- Price
- $197.24 → $201.97(+2.4%)
- Discount
- -16.0% → -18.8%(−2.8 pts)
- Thesis
- QCOM trades around $197.24, about 16% above the analysts' $170 fair value estimate, and the analysts rate the stock's uncertainty "High" and its moat only "Narrowbecause investors are paying now for an AI data-center chip business that has not yet earned revenue." The market is paying up for a story still mostly ahead of it:betting Qualcomm's new AI200 and AI250 data-center inference chips, a September 2026 dealand deals like the one with Amazon Web Services to build custom AI chips (up to $60 billion of potential business over 10 years, alongside a warrant letting Amazon buy about $4 billion of Qualcomm stock),will succeed against rivals such as Nvidia and an October 2025 deal with Saudi-backed Humain to deploy 200 megawatts of AI200 racksAMD. Automotive keeps compounding too, up 61% year-over-year in fiscal Q3 2026, its 23rd straight quarter of double-digit growth. Buybacks and dividends supportFor the stock further: a new $20 billion repurchase authorization and a dividend raised to $0.92 per share came in March 2026. The premium can be justified if the data-center chips convert to realbe earned, growingthis AI chip revenue startingmust start showing up as management expects, beginning in the December 2026 quarter as management expects, and if automotivethen keep growing. Automotive and IoTInternet-of-Things chip sales must also keep offsetting the well-flaggedknown decline in handset chip sales to Apple, whose own modem keeps replacing Qualcomm's businesschip. The honest counter-case: none of the AI data-center deals have produced revenue yet, they are newOne old Apple risk has already eased. In September 2026 Qualcomm and unproven against Nvidia and AMDApple renewed Qualcomm's patent license, so Qualcomm keeps earning royalty income from Apple's phones even after Apple's modem and RF revenuefully replaces its chip. The core handset chip business is still shrinking fasttoday, and disappears entirely by 2027China's antitrust investigation into Qualcomm remains open. The next checkpoints are Qualcomm's fiscal Q4 2026 earnings report, expected near early November 2026, and the core handsetfirst reported AI chip business already fell 20% year-revenue the quarter after. If AI chip revenue shows real traction over-year in fiscal Q3 2026 the next two to three quarters, the premium looks earned. Paying a 16%If it stays at zero past December 2026, the premium over fair value for a company rated "High" uncertainty leaves little cushion if any of that slipsis likely to fade.
- Recent events
- 2026-09-24: Qualcomm and Apple announced they renewed Qualcomm's global patent license agreement. The new deal starts April 1, 2027. It covers Qualcomm's wireless patents, separate from Qualcomm's chip supply deal with Apple, which is still shrinking.
2026-09-22: At its Snapdragon Summit, Qualcomm unveiled the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 and Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 chips for premium Android phones, with new on-device AI features.
2026-09-08: Qualcomm and Amazon announced a partnership to build custom AI inference chips and optical networking for AWS data centers. Amazon's maximum contracted purchase is $60 billion over 10 years, and Qualcomm gave Amazon a warrant to buy about 25 million Qualcomm shares (roughly $4 billion) at $161.26 each. Qualcomm expects revenue from the deal to begin in the December 2026 quarter.
2026-07-29: Qualcomm reported fiscal Q3 2026 results: revenue of $9.9 billion, QCT revenue of $8.5 billion (handsets $5.1 billion, down 20% year-over-year; automotive $1.6 billion, up 61%; IoT $1.8 billion, up 9%), and QTL revenue of $1.3 billion. Non-GAAP EPS was $2.21; GAAP net income was $2.0 billion, down 25% year-over-year.
2026-07-29: Management guided fiscal Q4 2026 revenue to $9.7-$10.5 billion and non-GAAP EPS to $2.05-$2.25. It said Apple-related product revenue would fall about 50% from Q3 to Q4 as Apple's in-house modem ramps, with Qualcomm's iPhone share "materially lower" than a prior 20% estimate, and said China revenue likely bottomed in the June quarter.
2026-03-17: The board raised the quarterly dividend from $0.89 to $0.92 per share and approved a new $20 billion stock repurchase authorization, with no expiration date.
2026-01-20: Qualcomm unveiled the AI200 and AI250, its first purpose-built data-center AI inference chips, based on its Hexagon NPU. The AI200 is expected to be commercially available in 2026 and the AI250 in 2027.
2025-12-18: Qualcomm completed its $2.4 billion acquisition of Alphawave Semi, a UK chip-connectivity company, a quarter ahead of schedule. Alphawave's CEO, Tony Pialis, now leads Qualcomm's data-center business.
2025-10-27: Qualcomm and Saudi-backed Humain announced a deal for Humain to deploy 200 megawatts of Qualcomm AI200/AI250 rack-scale AI inference infrastructure, starting in 2026.
2025-10-10: China's market regulator (SAMR) opened an antitrust investigation into Qualcomm, saying the company failed to properly disclose its 2025 acquisition of Israeli chipmaker Autotalks as required under China's anti-monopoly law.