Qualcomm reports strong Q4 revenue of $4.87 billion
Wireless chipmaker Qualcomm has reported better-than-expected strong fourth quarter earnings with Q4 revenues of $4.87 billion.
The San Diego-based firm's new S4 quad-core processor is featured within the recently launched Google Nexus 4, and are also found in PCs using Microsoft's new Windows 8 operating system -- no doubt spurring along increased chip sales.
Strong sales worldwide have resulted in revenue of $19.1 billion in FY2012 -- up 28 percent year-on-year -- and $4.87 billion in Q4 revenue at 89 cents per share, up 18 percent year-on-year. Fourth quarter revenue has risen 5 percent from the third quarter.
The company reported operating income of $1.24 billion -- or 73 cents a share -- down 11 percent from Q3 but evenly placed in comparison to last year's fourth quarter. The firm's earnings for Q4 were $1.27 billion or 73 cents a share, up 20 percent year-on-year and 5 percent from Q3 2012. Non-GAAP Q4 earnings stand at 89 cents a share.
Cash flow stands at $1.41 billion, which is down 23 percent from last year.
Qualcomm's strong Q4 results beat Wall Street predictions of fourth quarter revenues of $4.68bn and 82 cents per share.The firm believes that strong global sales will continue, and that its market share will grow approximately 14 percent in 2013, according to The Financial Times.
"I am very pleased with our performance this year. We delivered record revenues, earnings and MSM chipset shipments driven by increasing global consumption of wireless data across a diverse range of devices, particularly smartphones," said Dr. Paul E. Jacobs, CEO of Qualcomm. "As we continue to invest in and execute on our strategic priorities, our broad licensing program and industry-leading Snapdragon and 3G/LTE chipset roadmap position us for double-digit revenue growth again in fiscal 2013."
Qualcomm operating chief Steve Mollenkopf added that the firm's outlook seemed bright due to LTE chipsets. He noted:
"We believe our first 28 nanometer Snapdragon product, the dual-core MSM8960 with integrated 3G/LTE has become the global standard for combined performance and battery life, powering recent flagship devices such as the Samsung Galaxy S 3, the HTC 8X, the Motorola Razr M, and the new Nokia Lumia phones. As carriers deploy LTE networks they're looking to Qualcomm is the leader in multimode LTE for smartphones. For example, KDI, NTT DoCoMo and SoftBank announced 27 new smartphones in Japan in October, and 24 of those were powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon processors.
Since releasing the MSM8960, 15 OEMs have launched devices with this chipset across 19 carriers around the globe. The 8960 was our fastest integrated product to ship 100 million units."