Qualcomm reported record results for its fiscal first quarter but guided significantly lower, citing a broad industry DRAM shortage constraining handset production. Management repeatedly attributed the weakness to supply-side dynamics in memory and emphasized that demand fundamentals remain strong. Record revenue and EPS driven by strong premium-tier handset demand and multiple growth vectors.
Qualcomm reported record results for its fiscal first quarter but guided significantly lower, citing a broad industry DRAM shortage constraining handset production. Management repeatedly attributed the weakness to supply-side dynamics in memory and emphasized that demand fundamentals remain strong. Record revenue and EPS driven by strong premium-tier handset demand and multiple growth vectors.
Qualcomm reported record results for its fiscal first quarter but guided significantly lower, citing a broad industry DRAM shortage constraining handset production. Management repeatedly attributed the weakness to supply-side dynamics in memory and emphasized that demand…
Record revenue and EPS driven by strong premium-tier handset demand and multiple growth vectors.
Management acknowledged near-term memory-driven handset weakness but remained upbeat on underlying demand, diversification momentum, and long-term growth across automotive, IoT, robotics, and data center.
Management framed AI as the core growth driver across mobile, edge/robotics, and data center, citing ByteDance's agentic AI smartphone launch, Snapdragon AI PC momentum, a new robotics portfolio, and positive data center engagement with hyperscalers on specialized inference…
Management framed AI as the core growth driver across mobile, edge/robotics, and data center, citing ByteDance's agentic AI smartphone launch, Snapdragon AI PC momentum, a new robotics portfolio, and positive data center engagement with hyperscalers on specialized inference platforms.
Samsung premium device share expected at roughly 75%. Management acknowledged near-term memory-driven handset weakness but remained upbeat on underlying demand, diversification momentum, and long-term growth across automotive, IoT, robotics, and data center.
Management acknowledged near-term memory-driven handset weakness but remained upbeat on underlying demand, diversification momentum, and long-term growth across automotive, IoT, robotics, and data center.
This shifts focus and pricing power to memory makers and indicates IoT and PC sectors could face similar constraints.
“As memory suppliers redirect manufacturing capacity to HBM to meet AI data center demand, the resulting industry-wide memory shortage and price increases are likely to define the overall scale of the handset industry through the fiscal year”
“So as a general trend, and I wanted to emphasize what we saw in the quarter, you know, Yes, there's a memory shortage, but when there was memory, we saw the results was very good.”
“They're dealing with us in this memory shortage and our employees.”
“As memory suppliers redirect manufacturing capacity to HBM to meet AI data center demand, the resulting industry-wide memory shortage and price increases are likely to define the overall scale of the handset industry through the fiscal yea…”
“Given the current environment, several handsets OEMs, especially in China, are taking a cautious approach in reducing their chipset inventory.”
“I think the memory availability will determine the overall size of the handset market.”
“Additionally, the recent developments in the industry validate Qualcomm's view of the importance of specialized and power-efficient AI platforms as inferencing becomes the key driver of data center growth.”
| Metric | Period | Range | Midpoint | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| EPS | FY2026 Q2 | $2.45–$2.65 | $2.55 | GUIDED |
| RevenueQCT_HANDSET | FY2026 Q2 | $6B | $6B | GUIDED |
| Revenue | FY2026 Q2 | $10.2B–$11B | $10.6B | GUIDED |
| Issued | Metric | Target | Guide | Actual | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FY2026 Q2 | EPS | FY2026 Q3 | $2.10–$2.30 | $2.21 | Met / beat |
| FY2026 Q2 | Revenue | FY2026 Q3 | $9.2B–$10B | $9.947B | Met / beat |
| FY2026 Q2 | Revenue | FY2026 Q3 | $4.9B | $5.1B | Met / beat |
| FY2026 Q2 | Revenue | FY2026 Q3 | $1.15B–$1.35B | $1.3B | Met / beat |
The DRAM shortage is severe enough that it is now becoming a major constraint on the overall handset industry, potentially limiting unit growth in FY2026.
… applications and smart glasses. Licensing business revenues were $1.6 billion. While global consumer demand for handsets, especially premium and high-tier, exceeded our expectations, with healthy sell-through observed to fiscal Q1 in the first few weeks of 2026, in the coming quarters, the handset industry will be constrained by the availability and pricing of memory, particularly the RAM. As memory suppliers redirect manufacturing capacity to HBM to meet AI data center demand, the resulting industry-wide memory shortage and price increases are likely to define the overall scale of the handset industry through the fiscal year. Given the current environment, several handsets OEMs, especially in China, are taking a cautious approach in reducing their chipset inventory. This is reflected in our guidance for the upcoming quarter. We will continue to work closely with our customers and suppliers as the situation evolves. Akash will share more details on the memory impact in his prepared remarks. And now, some key highlights from the business. We are pleased with the continued expansion of the premium and high-tier smartphone segments and traction of of Snapdragon platforms, …
Memory availability, not consumer demand, is now the binding constraint on the handset market for the fiscal year.
Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. I have one on data center and one on the smartphone side. Maybe on the data center, Christian, if you can give us an update in terms of the progress with your customers on that front. And given sort of the volatility we're seeing in memory, is that sort of being more disruptive to making progress with your customers or is Instead, is it sort of augmenting some of the pace of the discussions, given sort of big focus on that side of the sort of bill of materials as well? And I have a follow-up. Thank you.
Okay, so the memory thing, and look, I think we're going to see how this thing played out. I'm going to give you maybe a little bit of the dynamics. When we step back and we look at the business, we're very, very happy with everything in the business. We just wish there was more memory. And the handsets get hit the most given its scale and its cycle time. So we expect that the impact is going to be more muted in other business. For example, automotive is a little bit less sensitive to memory price increases. As you pointed out, the impact enhances in the bond. Having said that, when we go back to situations that we saw in the past, I think the best proxy is what happened during the pandemic. The premium and high tier has proven to be more resilient to price increases. And we think that that may be a factor that play out. But the most important thing is that the issue is not just the price. The issue is just availability. So I think the memory availability will determine the overall size of the handset market. OEMs are very likely to prioritize premium and high-tier how they have done in the past. That could be less impacted, and we will see the reaction on consumers as their price increases for the finished product. I do stand by what I said. I think the whole fiscal year mobile handset size will be determined by memory availability, and we're just going to monitor this on a quarter as phones get repriced, tiers kind of shift towards high and premium, and we'll see what happens in the marketplace.
The memory shortage is boosting Qualcomm's data center business case, as its power-efficient specialized inferencing architecture gains relevance.
… Many of the drivers of our leadership in automotive are applicable to advanced robotics. Finally, We continue to develop our data center solutions and engage with leading hyperscalers, cloud service providers, sovereign AI projects, and other global partners. We remain encouraged by the positive feedback on our CPU and innovative AI processing and memory architecture for next generation inferencing data centers. Additionally, the recent developments in the industry validate Qualcomm's view of the importance of specialized and power-efficient AI platforms as inferencing becomes the key driver of data center growth. In fiscal Q1, we completed the AlphaWave semi-acquisition, adding high-speed wire connectivity technologies to further strengthen our platforms. We also acquired Ventana Microsystems, reinforcing our leadership and commitment to expanding the RISC-V standard and ecosystem, and development of our high-performance RISC-V CPU for data center workloads. We look forward to providing more information, including an update on our roadmap, at our next investor event. We'll also share our progress in robotics, automotive, and next-generation autonomy, industrial IoT, and 6G. I …