Qualcomm

Qualcomm's car chip sales hit a record of nearly 2 billion dollars this quarter, up 89 percent from a year ago. For the full year, car chips brought in 6 billion dollars, up 52 percent, as automakers fill dashboards with screens, voice assistants, and safety features. Car and smart device sales together grew 36 percent this quarter, and that growth has nothing to do with phones.

Qualcomm is aiming for 5 billion dollars in data center sales in fiscal 2027, from a business that barely existed a year ago. It just announced a long-term partnership with Amazon to build chips for AI data centers, and it expects sales outside of phones to grow more than 60 percent this coming year. It also renewed long-term patent deals with Apple, Huawei, and Transsion, which keeps its steady licensing income flowing.

Phone chip sales fell 26 percent this quarter to about 5.1 billion dollars, and phones are still Qualcomm's biggest business by far. That drop pulled total quarterly revenue down 8 percent to 10.3 billion dollars, and profit fell 28 percent once one-time items are left out. Apple making more of its own chips adds pressure that won't go away soon.

The whole chip industry is paying more for factory time, packaging, and memory. Qualcomm's chip business kept 24 cents of profit before taxes for every dollar of sales this quarter, down from 29 cents a year ago. The company is raising prices to make up for it, but says the full benefit won't show up until the second half of fiscal 2027.