Qualcomm Smashes Q3 Expectations with $10.37B Revenue – Wall Street Left Playing Catch-Up

Another quarter, another beat—Qualcomm just flexed its 5G dominance with a $10.37 billion revenue haul.

Why it matters: The chipmaker's wireless empire keeps printing money while analysts scramble to update their spreadsheets.

Between the lines: Those 'conservative' estimates? Crushed like a Snapdragon-powered competitor. Maybe next time, Wall Street will factor in actual demand instead of spreadsheet hallucinations.

Bottom line: Qualcomm's silicon reigns supreme—and until the Street stops lowballing tech's cash machines, these earnings surprises will keep coming. (Cue the institutional investors pretending they 'saw it all along.')

Apple is taking its business in-house

Apple has up to now been a key client of Qualcomm’s. However, that has changed because the gadget company has decided to pivot to its own in-house modem chips, leaving Qualcomm to supply only 20% of Apple’s modem chips by 2026.

Even though Apple is taking a step back from the partnership, Qualcomm has reported that its chip segment has seen sales increase.

However,  William McGonigle, analyst at Third Bridge, has said the increase can mostly be attributed to non-Apple customers and is largely driven by ASP (average selling price) uplift from flagship Android launches rather than broad-based volume recovery.

Cryptopolitan reported earlier that Qualcomm has continued to warn that Apple’s pivot to using its own modem chips in its devices will affect its chip segment revenue. Even though Apple is not ready to make a full pivot, it has already started the process.

The iPhone 16e, which launched earlier this year, was the first Apple smartphone to house a modem developed in-house and future devices are expected to be the same.

Losing all the revenue that came from supplying Apple is a bummer for Qualcomm, but the company’s CEO Cristiano Amon is unbothered. He mentioned thathe’s already looking forward to an expansion of its deal to supply chip for augmented-reality glasses for brands like Meta.

“We have all the designs that matter right now – the number of designs like the Meta glasses is now up to 19, and that continues to accelerate,” Amon told Reuters.

Taiwan’s Mediatek is becoming a bigger rival to Qualcomm

According to reports, Taiwan’s MediaTek surpassed Qualcomm this year to become the global leader in smartphone chipset market share, thanks to its dominance in affordable and mid-range segments as well as its strong growth in major markets like India.

Last month, the MediaTek Dimensity 8450 was officially launched with the ultimate aim of increasing MediaTek’s share in India’s premium smartphone market.

The new chipset was reportedly designed as a direct competitor of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8s Gen 4, and boasts an All Big Core design, advanced AI capabilities with MediaTek’s Agentic AI Engine, and enhanced gaming performance, including improved 4K video recording.

The Dimensity 8450 also comes complete with an 8-core CPU, Arm Mali-G720 MC7 GPU, and supports 4K60 HDR video capture, while the Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 includes a mix of performance and efficiency cores with an Adreno GPU.

The launch is proof that while MediaTek has a strong presence in the sub-Rs 30,000 smartphone segment, it has set ambitious sights on expanding its influence in the premium market which is traditionally dominated by Qualcomm with its strong Android partnerships.

While MediaTek’s volume leadership is commendable, it is yet to translate to revenue dominance, so as it stands, Qualcomm retains its premium market edge.

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