The news may ease investors’ concerns regarding the health of the global chip market
Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM) stock enjoyed a substantial lift Thursday morning, the day after the chipmaker reported fiscal fourth-quarter 2024 revenue growth of 19% and a rosy near-term outlook.
At $10.24 billion, the computing firm comfortably beat Wall Street’s consensus estimates for quarterly revenue, its share price rising by as much as 10% in response.
The strong revenue figures also reflected an 18% year-on-year increase to $7.37 billion in Qualcomm’s chip business. This likely assuaged investors’ concerns about the state of the global smartphone chip market.
Qualcomm’s sales didn’t grow only in its chipmaking division. The company’s automotive business sales grew 86% to $899 million; IoT segment revenue increased 22% to $1.68 billion, and technology licensing business revenue improved 21% year over year to $1.52 billion.
And there was further good news for investors beyond sales and revenue. Notably, the company posted adjusted earnings of $2.69 per share, beating the analysts’ consensus estimate of $2.56 per share and demonstrating substantial growth over the year-earlier quarter’s result of $2.02 per share.
Qualcomm guides for robust current-quarter sales
Along with Qualcomm’s Street-beating fourth-quarter results, the company delighted investors with a rosy near-term outlook.
On an earnings call with analysts, Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon confidently declared: “We will continue to transform Qualcomm from a wireless communications company into a connected computing company for the age of AI.”
This transformation could produce positive current-quarter results. For the first quarter of fiscal 2025, Qualcomm expects to generate revenue of $10.5 billion to $11.3 billion, the midpoint of which is $10.9 billion.
Contrastingly, analysts estimated that Qualcomm would report current-quarter revenue of $10.59 billion. In other words, Qualcomm delivered a top-line beat-and-raise, signaling that both the chipmaker and the global chip market are in good shape.
