Qualcomm posts $12.3b revenue in Q1 2026

Qualcomm reported its first-quarter fiscal 2026 results, with record revenues of US$12.25 billion, up 5% from the previous year.

The company’s GAAP net income was US$3 billion, and non-GAAP EPS reached 3.5.

Revenue growth was driven mainly by its QCT segment, which includes handset, automotive, and IoT products, with automotive revenues rising 15%.

Qualcomm returned US$3.6 billion to shareholders through dividends and stock repurchases.

The company’s outlook for Q2 fiscal 2026 projects revenues between US$10.2 billion and US$11 billion, with non-GAAP EPS estimated at 2.45 to 2.6.

Qualcomm’s total assets at the end of the quarter stood at US$53 billion, with cash and marketable securities totaling over US$11 billion.

The company noted ongoing industry-wide memory supply constraints may impact demand from handset customers in the upcoming quarter.

🔗 Source: Qualcomm

🧠 Food for thought

Implications, context, and why it matters.

Qualcomm’s growth supports a plan to rely less on phones, with a target of $22 billion in combined automotive and IoT revenue by 2029 1.
Automotive revenue rose 15%, helped by its car platforms including Snapdragon Digital Chassis, a set of in-car computing and connectivity technologies for automakers 1.
In PCs, Snapdragon X chips add a neural processing unit (NPU) to run on-device AI features such as Microsoft’s Copilot+ PCs 2.
For data centers, Qualcomm announced in June 2025 a plan to buy Alphawave Semi for about $2.4 billion to gain high-speed wired connectivity intellectual property (IP), reusable chip design technology for AI infrastructure 3.

Record revenue has not lifted the stock above peers like Broadcom over the past year, according to Zacks, an investment research firm 2.
Many Wall Street analysts still tie Qualcomm’s outlook to cyclical smartphone demand, even as the company pushes automotive and IoT 4.
The U.S.-China trade dispute adds risk since Qualcomm has a large footprint in China, and Zacks says it is cutting jobs and pulling back there as tariffs rise 2.
Rivals are closing in across newer areas including data center and AI, while lower-cost mobile chipset competitors could squeeze margins 2.