Enter the Snapdragon: Qualcomm Sees 32% of Revenue From China

The Hanvon C18, left, and Lenovo K91 Smart TV on the right - both brand-new gadgets for 2012 which use Qualcomm's Snapdragon processor.

Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM), the America-based mobile chip maker, has said that China now accounts for 32 percent of its revenue, more than any other Asian nation. The figure comes from financial data for the fiscal year 2011, revealed by CEO Paul Jacobs.

Its revenue in the last fiscal year hit US$14.96 billion – up 36 percent on 2010’s total – as yet more people bought smartphones, many of which are powered by Qualcomm’s chips. These include the 1GHz Snapdragon that’s inside Samsung’s (005930:KS) Galaxy S, which was China’s most popular Android smartphone last year.

But that 32 percent stat for China actually comes down to local manufacturers, not regular consumers like you and I. Qualcomm disclosed that it has 80 Chinese partners making use of its technology, and it brought on board 20 new licensees in 2011. These include the likes of ZTE (HKG:0763; SHE:000063) and Huawei – both of whom saw huge growth in their smartphone shipments in 2011 – and numerous other phone makers in the country.

At the recent CES 2012 in Las Vegas, there was a wealth of China-brand gadgets powered by Qualcomm chips, such as the Hanvon C18 (an e-reader/tablet crossover) and the Lenovo (HKG:0992) K91 Smart TV (both pictured top). Notice that most of those gadgets run Android, Google’s mobile OS, so Qualcomm’s good fortunes seem to be tied to the rise of Android in Asia – in TVs and e-readers, as well as more conventional channels.

In addition, Paul Jacobs told the Chinese tech media that it’ll also be pushing its telecoms equipment, such as its Femtocell mobile base-stations, in the region.

[Source: Sohu IT news – article in Chinese]