapdragon brand, cellular modem and RF front-end components, connectivity solutions for Wi‑Fi and Bluetooth, and processors and platforms aimed at automotive, IoT, networking and edge-computing applications.

Further Reading Five stocks we like better than Qualcomm 2 Biotech Stocks Shaping Up for Major Breakouts 3 Stocks Came Roaring Back—Now They’re Flashing Warning Signs 3 Beaten-Down Stocks That Haven’t Gotten the Message About the S&P 500’s Record Run Darden Restaurants Just Hit a 52-Week High–Is the Olive Garden Comeback Story Legit? Want to see what other hedge funds are holding QCOM? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Qualcomm Incorporated (NASDAQ:QCOM – Free Report).

Receive News & Ratings for Qualcomm Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Qualcomm and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter.

BlackRock Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Qualcomm Incorporated (NASDAQ:QCOM – Free Report) in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor acquired 95,151,875 shares of the wireless technology company’s stock, valued at approximately $17,583,115,000. BlackRock Inc. owned about 9.06% of Qualcomm as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Other large investors have also modified their holdings of the company. Occidental Asset Management LLC acquired a new position in shares of Qualcomm in the 2nd quarter worth $7,251,000. Dunhill Financial LLC acquired a new stake in Qualcomm during the 2nd quarter worth about $842,000. Pallas Capital Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in Qualcomm during the 2nd quarter worth about $810,000. Performance Wealth Partners LLC purchased a new stake in Qualcomm during the second quarter valued at about $640,000. Finally, Deutsche Bank AG purchased a new stake in Qualcomm during the second quarter valued at about $1,178,349,000. 74.35% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Insiders Place Their Bets In other news, EVP Heather S. Ace sold 3,200 shares of Qualcomm stock in a transaction dated Monday, August 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $147.04, for a total transaction of $470,528.00. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president directly owned 36,535 shares in the company, valued at $5,372,106.40. The trade was a 8.05% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, EVP Akash J. Palkhiwala sold 2,500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, August 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $163.26, for a total value of $408,150.00. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president directly owned 20,684 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,376,869.84. The trade was a 10.78% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. In the last three months, insiders have sold 10,700 shares of company stock valued at $1,824,078. Insiders own 0.05% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades Several research firms have recently weighed in on QCOM. Argus set a $220.00 target price on shares of Qualcomm in a research report on Friday, May 1st. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price objective on shares of Qualcomm from $160.00 to $265.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, June 5th. Tigress Financial lifted their price objective on shares of Qualcomm from $270.00 to $280.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, May 8th. Royal Bank Of Canada cut their target price on shares of Qualcomm from $250.00 to $160.00 and set a “sector perform” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, July 30th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group set a $160.00 target price on Qualcomm in a research report on Thursday, July 30th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, fourteen have assigned a Buy rating, twenty have given a Hold rating and two have issued a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $203.63. Get Our Latest Analysis on Qualcomm

Qualcomm Stock Down 0.7% Qualcomm stock opened at $160.74 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $168.81 billion, a PE ratio of 18.60, a P/E/G ratio of 14.95 and a beta of 1.65. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.46, a quick ratio of 1.28 and a current ratio of 2.02. The firm’s 50 day moving average price is $179.28 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $168.07. Qualcomm Incorporated has a twelve month low of $121.99 and a twelve month high of $259.92.

Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM – Get Free Report) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, July 29th. The wireless technology company reported $2.21 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.23 by ($0.02). Qualcomm had a net margin of 21.01% and a return on equity of 38.36%. The company had revenue of $9.95 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $9.69 billion. During the same period last year, the business earned $2.77 EPS. The company’s quarterly revenue was down 4.0% on a year-over-year basis. Qualcomm has set its Q4 2026 guidance at 2.050-2.250 EPS. On average, research analysts predict that Qualcomm Incorporated will post 7.74 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Qualcomm Announces Dividend The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, September 24th. Investors of record on Thursday, September 3rd will be given a dividend of $0.92 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, September 3rd. This represents a $3.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.3%. Qualcomm’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 42.59%.

About Qualcomm (Free Report)

Qualcomm Incorporated is a global semiconductor and telecommunications equipment company headquartered in San Diego, California. Founded in 1985, the company is known for its development of wireless technologies and for playing a central role in the evolution of digital cellular standards, including CDMA and subsequent generations of mobile standards. Qualcomm’s business combines the design and sale of semiconductor products with a patent licensing program for wireless technologies and related intellectual property.

The company’s product portfolio includes system-on-chip (SoC) platforms marketed under the Snapdragon brand, cellular modem and RF front-end components, connectivity solutions for Wi‑Fi and Bluetooth, and processors and platforms aimed at automotive, IoT, networking and edge-computing applications.

Featured Articles Five stocks we like better than Qualcomm 3 Energy Stocks Raising Dividends as the Sector Surges 5 Reasons the S&P 500 Could Keep Rallying Through Year-End Walmart’s Post-Earnings Drop Could Be a Buying Opportunity The Trade Desk’s Earnings Miss Raises a Bigger Question About Its AI Future Want to see what other hedge funds are holding QCOM? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Qualcomm Incorporated (NASDAQ:QCOM – Free Report).

Receive News & Ratings for Qualcomm Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Qualcomm and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter.

15.36K Followers

Analyst’s Disclosure: I/we have no stock, option or similar derivative position in any of the companies mentioned, but may initiate a beneficial Long position through a purchase of the stock, or the purchase of call options or similar derivatives in QCOM over the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

Seeking Alpha's Disclosure: Past performance is no guarantee of future results. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. Any views or opinions expressed above may not reflect those of Seeking Alpha as a whole. Seeking Alpha is not a licensed securities dealer, broker or US investment adviser or investment bank. Our analysts are third party authors that include both professional investors and individual investors who may not be licensed or certified by any institute or regulatory body.

Key Takeaways Qualcomm expects non-handset revenue growth to top 60% in fiscal 2027 as diversification accelerates.QCOM expects its modem share in the upcoming iPhone launch to be materially below its prior 20% assumption.Qualcomm guides for a 23%-25% fiscal Q4 segment margin as higher costs and lower revenues weigh on profit. Qualcomm Incorporated (QCOM - Free Report) is moving deeper into automotive, Internet of Things and data center computing as its handset business weakens. That creates a clearer diversification story, but it also raises the bar for execution.

The investment question is whether faster non-handset growth can offset Apple exposure, softer mobile economics and near-term margin pressure quickly enough to support a stronger buy case.

Qualcomm's Diversification Case Is StrengtheningCombined Qualcomm CDMA Technologies automotive and Internet of Things revenues grew 28% year over year in the fiscal third quarter of 2026. Management expects non-handset revenue growth to accelerate from 24% in fiscal 2026 to more than 60% in fiscal 2027.

Non-handsets are expected to represent more than half of Qualcomm CDMA Technologies revenues in fiscal 2027. Stellantis N.V. (STLA - Free Report) expanded its multi-year technology collaboration with Qualcomm in May 2026 across cockpit, connectivity and driver-assistance systems, adding another example of how vehicle programs can support the shift beyond smartphones.

QCOM Faces a Steep Apple and Handset ResetQualcomm expects its modem share in the upcoming iPhone launch to be materially below its prior 20% assumption. Apple product revenues are expected to fall about 50% sequentially from the September to December 2026 quarters, while fiscal 2027 Apple product revenues are expected to come in below the prior outlook of slightly more than $2 billion.

Apple Inc. (AAPL - Free Report) has introduced the C1, its first internally designed cellular modem, in the iPhone 16e. Qualcomm expects fiscal 2027 non-handset growth to replace fiscal 2026 Apple product revenues, but that substitution depends on newer businesses scaling as planned.

Qualcomm's New Growth Comes With Margin CostsQualcomm CDMA Technologies' earnings-before-taxes margin fell to 26% in the fiscal third quarter from 30% a year earlier. Qualcomm guides for a 23%-25% margin in the fiscal fourth quarter as higher product costs and lower revenues weigh on profitability.

Investment is also rising ahead of the data center ramp. Research and development spending increased $381 million to $2.61 billion in the latest quarter, while early custom silicon revenues are expected to dilute the segment's gross margin by 1.5-2 percentage points.

QCOM Trades at a Discount to Its Own HistoryQCOM trades at 4.0X trailing 12-month enterprise value-to-sales, below its five-year median of 4.1X. Its 15.9X forward 12-month price-to-earnings multiple is also below the five-year median of 16.6X.

The discount offers some valuation support, but it is not unusually wide. The Zacks Consensus Estimate points to higher revenues in fiscal 2027 than in fiscal 2026, while earnings per share are expected to decline, leaving the stock dependent on diversification delivering enough growth to offset margin and handset pressure.

Qualcomm's Scores Keep the Case BalancedThe buy case is improving as automotive, Internet of Things and data center opportunities become more meaningful. Handset weakness, Apple insourcing and near-term margin dilution still keep the risk-reward balance from looking decisively favorable.

QCOM currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Its Value Score of C sits in the middle of the A-to-F scale, while its Growth Score of D, Momentum Score of F and VGM Score of F are weaker. Those readings do not provide the favorable A or B Style Score confirmation typically sought alongside top-ranked stocks.

You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.