Qualcomm, one of the big players in the chipset manufacturing industry, has shared its financial results for the first quarter of fiscal year 2024. The company recorded a total revenue of $9.9 billion, showcasing a 5% increase in comparison to the $9.4 billion reported in the first quarter of 2023.
Cristiano Amon, the President and CEO of Qualcomm, expressed satisfaction with the robust quarterly performance, stating:
We are extremely pleased to report strong quarterly results, with revenues and EPS exceeding the high end of our guidance.
The report highlights that the company achieved $6.6 billion in sales of handset chips, marking a 16% increase from the previous year’s $5.7 billion. The Snapdragon 8 has emerged as a leading AI platform driving flagship smartphones, with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 setting a new standard for on-device Gen AI experiences. It powers flagship Android devices launched and set to launch this year.
Samsung’s recent debut of the Galaxy S24 series, packing the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 in the US and other markets, is a good example of the chipset’s capabilities, as the series is full of AI-powered features and tools. Given this, it is hardly surprising that Qualcomm’s Snapdragon partnership with Samsung will persist, marked by an extended multiyear agreement concerning Snapdragon platforms for flagship Galaxy smartphone releases.
In more big news from the Q1 earnings report, Qualcomm and Apple shook hands on extending the licensing deal inked in 2019 for an extra two years, now running through 2027. It seems this move aligns with the buzz that Apple’s homegrown 5G modem tech is not quite ready for the spotlight.
Apple has been on a mission to craft its own 5G modems to swap out Qualcomm’s for quite some time. Back in 2019, Apple scooped up Intel’s modem division in a hefty $1 billion deal. This acquisition landed Apple a stash of over 17,000 patents and roped in more than 2,200 Intel employees. Despite these strides, the Cupertino crew hasn’t quite cracked the code just yet.
Last year, reports indicated that the journey to develop Apple’s 5G modems had been quite frustrating for the company’s engineers and executives. Those in the know revealed that the prototypes failed to match Qualcomm’s modems in terms of both performance and efficiency.
Apple hoped to release devices with its own 5G modems this year. However, the recent renewals of the agreement with Qualcomm indicate that the tech giant is still far from reaching this goal.
