Qualcomm, a major mobile processor manufacturer, announced its financial results for the fourth quarter of 2025. The report showed that its EPS and revenue were both better than analysts’ expectations. What's more, the company issued a strong revenue forecast for the next quarter, beating consensus estimates and sending Qualcomm shares up nearly 4% at the close. However, shares fell more than 2% after hours as high income tax charges hit profits.
Qualcomm’s total revenue (Revenue) in the fourth quarter reached US$11.27 billion, which was better than market estimates of US$10.79 billion and an increase of 10% from US$10.24 billion in the same period in 2024. Adjusted EPS was $3, beating consensus estimates of $2.88. However, behind the bright data, due to an income tax expense, Qualcomm had a net loss of US$3.12 billion, equivalent to a loss of US$2.89 per share. This is in stark contrast to net income of $2.92 billion and EPS of $2.59 in the same period in 2024.
The financial report shows that the revenue of Qualcomm’s three major departments exceeded expectations this quarter. Mobile phone revenue reached $6.96 billion, growing at an annual rate of 14%. Automotive segment revenue rose 17% to $1.05 billion. Revenue from the IoT segment was $1.81 billion, an increase of 7% from the same period in 2024. In addition, Qualcomm's licensing business (Licensing business) revenue fell 7% from a year ago to $1.41 billion, but still exceeded analysts' expectations.
In addition, looking forward, Qualcomm's outlook for the first quarter of 2026 is optimistic, with revenue of 11.8 billion to 12.6 billion US dollars, with a median of about 12.2 billion US dollars, exceeding the market average of 11.62 billion US dollars. In terms of profits, adjusted EPS will fall between $3.30 and $3.50, with the midpoint roughly in line with analysts’ expectations of $3.31.
Although Qualcomm has long been a leader in the field of mobile communication chips, in the face of changes in the industrial environment, Qualcomm is working hard to seek diversified development and actively trying to enter the artificial intelligence wave currently dominated by NVIDIA. This is because Qualcomm expects to lose Apple's baseband chip business as an important customer in the next few years. To offset potential business losses and grow, Qualcomm continues to work on making chips for other devices, including Windows PCs, as well as virtual reality headsets and smart glasses from Meta.
Qualcomm’s biggest opportunity currently lies in the field of artificial intelligence. But this market is currently dominated by NVIDIA in the processor market, and AMD is following closely trying to catch up. In order to "occupy a place" in the AI field, Qualcomm announced last week that it would release a new AI accelerator chip. Once the news was disclosed, its stock price rose by 11%. The AI accelerator chips that Qualcomm will launch include AI200, which is expected to be available in 2026, and AI250, which is planned to be available in 2027.
Qualcomm says that both the AI200 and AI250 can be assembled into a complete, liquid-cooled server rack system. This design directly targets the computing power needs of large AI labs. NVIDIA and AMD also currently offer graphics processing unit (GPU) full-rack systems that allow up to 72 chips to work together like a supercomputer. This powerful computing power is necessary to run the most advanced AI models. Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon has said that they are preparing for the next phase of growth in AI data centers.