Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon speaks at the Computex Forum in Taipei, Taiwan, June 3, 2024.
Wang An | Reuters
Qualcomm It said on Tuesday it expects to generate an additional $22 billion in annual revenue by 2029 from entering new markets.
Qualcomm said at its investor day on Tuesday that about $4 billion of that would come from PC chips. The chipmaker just launched its PC processor earlier this year, when it released the Snapdragon X for Windows devices.
The latest forecast marks a major milestone for Qualcomm Chief Executive Cristiano Amon, who took over the company in 2021 and pledged to wean itself off smartphones. In fiscal year 2024, Qualcomm’s mobile phone business sales were US$24.86 billion, accounting for approximately 75% of the entire chip business.
Qualcomm also said on Tuesday that its automotive business revenue will grow about 175% to $8 billion by 2029, 80% of which is related to contracts that have already been signed.
“We have been on this trajectory and realized that the technology we have developed over the years can be very relevant to many different industries beyond mobile,” Amon said at the investor event.
Another $4 billion in revenue will come from industrial chips and $2 billion from headphone chips, a category Qualcomm calls XR. The roughly $4 billion forecast covers sales of other chips, such as wireless headphones and tablets.
Qualcomm shares are up 16% this year, lagging the Nasdaq, which is up 26%.
Qualcomm has grown rapidly over the past decade, with its modems and processors becoming an important part of high-end smartphones, especially those running Google Android. Qualcomm also sells modems and related parts to: apple For its iPhone.
But the company warned investors that Apple may choose to stop buying Qualcomm parts as early as 2027.
On November 28, 2023, at the first China International Supply Chain Expo (CISCE) in Beijing, China, a Li Auto L9 electric vehicle (EV) was displayed at the Qualcomm booth.
Florence | Reuters
Qualcomm’s strategy under Amon is to use technology developed for its mobile phone chips, such as modems, processors and artificial intelligence accelerators, in new markets such as cars, personal computers and virtual reality. The investor event is the first time the company has forecasted these new markets in years. Qualcomm said its total addressable market is as high as $900 billion.
“We developed our strategy in ’21, and we will not change our strategy,” Amon said.
Laptop and desktop chips currently dominate IntelThe company holds more than 70% of the market, according to Mercury Research. Intel reports that PC chip sales will reach $29 billion in 2023.
“The competitive landscape between Windows and Mac has changed,” Amon said, referring to Apple’s switch from Intel to its own processors in 2020. “We see this as an opportunity, especially when the ecosystem doesn’t have confidence in existing players to actually deliver solutions.”
Forecasts for XR headsets also hint at the growth potential of the VR market over the next five years. Qualcomm supplies chips to many top headphone manufacturers, including Yuan Its Quest and Ray-Bans products.
When it comes to artificial intelligence, Qualcomm calls itself an “edge AI” company, in contrast to cloud-based AI, which is typically powered by: NVIDIA processor. Company officials did not rule out launching data center products in an interview with CNBC.
Qualcomm said its mobile chips will be able to run advanced artificial intelligence that is today limited to large server farms, suggesting the company could benefit from a future boom in artificial intelligence as the technology becomes more efficient.
“What ran in the cloud last year can run on the device this year,” Durga Malladi, Qualcomm’s senior vice president of planning, said at the event.
