This article first appeared on GuruFocus .
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Revenue:Q4 fiscal 2026 non-GAAP revenues of $10.4 billion, at the high end of guidance.
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Earnings Per Share:Q4 non-GAAP EPS of $2.17.
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QCT Revenue:$9 billion, up 6% sequentially, at the high end of guidance.
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QTL Revenue:$1.3 billion, with EBT margin of 70%, in line with expectations.
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QCT EBT Margin:24%, in line with expectations.
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QCT Handset Revenue:$5.1 billion, reflecting industry-wide memory dynamics on the global smartphone market.
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QCT Automotive Revenue:First $2 billion revenue quarter, up 89% year-over-year.
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QCT IoT Revenue:$1.9 billion, up 4% year-over-year; industrial, networking, and robotics grew 20% year-over-year.
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Non-Handset Revenue:Total QCT non-handset revenues (Automotive and IoT) grew 36% year-over-year.
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Fiscal 2026 Revenue:Non-GAAP revenues of $43.2 billion; QCT revenues of $37.2 billion; combined automotive and IoT grew 24% year-over-year.
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Automotive Run Rate:Approximately $8 billion annualized exiting fiscal 2026, above the prior $7 billion expectation.
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Capital Returns:Returned $2 billion to stockholders, including $1 billion in share repurchases and $1 billion in dividends.
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Q1 Fiscal 2027 Guidance:Revenues of $10.4 billion to $11.2 billion; non-GAAP EPS of $2.15 to $2.35.
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Q1 QTL Guidance:Revenues of $1.3 billion to $1.5 billion; EBT margins of 72% to 76%.
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Q1 QCT Guidance:Revenues of $9 billion to $9.6 billion; EBT margins of 20% to 22% (including a 3-point impact from adding Data Center to the segment).
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Q1 Data Center Guidance:Revenues expected to exceed $650 million on commencement of custom silicon shipments.
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Q1 Operating Expenses:Non-GAAP operating expenses anticipated at approximately $2.8 billion.
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Data Center Targets:$5 billion revenue target for fiscal 2027; $15 billion for fiscal 2029; exiting fiscal 2027 at a $7 billion run rate.
Release Date: November 04, 2026
For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript .
Positive Points
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Qualcomm Inc ( NASDAQ:QCOM ) delivered Q4 non-GAAP revenues of $10.4 billion and EPS of $2.17, with QCT revenues at the high end of guidance.
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Non-handset revenues in QCT are expected to grow more than 60% year-over-year in fiscal 2027, with data center, automotive, and IoT driving diversification.
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Data center business is ramping strongly, with fiscal Q1 revenue expected to exceed $650 million and a $5 billion target for fiscal 2027 reiterated.
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Automotive revenues reached an $8 billion annualized run rate exiting fiscal 2026, $1 billion ahead of expectations, with 89% year-over-year growth in Q4.
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Qualcomm Inc ( NASDAQ:QCOM ) completed major QTL license renewals with Apple, Huawei, and Transsion, providing stability and maintaining the revenue run rate.
Negative Points
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QCT handset revenues are forecast to decline mid-single-digit sequentially in fiscal Q1 2027 due to the Apple modem transition and memory pricing headwinds.
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Data center custom silicon is dilutive to gross margins, with QCT gross margin expected to trend down as the business scales.
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The global handset market is projected to be flat to down in calendar 2027, limiting growth in the core smartphone segment.
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QCT EBT margin guidance for fiscal Q1 2027 is 20-22%, impacted by 3 percentage points from data center investments ahead of revenue ramp.
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Qualcomm Inc ( NASDAQ:QCOM ) faces ongoing litigation with Arm, which could pose risks despite recent legal victories.
Q & A Highlights
Q: With data center revenue expected to roughly triple to a $7 billion exit run rate in fiscal '27, should gross margins continue to trend down through the year as custom silicon ramps? A: CFO Akash Palkhiwala said price increases to offset higher semiconductor input costs begin benefiting results in the second fiscal quarter, with full effect in the second half of fiscal '27, restoring baseline gross margin to the low end of the historical 48% to 50% range. Data center remains accretive to operating margins but dilutive to gross margins, consistent with prior guidance.
Q: What workloads are seeing the most traction for the High Bandwidth Compute accelerator, and what is the commercial update? A: CEO Cristiano Amon said the technology is outperforming Investor Day targets, achieving about 0.3 picojoules per bit versus a 0.5 target, with yields exceeding expectations. Decode is the workload drawing the strongest feedback, and having silicon rather than PowerPoint is changing customer conversations, including interest in combining HPC with customer accelerators.
Q: How should investors think about the data center revenue ramp through fiscal '27 and the customer pacing behind it? A: CFO Akash Palkhiwala reiterated the $5 billion fiscal '27 target, guiding to more than $650 million in Q1 and ramping through the year to roughly a $7 billion exit rate into fiscal '28. He said supply, not demand, would be the constraint on upside beyond $5 billion, and that fiscal '27 customers extend into fiscal '28, providing strong coverage toward the $15 billion fiscal '29 target.
Q: How is Qualcomm framing handset revenue exiting the year, and what is the health of the handset market heading into next year? A: CFO Akash Palkhiwala said the market is projected to decline low-to-mid teens from '25 to '26 and be flat to slightly down in '27, a prudent planning assumption. He noted the June quarter marked the bottom for China Android revenue, with growth in the September and December quarters, and said thin channel inventory means QCT revenue should track the overall market in '27.
Q: Did the QTL renewals with Apple, Huawei, and Transsion change the per-device royalty rate? A: CFO Akash Palkhiwala declined to disclose contract details but said the unchanged QTL revenue run rate should be read as holding both rates and royalties through the renewals. He noted there are no upcoming license renewals with major handset OEMs for several years, with the next cycle beginning in fiscal 2030.
Q: Is the Amazon warrant structure a model for future data center customer deals? A: CFO Akash Palkhiwala said the at-the-money Amazon warrants are the exception, and engagements across data center are traditional semiconductor customer arrangements. Future deals will be evaluated case by case, but the framework should be viewed as aligned with the standard semiconductor model.
Q: Can you provide color on the March quarter and the quarterly profile for fiscal '27? A: CFO Akash Palkhiwala declined to guide March but said December will no longer be the strongest quarter given the Apple ramp-down, while data center revenue ramps through the year. He said greater than 60% non-handset growth in automotive, IoT, and data center will more than offset the Apple decline, and handsets will fall below 50% of total revenue in fiscal '27.
Q: Is the recent China Android growth partly pre-buying ahead of price increases, and what is the Samsung share framework? A: CEO Cristiano Amon said price increases are concentrated on newer platforms and phones, limiting pre-buy effects, and June remains the bottom for China Android. On Samsung, he said the baseline share is now north of 70%, not the historical 50%, and Qualcomm is expanding into wearables and other devices alongside premium Galaxy designs.
Q: Was the automotive beat driven by pre-buying, and is the strength sustainable? A: CEO Cristiano Amon attributed growth to design-win conversion, noting silicon content for the fifth-generation platform is 8x that of the third generation found in cars on the road today. He said the step-function increases in SoC revenue will continue as the fifth-generation Snapdragon Digital Chassis ramps through fiscal '27.
Q: How will QCT EBT margins progress from the 20% to 22% guided, given the data center mix shift? A: CFO Akash Palkhiwala clarified that moving data center into the QCT segment reduces QCT margins by 3 percentage points due to investment ahead of revenue, with no impact on total company numbers. The long-term QCT EBT margin target remains 30%, with confidence tied to revenue scaling over the next two to three years.
Q: How large is the optical connectivity business, and does consolidation in the space create opportunities? A: CEO Cristiano Amon said connectivity revenue is included in the $5 billion fiscal '27 and $15 billion fiscal '29 data center targets without breaking it out. The Alphawave assets position Qualcomm well in optics, with co-packaged optics demonstrated with Lumentum at ECOC 2026, and he compared coming industry restructuring to the RF front-end shift, citing active talks with laser companies.
Q: What is the outlook for the Dragonfly CPU beyond Meta, and does the pending Arm remedies phase affect the roadmap? A: CEO Cristiano Amon said there are no implications for the CPU roadmap and Qualcomm is confident in continuing to develop and ship Oryon products. He views new CPU customers beyond Meta as upside to the $5 billion and $15 billion data center revenue targets.
Q: Will all three hyperscaler customers be material exiting fiscal '27? A: CFO Akash Palkhiwala said two customers at significant scale make up the $5 billion and extend into fiscal '28 and '29 as long-term, multi-generation, multi-product relationships. The third customer is in advanced discussions on custom silicon that is part of the ramp toward '28 and '29.
Q: What are the timing and magnitude of the SpaceX Starlink deal
For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript .
