Qualcomm Shares Drop as Smartphone Market Faces Memory Chip Shortage

Impact of Memory Chip Shortage on Qualcomm

By Arsheeya Bajwa and Stephen Nellis

Qualcomm's Financial Performance

Feb 4 (Reuters) - Chip supplier Qualcomm forecast second-quarter revenue and profit below Wall Street estimates on Wednesday, expecting a global memory supply shortage to hit mobile phone sales.

Market Trends and Future Outlook

The results from San Diego, California-based Qualcomm come at a time when global electronics supply chains are grappling with an acute shortage of memory chips - an essential fixture across devices from smartphones to data centers.

Sales Performance in Different Segments

Qualcomm shares were down 6.7% in after-hours trading after the results.

Licensing Revenues Overview

In an interview with Reuters, Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon said that the entire forecast miss was due to a memory chip shortage hitting the Qualcomm's smartphone customers.

"I'm very happy with the business - I just wish we had more memory," Amon said. "Everything is basically OEMs, especially in China, bringing down their inventory levels to adjust to their memory supply," Amon said.

The company expects revenue between $10.2 billion to $11 billion for the second quarter, compared with analysts' average estimate of $11.12 billion, according to LSEG data.

It also forecast adjusted current-quarter earnings between $2.45 to $2.65 per share, compared with estimates of profit of$2.89.

For the fiscal first quarter ended December 28, 2025, Qualcomm reported revenue of $12.25 billion, beating estimates of $12.21 billion, according to LSEG data. Its quarterly adjusted profit of $3.50 per share beat estimates of $3.41, according to LSEG data.

In the December quarter, Qualcomm reported chip revenues of $10.61 billion, coming in just above estimates of $10.60 billion.

Within the segment, sales of smartphone chips stood at $7.82 billion, missing Visible Alpha estimates of $7.87 billion. Automotive sales of $1.10 billion came in above Visible Alpha estimates while "Internet of Things" revenues were in line with expectations.

First-quarter licensing revenues came in at $1.59 billion, beating LSEG estimates of $1.46 billion.

Qualcomm is among the largest smartphone chip providers in the world, counting major Android players and iPhone-maker Apple among its customers, with its financial results seen as an important indicator of demand-supply dynamics in the personal electronics semiconductor industry.

Global shipments of advanced smartphone chips are expected to decline 7% in 2026, partially due to rising memory prices, according to data from Counterpoint Research. 

However, at the same time, Counterpoint data shows that smartphone chip revenues are expected to grow in double-digit percentages this year driven by premier-tier demand and a trend of more semiconductors being used on a single device, with Qualcomm expected to be one of the largest beneficiaries.

Amon said that one factor helping Qualcomm's chips is that its chips tend to go into the highest-priced Android devices on the market, whose sales have a better chance of withstanding memory price increases.

"OEMs are going to prioritize memory availability to the most profitable segments, which are the premium tier for them and the high tier for them," Amon said. "So they are going to skew their product roadmap to that. The mass tiers are way more price sensitive and may not be able to deal with the higher memory costs."

In Qualcomm's chip segment, the company forecast fiscal second-quarter sales with a midpoint of $9.1 billion, compared with analyst estimates of $9.60 billion.

Qualcomm has also been grappling with some of its largest customers - Apple and Samsung - increasingly developing in-house chips while competition against MediaTek in the Android space intensifies. 

(Reporting by Arsheeya Bajwa in Bengaluru and Stephen Nellis; editing by Diane Craft)