Qualcomm FY25 Q4 corresponds to calendar Jul/Aug/Sep 2025.
Qualcomm FY25 Q4 Earnings:
Revenue $11.27B, up 10% year over year and 9% sequentially.
GAAP gross margin 55.3%, down 1.1 percentage points year over year and 0.3 points sequentially.
GAAP net loss $3.12B, primarily due to a one-time tax charge (net income peak was FY22 Q3 at $3.7B).
Non-GAAP net income $3.26B, up 7% year over year and 7% sequentially (net income peak was FY25 Q2 at $3.8B).
Guiding FY26 Q1 revenue $11.8-12.6B, ~5% year over year at midpoint. Non-GAAP net income $2.75-2.96B, ~10% year-over-year decline at midpoint, the first year-over-year profit decline since FY23 Q4.
Paid $957M in dividends, repurchased $2.4B this quarter.
Top customer contributed 21% of revenue this fiscal year, second 20%, third 13%, implying Apple revenue share of at least 20%. China revenue share reached 46% this fiscal year, US only 24%, Korea 21%.
Business Segments:
Handset revenue $6.96B, up 14% year over year and 7% sequentially, 62% of revenue. Samsung agreement locks in ~75% share as a new baseline; any upside above that is incremental.
Management noted non-Apple QCT revenue grew at a 15% CAGR over the past five years, and 17% and 18% respectively in the past two years, driven by sustained premium Android flagship demand. No progress in licensing talks with Huawei.
Automotive revenue $1.05B, up 17% year over year and 7% sequentially, 20th consecutive quarter of double-digit year-over-year growth. 9% of revenue. Maintaining FY29 automotive revenue target of $8B.
IoT revenue $1.81B, up 7% year over year and 7% sequentially, 16% of revenue. Maintaining FY29 IoT revenue target of $4B. Platforms with X Elite/Plus target >150 designs by 2026. Completed acquisition of Arduino in industrial IoT, a leading open-source hardware/software company with a 30M+ global developer ecosystem. Maintaining FY29 IoT revenue target of $14B.
Guiding next quarter handset revenue up low-teens % year over year, driven by new Android Snapdragon products; Apple up sequentially. Automotive flat to slightly up sequentially. IoT down sequentially.
Last week Qualcomm suddenly announced AI200/AI250 rack-scale inference systems, formally entering data center AI. Targeting 2026-2027 volume production, more than a year ahead of prior guidance. First anchor customer is Middle East's HUMAIN, planning ~200 MW deployment starting 2026.
Beyond the anchor customer, order and ecosystem details remain limited; even specifications are vague. Management provided no further details this quarter, only emphasizing more updates in 2026. Data center revenue will become meaningful in FY27 (calendar Q4 2026), with potential for multi-billion dollar revenue within a few years.
Management believes Qualcomm holds a strategically significant asset: a highly competitive, high-efficiency CPU (Orion). Expect AlphaWave deal to close in calendar Q1 2026.
Overall, all of Qualcomm's businesses are currently facing or about to face growth bottlenecks, urgently needing AI as a new growth driver. Especially against a backdrop of geopolitical tension, Qualcomm's FY25 China revenue share of 46%, US only 24%, Korea 21%, creates latent risk that unsettles the market.
Qualcomm's long-standing valuation discount to the semiconductor industry reflects these concerns. The positive is that management recognizes the AI opportunity, making its AI roadmap updates in the first half of 2026 especially important.